Seger came from a family of tailors and learned the
lithography trade in
Leipzig. He was the son of the longtime Leipzig SPD functionary and Reichstag member
Friedrich Seger and Hedwig Winkler. In his youth he joined the . During the
First World War he was a soldier. In 1917 he joined the
USPD. In 1919 Seger did an internship at the
University of Leipzig in the subjects of
journalism and
art history. In 1920 and 1921 he worked as a
lecturer at the
adult education center in
Kiel and in 1921 he became editor of the USPD newspaper
Die Freiheit in
Berlin. portrait, 1930 After the unification of the USPD and
MSPD in 1922, Seger rejoined the SPD and became editor of the
Volkszeitung für Südwestsachsen in
Plauen. A year later, he gave up this position for a full-time position as General Secretary of the
German Peace Society. In 1928, he became editor of the
Volksblattes für Anhalt in
Dessau until he was elected to the Reichstag for constituency 10 (
Magdeburg) in
1930. After
Adolf Hitler came to power and passed the Enabling Act in March 1933, Seger was one of the first Reichstag deputies to be taken into "
protective custody" by the Nazis. Initially he was held in the court prison in
Dessau before being transferred to the Oranienburg concentration camp with other political prisoners on June 14, 1933. He was one of the few to escape in December 1933. In exile in Prague, he wrote his
Oranienburg Report. With a foreword by
Heinrich Mann, the report on the beginning of the
Nazi era attracted international attention. In retaliation, the
Gestapo took Seger's wife and young daughter hostage in early 1934. Only protests from abroad led to the family's release from prison and enabled them to leave the country. Seger and his family
emigrated to the United States in October 1934. There he helped found the
German Labour Delegation. He worked as an editor for their
New York-based newspaper
Neue Volkszeitung. He also wrote for other German-language newspapers and gave lectures on the Nazi regime. On November 3, 1934, the '''' published the , through which he was
denaturalized. Seger served as an advisor to the American government and remained in America after the war, working as a freelance journalist from 1950 onwards. He became known primarily through his lectures; in the U.S. alone he gave more than 11,000 lectures. Seger died of cancer in his home in
Ozone Park,
Queens on January 21, 1967. == Awards ==