23rd July 1937
Hermann E. Sieger

Hermann E. Sieger

Hermann Ernst Sieger (1902 - 1954) was a German National Socialist politician and official as well as a stamp dealer and publisher.

Sieger was a founding member of the Lorch NSDAP local group in 1932. In the first municipal council meeting after the Gleichschaltung in 1933, the city councillor Sieger proposed that central streets and squares in the city of Lorch be renamed after National Socialist personalities and Reich President Hindenburg, who had made the NSDAP dictatorship possible. In addition, a ruthless approach against dissidents and the political opposition was announced.

In 1935 Sieger was appointed the first deputy mayor. From 1937 to 1945 he was the local group leader of the Lorch NSDAP. He also worked as deputy district leader, as district economic advisor, district specialist advisor for municipal affairs, senior section leader of the NSDAP and as honorary consul for Paraguay.

As was usual during the Nazi era - and in Sieger's specific case as documented by contemporary witnesses and sources - the local group leader was effectively above the mayor and gave him instructions and orders. Because Sieger did not hold back with his authority, the then mayor of Lorch, Wilhelm Scheufele, also called him the 'little dictator of Lorch'.

Political opponents and people towards whom Sieger was hostile for personal reasons were excluded in Lorch at his instigation, threatened, subjected to violence, imprisoned in concentration camps and placed on death lists. Sieger was a convinced anti-Semite and consistently excluded Jewish traders from Lorch's business life.

Under Sieger, at least four women from Lorch were forcibly sterilised and at least three disabled people - including an 11-year-old girl - were transported to the Grafeneck killing center as part of Operation T4 and murdered there by gassing.

When US soldiers marched into Lorch on 19th April 1945, Sieger and his family fled the city. At Josef Hoop's instigation, he was given temporary refuge in Liechtenstein, and was then interned in Ludwigsburg from 1945 to 1948. During the denazification process, Sieger was classified as a Nazi collaborator - not least because of Hoop's exonerating statement.

Philately

On 16th December 1922, at the age of 20, Sieger founded his company of the same name in Lorch. In the same year, he founded the Sieger Prize, which was named after him. In 1930, Sieger published his Zeppelin postal catalog for the first time, the so-called 'Sieger Catalogue'. He was also a philatelic advisor to Zeppelin AG and headed the Reich organisation of the German stamp trade during the Nazi era.

In 1954, his son Hermann Walter Sieger (1928–2019) took over the company, and in 1975 his grandson Günter Hermann Sieger joined the company and now runs it.

In 1930, Sieger donated part of his stamp collection to the newly established postal museum in Liechtenstein. He worked as a curator of the museum until 1949.

Sieger advised the Liechtenstein government on its stamp policy and thus gained the trust of the Liechtenstein head of government, Josef Hoop. Until the end of the war, the NSDAP politician was repeatedly used as an intermediary to the German government offices. Sieger did indeed strive for a close relationship between Liechtenstein and the Reich - but often in a National Socialist sense. For example, Sieger pushed for Liechtenstein's economic union. He also tried to get a Jewish journalist fired from Radio Liechtenstein. Although Hoop was repeatedly criticised for his relationship with Sieger and, according to Peter Geiger's judgment, made some 'ill-considered agreements' with him, Hoop honoured Sieger in 1937 with the Knight's Cross of the Princely Liechtenstein Order of Merit.

Hoop's decision to allow Sieger to stay in Liechtenstein after his escape in 1945 was a major reason why Hoop had to resign in the same year in princely disgrace.

On 6th June 2005, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Postal Museum in Liechtenstein, a stamp (Michel No.1380) with a portrait of Sieger was issued, honouring him as the initiator of the Postal Museum.

Source: Wikipedia

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