Martin Berger was born in Dohna (Saxony) in 1966.

He studied physics in Jena. There he co-founded the Green Party in the GDR at the end of 1989. After graduating in 1991, this commitment also led him professionally into politics: until 1999, he worked for the then Thuringian state parliamentary group and later for the state association of Alliance 90 / The Greens. Since 2000, he has held various positions for the city of Jena, including commercial manager of the municipal real estate company Kommunale Immobilien Jena from 2005 to the beginning of 2013. In 2010, he obtained a further university degree in business informatics. Since 2013, he has been Head of the Finance Department of the Jena City Administration.

From 1997 to 2003 he was an honorary board member of the Heinrich Böll Foundation Thuringia, and since 2015 he has served on its supervisory board. Another major voluntary project for him is BürgerEnergie Jena eG, a cooperative with over 800 members today, which is a co-partner of the Jena municipal utility. He was one of the co-founders of the cooperative in 2011 and was a board member until 2013, and has been a supervisory board member since then.

His interests lie primarily in the areas of economics, budget and finance, citizen participation and (science) education.