as many left-wing groups and individuals mobilized on her behalf. In
order to accommodate the position offered to her by the alternative
West Berlin newspaper taz, she was given a daytime release while
serving her sentence.
Heinrich developed a close personal relationship with Klaus
Croissant, a lawyer known for his defense of the terrorists Andreas
Baader and Ulricke Meinhof. Having himself been recruited by the
MfS in 1981 and given the code name taler, Croissant helped ar-
range Heinrich’s initial contact in April 1982 with two officers from
the terrorist subsection of Main Division XXII in Erfurt. Hesitant
at first, she expressed her willingness to serve as an MfS agent at
their second meeting two weeks later in East Berlin. Not only did
Heinrich (code name beate schäfer) provide detailed personal
information about the revolving editorial staff of her newspaper, but
the MfS also noted her efforts as an agent of influence in combating
the “antisocialist and anticommunist” forces in the Federal Republic
of Germany. After her election to the European Parliament in 1984,
a comprehensive training session was arranged in Yugoslavia dis-
guised as a vacation. Her subsequent reports focused primarily on her
own Green Party delegation. Heinrich died of a sudden heart attack
on 29 December 1987.HEINZ, FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1899–1968). A former anti-Nazi
Abwehr officer who formed an early intelligence unit in the Federal
Republic of Germany (FRG), Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz was born in
Frankfurt am Main, the son of a merchant. In 1916, he volunteered
for service in one of the Berlin guard regiments and saw combat on
the western front. After the war, unable to pursue a military career
in the restricted Reichswehr, he was drawn to the elite unit of the
Freikorps led by Hermann Ehrhardt and participated in the abortive
Kapp Putsch of 1920. With the dissolution of the Ehrhardt Brigade, a
secret association, Organisation Consul (OC), was formed from its
remnants with the aim of bringing the Weimar Republic to the brink
of civil war. This group, including Heinz, performed reconnaissance
work on behalf of the Deutscher Übersee-Dienst (German Overseas
Service), the military’s sub rosa intelligence organization designed
to circumvent the espionage prohibition contained in the Versailles
Treaty. Based in the French-occupied industrial Ruhr region, the OC
172 • HEINZ, FRIEDRICH WILHELM