concentrated on collecting information about the workers’ parties,
the unions, and the paramilitary groups engaged in periodic sabotage
against the French.
Heinz’s relationship with the rising Nazi Party was an ambivalent
one. Although the OC had maintained a loose connection with the
early movement, he was critical of “mistaken policies” pursued by
Adolf Hitler and Erich Ludendorff that led to the abortive 1923 Beer
Hall Putsch. Heinz preferred the social revolutionary wing led by
Otto and Gregor Strasser. Although propaganda chief Joseph Goeb-
bels had high regard for Heinz and supported his rise in the Nazi
Party, his association with the Strasser brothers led to his later expul-
sion, and Hitler remained personally opposed to his readmittance to
the party. On the evening of the Reichstag fire, Heinz was arrested
and mishandled, and only the support of some old friends spared him
from the purge of other renegade ex-party members.
Prompted by the official abolition of the Stahlhelm, the paramili-
tary veterans’ organization that he had rejoined, Heinz decided to re-
activate his military career in 1935. Wilhelm Canaris, an earlier ac-
quaintance, welcomed him in the Abwehr, where he became a press
officer responsible for the dissemination of army propaganda. His
immediate superior, Hans Oster, introduced him to resistance circles
known to both Oster and Canaris. On 28 September 1938, Heinz,
who had organized a support commando of some 30 young officers,
students, and workers trained in firearms, was to force his way into
the Reich Chancellery, overpower the SS guards, and shoot Hitler on
the spot (Heinz had persuasively argued against putting him on trial).
Although it was probably the best planned of the many attempts on
the Führer’s life, the willingness of British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain to reach an accord with Hitler in Munich took the wind
out of the conspirators’ sails, and the plot came to naught.
During World War II, Heinz was a regimental commander in the
Brandenburg Division and participated in the offensive against the
Soviet Union. Witnessing the pogrom against the Jewish residents that
followed the capture of Lviv, Heinz officially protested the murder
of innocent women and children. That act coupled with his support
for the Ukrainian independence movement led by Stepan Bandera
resulted in his removal from active duty. Due to Canaris, Heinz re-
ceived a new task: the formation of the training school Quenzgut near
HEINZ, FRIEDRICH WILHELM • 173