the city of Brandenburg, where Arabs, Syrians, Indians, and others
sympathetic to the Third Reich received instruction in undercover
work. Reassigned to the Brandenburg Division in 1943, he became
involved in the partisan struggle in Yugoslavia and, on his own ini-
tiative, attempted to form an alliance with the Cetniks, or followers
of Draza Mihailovic, against the communist forces under Josip Tito.
Although Heinz was recalled to Berlin and placed in a reserve unit
because of further comments critical of the regime, Canaris succeeded
in blocking formal charges of insubordination. Following the failed
assassination attempt of 20 July 1944, Heinz came under suspicion,
but his clever denials secured his release. Less than two months later,
however, the Gestapo came into possession of secret documents
implicating Heinz in the plot. Warned in time by his superiors, he
faked his own death and evaded the intensive search launched by the
Gestapo, thus becoming one of the few anti-Hitler Abwehr officers to
survive the reprisals.
After the war, Heinz joined the Sozialdemokratische Partei
Deutschlands and was for a brief period the mayor of Bad Saarow-
Pieskow, a lakeside spa near Berlin. Yet it was still undercover work
that formed his main interest. As the head of his own private agency
in Berlin, he delivered information to various Western countries
about developments in the Soviet occupation zone, especially per-
taining to the size and location of Red Army units. French officials
were most impressed by his reports and concluded a formal arrange-
ment in 1947, assigning him the code name tulpe. During the Berlin
Airlift the following year, the French transported him to Neuwied
(Rhineland-Palatinate) and, as a cover, gave him permission to es-
tablish a publishing firm, the Michael Verlag. His increasing contact
with U.S. intelligence officials, however, angered the French, and the
relationship soon ended. Heinz relocated to Wiesbaden in the Ameri-
can occupation zone and began writing for periodicals such as Life,
Time, and the U.S.-sponsored Neue Zeitung in Germany.
Few expressed surprise at seeing Heinz’s name on a list of can-
didates to head the domestic security arm of the new West German
government. British authorities, however, found his entrepreneurship
excessive and put their support behind Otto John, who became the
first head of the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV). Heinz’s
other main competitor was Reinhard Gehlen, who attempted to174 • HEINZ, FRIEDRICH WILHELM