Austria, John died in Innsbruck on 26 March 1997. See also WIT-
TIG, CARL.JOST, HEINZ (1904–1964). The first head of the foreign intelligence
division of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service), Heinz
Jost was born in Holzhausen (Hesse) on 9 July 1904, the son of an
apothecary. A student of law at Giessen and Munich, he passed his
bar exam in 1927 and joined the Nazi Party the following year. The
assumption of power by Adolf Hitler in 1933 helped bring about his
appointment as police inspector in Worms and later Giessen. In July
1934, ignoring his lack of outstanding credentials, Reinhard Heyd-
rich added him to his expanding SD staff and charged him with the
conduct of foreign intelligence. This position—as head of Branch
III—was formalized two years later, while Jost received additional
responsibilities as deputy chief of counterintelligence with the Ge-
stapo. Yet his preoccupation with internal party struggles prevented
an active espionage system from developing, and other SD divisions
began to develop their own contacts abroad.
Increasingly dissatisfied, Heydrich discontinued Jost’s counterin-
telligence position in October 1939 and transformed Branch III into
Department VI of the newly created Reichssicherheitshauptamt.
Jost’s hold on this office was shortlived. Heydrich, citing reasons
of health, replaced him with a new protégé, Walter Schellenberg,
in June 1941. After a period of unemployment, Jost served as head
of one of the Einsatzgruppen in Poland and the Soviet Union. In
January 1945, his early retirement was ordered by SS head Heinrich
Himmler. After his capture by Allied forces in April, Jost counted
among those indicted in the Einsatzgruppen Trials held in Nurem-
berg in 1948. His life sentence was commuted three years later, and
he moved to Düsseldorf as a real estate broker. He died in Bensheim
(Hesse) on 12 November 1964.
JUNGES DEUTSCHLAND. A secret society with the objective of in-
citing a national revolution in Germany, Junges Deutschland (Young
Germany) was founded in April 1834 in Bern, Switzerland, by five
Germans, including Carl Theodor Barth and Franz Strohmeyer.
Its direct inspiration stemmed from the Italian revolutionary leader
Guiseppe Mazzini, who had established Giovine Italia (Young Italy)
JUNGES DEUTSCHLAND • 213