11 Facts About Horst Heilmann

Horst Heilmann was a German resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.

Horst Heilmann was a member of the anti-fascist resistance group that formed around Harro Schulze-Boysen in 1940.

Horst Heilmann joined the Hitler Youth in 1937 and the Nazi Party in 1941.

Horst Heilmann was a student of Federal Foreign Office in Berlin until his conscription in the Wehrmacht.

Horst Heilmann's mother had ensured he learned a number of languages and this meant he was selected to be trained as a cryptologist and translator.

At the Referat Horst Heilmann worked on the desk that deciphered English, French and Russian intercept traffic.

In 1940, Horst Heilmann met Luftwaffe officer Harro Schulze-Boysen when Heilman wrote a paper called The Soviets and Versailles that was presented at a political seminar for the Hitler Youth at the Deutsche Hochschule fur Politik, where Schulze-Boysen was lecturing from September 1940.

At some point during that year, Horst Heilmann tried to recruit Technical sergeant Alfred Traxl but they remained colleagues instead of collaborators.

When Horst Heilmann discovered that the Red Orchestra traffic was being read from documents that had been illegally provided by Alfred Traxl, he conducted a search for the names of Kuckoff, Schulze-Boysen and Harnack at the agency and to his horror after 2 days, he discovered that his friends had already been exposed to the Gestapo.

When Vauck answered he was astonished that the person who was prime subject of his investigation was on the phone and realised that Horst Heilmann was a traitor.

Horst Heilmann asked Schulze-Boysen to clarify his name to confirm it was spelt with a y or an i After the call, Vauck phoned the Gestapo and this started a process on 31 August 1942 that resulted in many people of the Red Orchestra being arrested, including Heilmann himself who was arrested on 5 September 1942.