Heine Fritz

Heine, Fritz Fritz Heine was born in Hanover in 1904. He was the son of a working-class family that had always considered itself Social Democrat. His father was an organ builder; his mother died while his father was away from home in the war. In 1925, the 21-year-old Heine joined the executive committee of the SPD in Berlin as an adjunct secretary. In his capacity as organizer of the party’s propaganda department, he soon became implicated in its political conflict with the National Socialists. Following the Nazi takeover and the banning of the SPD, on June 22, 1933, Heine – like many other leading members of the SPD – went into exile. His first station abroad was Prague, where he took charge of the propaganda and publication activities of the SOPADE (the exiled Social Democrat leadership). In 1937, when the Czech government caved in to Nazi pressure and expelled the SOPADE from its territory, Heine, with the rest of the exiled SPD leadership, relocated to Leon Blum’s France. But the outbreak of war and the German occupation of France created a new situation. In May 1940, Heine, with most other German émigrés in France, was put in an internment camp and faced extradition to Germany. At this juncture, the American Jewish Labor Committee stepped into the breach and intervened with President Roosevelt, who gave orders for the issue of 1,000 emergency visitors’ visas to the United States. The Jewish Labor Committee compiled lists of persons to be saved and allocated 300,000 francs for the purpose. Varian Fry* (see United States, this volume), a former Harvard student, was sent to Marseilles to get the refugees out of the country. Heine, because he was the youngest member of the SOPADE executive and spoke both French and English well, was appointed his liaison and right-hand man. The rescue operation was risky, because the Vichy regime was collaborating with Nazi Germany. Many people who did not get French exit visas had to be smuggled over the Pyrenees intoSpain. Some of them had to be provided with false passports. Among those who were assisted in this way were also some Jews who were not Social Democrats. Fry remained at his post until 1942. Heine, however, could remain in France only until February 1941, because by then the situation was becoming too uncertain for a German émigré with his political record. He traveled first to Lisbon and, from there, to Great Britain. Returning to Germany after the war, he became a member of the new executive committee of the Social Democratic party. On October 29, 1987, Yad Vashem recognized Fritz Heine as Righteous Among the Nations.