Erich Heidschuch

Johann Edmund Erich Heidschuch (born June 9, 1895 in Wachenheim an der Weinstrasse , † February 5, 1960 in Munich ) was an officer in the German secret service ( Abwehr , Organization Gehlen ).

Origin and activity before the Second World War

Heidschuch family grave in the cemetery in Wachenheim an der Weinstrasse (including the family crypt)

Erich Heidschuch was born in 1895 as the son of the winery owner Georg Emil H. (1852-1917) and Katharina (called Marie) H. Bergmann (1861–1918) born in Wachenheim . His father worked there in 1902/09 and his brother August H. (1891–1938) in 1929/31 as wine commissioners . According to an officer later, he was an aviator in the Middle East during World War I , lost his right arm and was captured by the British in Egypt in 1919. From May 1924 he lived in Wachenheim again, but moved to Mannheim at the beginning of December 1926 . In March 1932, when Heidschuch became a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 1.031.249), he is referred to as a businessman, living in Ludwigshafen-Oppau, right next to the BASF plant there . Around 1938/39 he moved to Bad Reichenhall . Before the Second World War, Heidschuch is said to have been a factory security officer at BASF in Ludwigshafen am Rhein .

His marriage to Else Hartung (1906–1978) resulted in two children: Marliese, married Walker (1929–1987), and Hans Peter (1933–1983), who, like their parents and grandparents, were buried in the Heidschuch family crypt in Wachenheim.

Intelligence officer

Immediately after the outbreak of World War II, Heidschuch was first detectable in the German secret service. As a member of Abwehr IIIB , he gave a lecture in Cologne in November 1939 to the head of Abwehr III (counter-espionage and counter-espionage) Franz Eccard von Bentivegni . After deployments in Africa and Italy, from September 1941 to February 1942 he belonged to Department III of the Biarritz Secondary Defense Center , after which he was appointed head of Department III in the Naples Defense Center. There he had the code name "Heinrich Heidschuck", initially held the rank of major and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in April 1942 . His apartment, as well as his office, was allegedly in Via Alessandro Manzini 126 or 146; his housekeeper and secretary was probably a Frau Seibold, with whom he lived.

It is unclear exactly where Heidschuch stayed in the second half of 1943. The American secret service was of the opinion at the time that Heidschuch had gone to Rome in August 1943 and was appointed deputy head of the Abwehrstelle Italy and head of the associated Department III based in Bolzano in September. In November 1943, he then took over the management of Department III of the French Abwehrstelle in Paris .

Apparently, however, this is a matter of deliberately disseminated misinformation on the part of the German secret service in order to conceal Heidschuch's new function as head of the Arras defense unit . Because his new task, which he carried out very successfully under the code name "Heide" - also according to the later opinion of the war opponents - consisted of protecting the use of V-weapons against England, a central aspect of the warfare 1943/44 for Hitler . As early as July 30, 1943, Heidschuch met Colonel Max Wachtel, the head of the V1 operation in France, in the Palais du Luxembourg in Paris , and ordered that he immediately assume a new identity. In mid-May 1944, the American secret service received a message that Colonel Heidschuch was in charge of a new defense post in Arras, which had been established in December 1943, but it was believed that this only served to counter espionage in northern France, where the Germans were expecting an attack by the Allies; Heidschuch has great experience in this matter.

Even after the escape of the German secret service from France at the beginning of September 1944, Heidschuch can be proven as head of the espionage department, which was formed from employees of the Abwehrstelle Arras , within General Command 65 for the protection of V-weapons use in the southern Bergisches Land . It was not until the end of 1944 that the Allied secret services were informed about the true function of the Defense Agency Arras and the Heidschuchs through the testimony of the defected German spy Erwin Streiff.

A case brought against Heidschuch and the staff officers of his Abwehrstelle by the French judiciary for alleged crimes in Arras was closed in November 1949.

In March 1948 Heidschuch became a member of the Gehlen organization with the V number 2620 , in which he had the code name "Eduard Bergmann". In July 1948 he submitted a report on the stay of deported special forces from the Leuna Works , based on information from former employees of these works belonging to IG Farben who had fled the Soviet occupation zone in 1948 . A little later he became head of the district representation (BV) 2601 and as such - like the numerous other district representations of the Gehlen organization - was responsible for the training, management and control of newly recruited agents. In this function he was subordinate to the " Generalvertretung Karlsruhe " (GV L) based in Munich. In 1952 it was reported to the CIA that Heidschuch was no longer active "for lack of opportunity", but that he would be kept in his position " because of higher headquarters wishes "; it was not until the end of March 1953 that he left the secret service. In 1953 Heidschuch lived in Munich, Türkenstr. 30. That year the CIA described him as follows: height about six feet; dark brown hair, slender; blue eyes; narrow, oval face.

personality

Little is known about Heidschuch's personality. According to the CIA , he was seen as honest and conscientious , his demeanor was military and more like that of a police officer than that of an intelligence officer. A Nazi is he not ( Not a Nazi. ).

Captain Dr. jur. Karl Hegener, 1940–1943 head of the Abwehr branch IIIF in Lille and responsible for counter-espionage in the Abwehr branch in Arras since the end of 1943 , took a leave of absence in March 1944 to protest against the alleged Gestapo methods of his superior Heidschuch.

literature

• Franz Josef Burghardt : Spies of Retribution. The German defense in northern France and the secret service securing of the launching areas for V weapons in World War II. A socio-biographical study . Schönau 2018. ISBN 978-3947009022 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Producers and distributors of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages around 1880-1987 (accessed May 18, 2014).
2. ^ Testimony of the Abwehr officer Colonel Otto Wagner of December 20, 1945; US National Archives, College Park (Maryland) , REP0006C RG 263 CIA Heidschuch, Erich, 230/86/22/7, unfollow.
3. ↑ An older registration card gives his place of residence as "Hauptstrasse 52". His brother, the winery owner Kurt Heidschuch (1897–1962), also lived there; Information from the Wachenheim community.
4. ^ NSDAP-Gaukartei, BA Berlin (formerly BDC). Oppau, where Heidschuch lived at Klosterstrasse 5 from at least March 1932, was an independent municipality until it was incorporated into Ludwigshafen am Rhein in 1938.
5. ↑ US National Archives, College Park (Maryland) , REP0006C RG 263 CIA Heidschuch, Erich, 230/86/22/7, unfollowed. Since 1926, BASF has belonged to IG Farben
6. ^ The grave complex with the crypt underneath was transferred to the city of Wachenheim by contract on March 14, 1996 by a distant relative of Erich Heidschuch; Communication from the Wachenheim community on the Weinstrasse. The children's life data according to a friendly message from H. Heidschuch (Ludwigshafen) and according to the information on the tombstone in Wachenheim.
7. ↑ Helmuth Groscurth, Tagebücher eines Abwehroffiziers , Stuttgart 1970, p. 285. List of officers January 3, 1939 ( Memento of the original from February 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ^ Secret police in uniform .
9. ↑ US National Archives, College Park (Maryland) , REP0006C RG 263 CIA Heidschuch, Erich, 230/86/22/7. This file also contains a comprehensive report by an informant about a conference called by Heidschuch in Naples with several security officers and port commanders.
10. ^ Final note from the CIA on Heidschuch 1954; US National Archives, College Park, Maryland , REP0006C RG 263 CIA Heidschuch, Erich, 230/86/22/7.
11. ↑ Max Wachtel, Rumpelkammer , in: Der Spiegel 49/1965, pp. 99–119, here: p. 106. One month in advance, Heidschuch is supposed to be accompanied by a "Meyer" (possibly Egon Mayer, sergeant at the Abwehr branch in Lille ) came to Rome for a conference with high-ranking defense officials. Around this time a Baroness Elsa von Griesheim had contact with Heidschuch in Naples; US National Archives, College Park, Maryland , REP0006C RG 263 CIA Heidschuch, Erich, 230/86/22/7.
12. ↑ US National Archives, College Park (Maryland) , REP0006C RG 263 CIA Heidschuch, Erich, 230/86/22/7.
13. ^ The National Archives , Kew (London) , KV 2/2850.
14. ^ Archives Le Blanc, File No. 508 Tribunal de Metz.
15. ^ Hermann Zolling and Heinz Höhne: Pullach intern. The history of the Federal Intelligence Service , 7th cont.
16. ↑ According to the CIA's assessment at the time , this address was the meeting point for agents from the Gehlen organization and the Norwegian secret service; US National Archives, College Park (Maryland) , REP0006C RG 263 CIA Heidschuch, Erich, 230/86/22/7, sheet 2. Code name and V no. also in: Research Aid: Cryptonyms and Terms in Declassified CIA Files Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Disclosure Acts (PDF; 422 kB), p. 12
17. ↑ Heidschuch's personal file in the archive of the Federal Intelligence Service in Pullach has not yet been evaluated.
18. ^ LA NW, Dept. Rhineland, NW 1000.