Walter Heinitz
Walter Heinitz (born August 25, 1915 in Eppendorf ; † March 10, 1987 ) was a German secret service agent. From 1964 to 1973 he was head of the investigative department of the Ministry for State Security (MfS). As such he was responsible for the arrest of thousands of politically dissenters in the GDR .
Life
Heinitz was born in Eppendorf in 1915 as the son of a line worker. After elementary school he trained as an orchestral musician from 1930. He worked as such until he was called up for the Reich Labor Service in 1937. Shortly afterwards he was drafted into the armed forces and served there as a musician and medic. In 1944, according to his own statements, he was convicted by a military court for " decomposing military strength " and transferred to the Penal Division 999 . In April 1945 he returned to Germany , took part in anti- fascist work and joined the KPD .
In September 1945, Heinitz first entered the service of the political police (later Kommissariat 5) in Chemnitz . In September 1949 he switched to the MfS in Saxony, which at that time was still called "Administration for the Protection of the National Economy". There he first worked in Department IV (counter-espionage) before he was transferred to the Investigation Department (Main Department IX) in Berlin in 1951 . Among other things, there was the interrogator of the then Foreign Minister and CDU member Georg Dertinger , who was sentenced to 15 years in prison after 17 months in custody in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen for alleged "conspiracy and espionage" . Heinitz first rose to head of department in 1952, and in 1957 even to deputy main department head. In 1962 he was promoted to colonel. In the same year Heinitz took up a distance learning course in criminology at the Humboldt University in Berlin . He completed this after two years with a thesis on the "working methods and methodology of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) against the German Democratic Republic (GDR)" with the state examination. In 1964, Heinitz succeeded Kurt Richter as head of Department IX. Because of forged questionnaires and other misconduct, he was released from his position in 1972 and dismissed from the service of the MfS a year later. Rolf Fister took over his position as head of HA IX . From then on Heinitz worked as a full-time party secretary in an after-work home in Dresden and died in 1987.
literature
- Jens Gieseke : Walter Heinitz . In: BStU : Who was who in the Ministry for State Security? (PDF, 537 KB), MfS-Handbuch V / 4, Berlin 1998, p. 29f.
- Jens Gieseke: Heinitz, Walter . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
- Roger Engelmann , Bernd Florath , Helge Heidemeyer, Daniela Münkel , Arno Polzin, Walter Süß: The MfS Lexicon . 3rd updated edition, Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86153-900-1 , p. 158, online version .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cf. BStU, ZA, MfS JHS MF 393. (Quotation from the MfS Law School - List of Graduates for Diploma Courses up to 1990 ( Memento from June 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF, 2.96 MB])
- ↑ See Leide, Henry: NS-Verbrecher und Staatssicherheit, Göttingen 2005, p. 193.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Heinitz, Walter |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German secret service agent, head of the investigation department of the Ministry for State Security |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 25, 1915 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Eppendorf |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 10, 1987 |