Captain Friedrich Heinz

Captain Friedrich Heinz is an Abwehr officer on Colonel Hans Oster’s staff and the operational specialist in the opposition’s plan to arrest Adolf Hitler. In a group divided over how to act, he supplies a practical answer to the question of force—and, when the conspirators consider what should follow an arrest, a starkly uncompromising one.

Identity and Introduction

Heinz is introduced to Paul von Hartmann as a man Hartmann recognizes from an earlier encounter at a railway station: the passenger he had seen tying his shoelaces. Colonel Hans Oster identifies him as a member of his Abwehr staff and calls him the group’s “man of action.” The recognition links Heinz’s operational role in the conspiracy with Hartmann’s prior, apparently incidental sighting of him.

Role in the Arrest Plan

The conspirators debate whether the Army can be relied upon to move against Hitler. General Ludwig Beck explains that the Army’s oath of loyalty prevents it from making the first move, though it could intervene to maintain order after a disturbance in the Chancellery. Oster’s plan depends on that distinction: a small force would arrest Hitler by surprise, while the Army would protect the conspirators from an attempted rescue by the Nazi SS.

Heinz gives the proposed operation a concrete scale and timetable. Oster estimates that roughly fifty men would be enough if surprise were secured; when Erich Kordt asks where such a force could be found, Heinz says the men are already available and prepared to move the following day. Oster says the Abwehr will arm them and provide safe houses near Wilhelmstrasse. Heinz adds that they will be in position at dawn and that he personally knows each man as a reliable comrade.

Heinz supports his claim to command such men by recalling his past fighting with Kapp in 1920 and with the Stahlhelm. His confidence is central to the plot’s immediate plausibility: the plan is not merely a hope that force might be assembled, but a proposal with an estimated number, weapons, staging places, and a stated readiness time.

What Should Happen to Hitler

When Hans von Dohnányi asks what the conspirators would do with Hitler if they succeeded in arresting him, Heinz answers that Hitler should be killed. Challenged over that conclusion, Heinz counters by asking whether Hitler would hesitate to do the same to them. The exchange exposes a sharp disagreement within the opposition: Heinz treats lethal retaliation as the necessary answer to the danger posed by Hitler, while Dohnányi objects to killing him.

The evidence presents Heinz as an active planner and a forceful advocate, but does not establish the outcome of his proposed operation. His place in the scene rests on the preparations he claims are already under way and on the severity of the choice he presses the conspirators to confront.