Heinz Höhne | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1926 (1926) Berlin, Germany |
| Died | 27 March 2010(2010-03-27) (aged 83–84) |
| Occupation |
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| Nationality | German |
Heinz Höhne (1926 – 27 March 2010) was a German journalist and author, who specialized inThird Reich military andWest GermanCold Warforeign intelligence history.
Born inBerlin in 1926, Höhne was educated there until he was called to fight during the last months of theSecond World War. He served in thePanzerkorps Großdeutschland. After the war, he studiedjournalism inMunich and went on to work for various newspapers as a freelance reporter. In 1955, he was hired by the weekly magazineDer Spiegel, where he joined the foreign staff of the magazine and eventually took charge of the Anglo-American department.
Through his research in the archives he produced a document that – relayed byConrad Ahlers [de], the chief protagonist of theSpiegel affair – helped improve the former deputy head of theReich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and PropagandaKurt Kiesinger's reputation enough to pave his way toWest German chancellorship in 1966.[1]
Höhne's efforts covered Nazi history. His best-known work is entitledThe Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler'sSS. (Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf: Die Geschichte der SS). This work first appeared in 1967, and other works subsequently followed, such as his 1971 study of theSoviet Union's spy network entitledCodeword: Direktor.
In 1976, Höhne went on to writeCanaris, an interpretation of Hitler's spymaster, who was in charge of theAbwehr.[2]
Another work from Höhne isKrieg im Dunkeln (1985), which examines the centuries-old relationship between Russian and German intelligence. After his retirement, Höhne worked on a history of theThird Reich, the first volume of which,Gebt mir vier Jahre Zeit, appeared in 1996.
Höhne's 1967 book on the SS has been translated into many languages, including English, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Greek, Japanese and Chinese.
There are a number of references to Höhne's work on the SS by other historians who have written on Nazi Germany. The formerIntelligence Corps officerAdrian Weale's 2012 work,Army of Evil: A History of the SS, frequently cites Höhne'sThe Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS, although challenging some of the assertions found therein.[3]
Höhne's 1972 book,The General Was a Spy: The Truth aboutGeneral Gehlen and hisSpy Ring, received a less than glowing classified review from an anonymousCIA analyst, who excoriated it for factual inaccuracy and tendentiousness, writing that "so much of it is sheer garbage". The reviewer pointed out that Gehlen had been suspected by ChancellorKonrad Adenauer in 1962 of having tipped off theSpiegel editors about a planned governmentraid in search ofleaked documents, so that they could be destroyed in advance.[4]
