Edmund Heines

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Edmund Heines (July 21, 1897 in Munich – June 30, 1934 in Munich) was Ernst Röhm's deputy in the SA, and possibly one of his lovers as well.^[1] Adolf Hitler had a close friendship with Röhm, and to a lesser degree with Heines.^[2]

[edit] Life

Heines served in World War I as a volunteer, and was discharged in 1918 as a lieutenant.

In 1925 he joined the Nazi Party and the SA (stormtroopers). In 1929 he was convicted of murder, but soon was amnestied. In the same year he was appointed head of a Nazi district for a short-term of the area Upper Palatinate. In 1930 he became a member of the Reichstag for the district of Liegnitz. From 1931 to 1934 he was SA leader in Silesia and at the same time deputy to Ernst Röhm. In 1933, he was on the Prussian privy council, and in May of the same year he became head of police in Breslau.

[edit] Execution

Hitler's chauffeur Erich Kempka claimed in a 1946 interview that Edmund Heines was caught in bed with an unidentified 18-year old male when he was arrested during the Night of Long Knives, although he did not actually witness this himself. According to Kempka, Heines refused to cooperate and get dressed. When the SS detectives reported this to Hitler, he went to Heines's room and ordered him to get dressed within five minutes or risk being shot. After five minutes had passed by, he still had not complied with the order. As a result, Hitler became so furious with him that he ordered some SS men to take Heines and the boy outside to be executed.^[3] Heines, Röhm, and many other SA leaders were executed shortly after their arrest. Hitler identified Heines as one of the principal members of a "small group of elements which were held together through a like disposition" in his Reichstag speech of 13 July 1934.

[edit] References