Quick Facts
Biography
Heinz Schmidt (26 November 1906 - 14 September 1989) was a German journalist and editor. During the twelve Nazi years he was involved in active resistance, spending approximately three years in prison and a further seven years as a political refugee in London.
Life
Heinz Heinrich Schmidt was born into a working-class family in Halle. He attended school locally and trained for work as a miner.
After briefly working in the mines, in 1906 he joined the Social Democratic Party ("Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands" / SPD), and was recruited to edit various party newspapers. Between 1930 and 1933 he underwent a period of further study in Halle, covering constitutional and civil law. During that period of study, in 1931, he joined the Communist Party.
In January 1933 the Nazi Party took power and lost no time in transforming Germany into a one-party dictatorship. After the Reichstag fire in February 1933 communists found themselves identified as enemies of the state. Schmidt continued with his party activism which was now illegal. He was arrested in 1934 and served his three year sentence in the Brandenburg-Görden super jail and as an inmate at the Lichtenburg concentration camp. Released in 1937 he escaped to Prague, emigrating from there to London where he arrived in or before 1938.