Heinrich Scheel (historian)

Between 1984 and 1990, Heinrich Scheel's analysed the Red orchestra and constructed a more nuanced picture of different groups. In the process, Scheel discovered the work that was done to defame them both during the war and afterwards. Scheel's paper triggered a reevaluation of the Red Orchestra both in Germany and the world, but it was not until 2009 that the German Bundestag overturned the judgments of the National Socialist judiciary for "treason" and rehabilitated the members of the Rote Kapelle.

For much of the period that encompassed the cold war, the Red Orchestra was seen as a distinctly communist organisation that was beholden to the Soviet Union. In the 1970s there was a growing interest in the various forms of resistance and opposition. However, no group was so systematically misinformed and recognised as little as the resistance groups around Arvid Harnack and Harro Schulze-Boysen.

Scheel spent the first year after the war unemployed, then in 1946 became an assistant of the Schulfarm Insel Scharfenberg. In 1947, Scheel undertook education management training by Wilhelm Blume and became the principal of Schulfarm Insel Scharfenberg, a position he held until 1949. However, he was dismissed for being a member of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands and charged of communist infiltration in the school. Scheel then returned to Humboldt University of Berlin to study English and History. Scheel was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy with a dissertation on the popular revolutionary movement in south-western Germany from 1795 to 1801 on the 12 March 1956. In 1960, Scheel habilitated with a thesis on the South German Jacobins.

From 1949 to 1956, Scheel was Member, Division Head and then deputy director of the Institute of History at the Academy of Sciences. In 1960, Scheel was promoted to Professor of German History at Humboldt University of Berlin. From 1972 to 1984, Scheel was the Vice President of the Academy of Sciences. From 1980 to 1990, Scheel was president of the Historians Society of the GDR (German:Historiker-Gesellschaft der DDR)

Scheel was sent to prison at Aschendorf in Lower Saxony, but in July 1944 after a year of forced labour, he was put on probation and sent to a Strafbataillon penal battalion, due to the chronic lack of suitable men for the front, at the time. At the end of 1944, he was captured and sent to an American prisoner of war camp.

On 16 September 1942, Scheel was arrested in Berlin but escaped a death penalty due to offering an ingenious defence to the Reichskriegsgericht that saved his life. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment.

From 1935 to 1940, Scheel studied German Philology, History and English at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin. In 1939, Scheel was conscripted into the Wehrmacht and was posted as a weather service inspector (German:Wetterdienst-Inspekteur) by the Luftwaffe in the Tempelhof area of Berlin, and later posted to the Rangsdorf area for a similar assignment.

Scheel meet Harro Schulze-Boysen and Kurt Schumacher via the librarian Lotte Bergtel-Schleif who had known Scheel since 1930. Scheel and his friends questioned the meaning of the newly signed Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and wanted to discuss this measure with the politically experienced Schulze-Boysen. Schulze-Boysen had defended the pact and in the course of this encounter got in touch with several friends around Scheel and Hans Coppi who was also part of the anti-fascist resistance group. Due to Coppi being arrested and sent to Oranienburg concentration camp in January 1934 and being found unfit for drafting into military service, Scheel agreed to form contacts with other resistance groups. Scheel eventually became the liaison man between Coppi and Schulze-Boysen.

Scheel grew up in a dedicated working class, social democratic family. He was significantly influenced by attending the Schulfarm Insel Scharfenberg, a boarding school located on an island in Lake Tegel and modeled on the German rural boarding school movement. Scheel attended the school from 1929 to 1934. This resulted in him forming an opposition to Nazism. Together with his classmates Hans Coppi and Hans Lautenschläger, they began to resist the Nazis. In 1932, Scheel joined the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD).

Heinrich Scheel (born 11 December 1915 in Kreuzberg; died 7 January 1996 in Berlin) was a German left-wing historian and longtime vice president of the East German Academy of Sciences and professor of modern history at Humboldt University of Berlin. Scheel was notable for putting forward a theory of the German radical at the time of the French revolution, in an attempt to determine an alternative tradition in Germany. Scheel was most notable for being a German resistance fighter against the Nazi regime, during World War II. He was a member of a Berlin-based anti-fascist resistance group that was later called the Red Orchestra ("Rote Kapelle") by the Abwehr, during the Nazi regime.