Hero of the Resistance

Andre Heintz invested as Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur - 9 July 2010

The School was delighted to welcome the

daughters of an Old Bristolian, a Frenchman with a most distinguished

career. Andre was a member of the French Resistance. He was an exchange student at BGS in the 1930s and an exchange French teacher at BGS in the 1950s.

CHRONICLE MARCH 1945

Two interesting reminders have lately come to hand of links with France during the occupation. W. Botte writes from Martigues (Bouches du Rhone) telling how he worked for nearly three years for the French underground (Intelligence); he hopes some day to send his son to BGS. A. Heintz, of a younger generation, called on his way from Normandy to Edinburgh; he had lived in Caen during the occupation, and the bombardment and capture of it; he, too, had for some years collected information for the “men of the Maquis.”

CHRONICLE DECEMBER 1945

Old Boy visitors are always welcome. None could have been more welcome or of greater interest than Andre Heintz. (When he was here for six months in VA, before the war, he was nicknamed “ 57.”) He started the war as one of over 3,000 working in the underground movement in Normandy.

Headmaster Jaideep barot with Clare & Anne Heintz during their visit in May 2022 Bristolienses - Issue 62

He told me : “ When I was afraid, I remembered my friends in Bristol, and thought I must be as brave as they are being. We had to invent secret ways of celebrating under the Occupation. Mine was to wear my old BGS tie.” I induced him to repeat his astonishing story of courage and sheer human endurance to the Sixth Form.

At the conclusion of a lecture, which was as brilliantly planned as it was movingly exciting, he presented to the School the badge of beautiful design which was given to him as one of the few hundred survivors of the Resistance Movement in Normandy. It was a proud climax to an affecting occasion.

CHRONICLE DECEMBER 1955

Mr. Dehn has effected an exchange during the Easter term with Mr. A. E. Heintz, who was a member of this School in 1935, and who has since the war been teaching in the University of Edinburgh and his native city of Caen. There can be few men who had such a distinguished career of courageous service in the Resistance movement.

He planned an escape route for shot-down Allied airmen, escaped from a forced labour camp in Germany, prepared information for the invasion of Europe, and was in charge of a sabotage plan in

connection with the landing of the Allies on the Normandy beaches.

He presented the medal given in recognition of his work to this School. We extend a warm welcome to a distinguished friend of our country and hope that both he and Mr. Dehn will enjoy the term in each other’s school.

Anne Bradley

The Archivist

FROM GEOFFREY SAMPSON:

I was sad to read in the Jan. 2018 “Bristolienses” that André Heintz had died, though not surprised – the Christmas cards we swapped dried up from his end a few years ago. He was one of the most remarkable men I have known.

I was among the third-formers he taught French when he exchanged jobs with Eric Dehn in 1956. We lads knew he had done something great in the War which had ended not long before – I don’t know how we knew, but it certainly meant that André had our undivided attention as he unfolded the mysteries of French pronunciation and grammar, though quite understandably he declined to talk to us callow schoolboys about his wartime activities.

About ten years ago, though, the university where I worked organized a conference about the French Resistance and invited André to speak. I met him from the ferry and brought him home to stay with us.

While with us André came out very casually with extraordinary tales of that time, when he was cycling daily through the streets of Caen carrying messages received by radio to the local Resistance leadership. As the Germans grew short of Bristolienses - Issue 62

manpower they began shipping off able-bodied males from the occupied countries to work in the Reich, and André was rounded up.

He knew where the train had to slow after leaving the station, so he positioned himself by a door and managed to step off and slip away unnoticed; but that was only part of the job done. The Germans kept excellent records, and if André was on the list of deportees and failed to show up at the other end, there would be major trouble. So he had to persuade a girl working as clerk in the offices of the occupation authorities to find and remove his file-card from the relevant records. André told us that thinking about BGS and its boys and staff, still functioning in a free country, was a way he kept going during the darkest times in France.

I am proud to have been able to count him a friend.

Geoff Sampson

(1952–62)

See Bristolienses Issue 54 for Andre’s obituary by Tony Stirratt.

On the right of this explosive picture stands Andre Heintz.

Tony & Elizabeth Stirratt, with Clare & Anne Heintz during their visit in May 2022

He never lost contact with the School (an OB visitor stands on the left) and some 20th century Sixth Formers will remember him giving a lecture on his Resistance work.

The shell is a 15” naval shell from the bombardment of Caen in June 1944. The bombardment was timely, as it saved Andre from the Gestapo.