Heinrich Koenen was born in the Konigsberg district of Berlin, the son of Communist Reichstag deputy
Wilhelm Koenen. He was selected as political head of the
Young Communist League of Germany. He studied engineering at the
Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (now
Technische Universität Berlin), but for political reasons was expelled in 1933 before his final examination. He emigrated via Denmark and Sweden to the Soviet Union, where he worked as an engineer in a Moscow tractor factory and in 1940, became a Soviet citizen. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, he volunteered for military service and was trained for use in Germany as a
paratrooper and radio operator. He was given the task of restoring the broken links between the Moscow headquarters of the
Comintern and the GRU and the Berlin group of the
Red Orchestra. On 23 October 1942, Koenen parachuted behind German lines at
Osterode in
East Prussia and made his way to Berlin to his contact,
Ilse Stöbe. On 29 October 1942, he was arrested by a
Gestapo official waiting at Stöbe's apartment. Koenen was
executed without trial at
Sachsenhausen concentration camp in February 1945. His name is inscribed on a memorial in the
Gedenkstätte der Sozialisten Socialist Memorial in Lichtenberg, Berlin. ==Bibliography==