Heinz August Adolf Sirich Lüning (March 28, 1911 - November 10, 1942) was an espionage agent who spied for the

Abwehr The (German language, German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', though the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context) ) was the German military intelligence , military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the ...

in Cuba during World War II and was later executed by Cuba. It is unclear whether Lüning was incompetent or if he was on a personal mission to sabotage the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

war effort in the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

and

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

, but the result is that his work as an Abwehr intelligence officer was described by the British Secret Services (MI6) as mediocre and subpar. The Cuban government at the time maintained that his incompetence was a ruse, and that the Cuban intelligence apparatus had captured a genuine master spy. After his discovery by the government of

Fulgencio Batista Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (born Rubén Zaldívar; January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who played a dominant role in Cuban politics from his initial rise to power as part of the 1933 Revolt of t ...

, Lüning was publicly executed. His decision to join the Abwehr was motivated primarily by his desire to avoid dying on the frontline in Europe as a soldier, and the fact that he was an avowed

anti-Nazi Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were op ...

, and came from a family of anti-Nazis. Ultimately, this decision led to him becoming the only German spy executed on espionage charges in all of Latin America during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Early life

Lüning was born on March 28, 1911, in

Bremen, Germany Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (, ), is the capital of the German state of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (), a two-city-state consisting of the cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven. W ...

, to a German father and an Italian mother. His father was a

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

merchant and came from a family of tobacco merchants. He did not perform well in school. In 1924, when he was 13 years old, his mother died after a long battle with illness. In 1929, during the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

, his father committed suicide. Lüning was adopted by his uncle Gustav, who lived in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

and was married to an American Chicagoan woman named Olga Bartholomae. Gustav owned the Dominican Tobacco Company in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

. His aunt and uncle raised him in Hamburg until he finished school and got a job with an American businessman named Albert Schilling at Classen Berger & Co. In 1936, Lüning married his stepsister Helga - who he had gotten pregnant - and they moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. While in New York, they lived with Olga's brother,

Philip Bartholomae Philip Bartholomae (July 3, 1880 - January 5, 1947) was an American playwright, lyricist, screenwriter, and theatre director. He wrote many plays and musicals which were staged on Broadway in the 1910s and 1920s, several of which were adapted int ...

, the famous American Broadway director and playwright. Briefly in 1936, Gustav sent Lüning to

Santo Domingo Santo Domingo, formerly known as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city of the Dominican Republic and the List of metropolitan areas in the Caribbean, largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean by population. the Distrito Na ...

to learn the business of the Dominican Tobacco Company, and to learn

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

. When Helga was close to expecting the birth of her son, Lüning and Helga returned to Hamburg, where Adolf Bartholomae was born in November 1936. In 1937, he returned to Santo Domingo for a brief time. Lüning did not enjoy the rise of Hitler, and applied for citizenship in the Dominican Republic in an attempt to escape. However, from 1937 to 1941, Lüning remained in Hamburg and worked for the B. Schoenfeld Company. His Spanish language lessons continued with a coworker at the company.

World War II

Abwehr agent

In 1939, Lüning did not want to be drafted into the German army. He used his status as a Resident of the Dominican Republic to avoid conscription into the Wehrmacht in 1939, 1940, and 1941. He decided to join the

instead so that he could avoid fighting on the frontline. In June 1941, Lüning was recruited into the organization by Alfred Hartmann, who was connected to a friend of Lüning's uncle Gustav. As for language skills, with an Italian mother Lüning could already speak Italian. After having lived in New York, Lüning could speak English. After being tutored, Lüning could now speak Spanish, and was at that time learning some Portuguese. These languages were in addition to his native German. Lüning's cover name became "Lumann." Lüning was then sent for training at the Abwehr training school (AST) at Klopstockstrasse 2-8 in

. His training lasted for six weeks, and he was given special training assignment under the direction of Hartmann. He learned how to communicate using

Morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...

Invisible ink Invisible ink, also known as security ink or sympathetic ink, is a substance used for writing, which is invisible either on application or soon thereafter, and can later be made visible by some means, such as heat or ultraviolet light. Invisibl ...

Wireless telegraphy Wireless telegraphy or radiotelegraphy is the transmission of text messages by radio waves, analogous to electrical telegraphy using electrical cable, cables. Before about 1910, the term ''wireless telegraphy'' was also used for other experimenta ...

and

Radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

. He also learned basic

Tradecraft Tradecraft, within the intelligence community, refers to the techniques, methods, and technologies used in modern espionage (spying) and generally as part of the activity of intelligence assessment. This includes general topics or techniques ...

. Lüning was a mediocre student at this school and his ability with a radio was not optimal for an intelligence officer.

Stationed in Cuba

On September 10, 1941, Lüning boarded the ship ''Villa de Madrid'' in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

, and arrived in

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Siboney Hotel, down the street from the ''Wonder Bar,'' where he would attempt to gain information from locals and pick up women. By all accounts, he was a prolific womanizer throughout most of his life. Later, he went into partnership with a Cuban in the management of La Estampa, a women's fashion store in

Old Havana Old Havana () is the city-center (downtown) and one of the 15 municipalities (or boroughs) forming Havana, Cuba. It has the second highest population density in the city and contains the core of the original city of Havana. The positions of the ...

at 314 Industria Street. At the Wonder Bar and other bars and taverns around the city, he also plied information from off-duty drunken sailors while their ships were docked in the port of Havana. His alias in Havana was "Enrique Augusto Luni," a Jewish refugee who had fled the Nazis. In his letters back to headquarters, his alias was sometimes "Rafael Castillo," but he also used many other names. Rolando Ancieto at ''Habana Radio'' writes that while he was living in Old Havana, those who knew him described him as "...a man of fine manners, well dressed and kind... a perfect gentleman, of few words and a hurried walk." The British station in

Bermuda Bermuda is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the American state of North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. Bermuda is an ...

intercepted 44 of Lüning's letters addressed to his handler in

Lisbon, Portugal Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

, who went by the name of "Mr. Mutz." His letters were sent with innocuous text, and additional text in invisible ink which the British had chemical methods to expose.

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

and the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

noted that most of the information Lüning sent in these secret letters was from the local newspaper, and could have been obtained by anyone. None of this information was timely or relevant to the Abwehr, they noted, because most of the events he mentioned in his letters had already happened. Due to the dangers posed to the allied supply line to Europe from the Americas by Abwehr activity in Latin America, the Allied intelligence agencies were extremely concerned with Lüning's presence in Cuba. Their suspicion was that he might be involved in feeding shipping information to German

U-Boats U-boats are naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the First and Second World Wars. The term is an anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the German term refers to any submarine. Austro-Hungarian Na ...

. However, Thomas D. Schoonover writes that Lüning could not figure out how to use his radio, so he never communicated with any German naval forces while in Cuba. He states that Lüning was also given specific directions not to initiate any contact with Abwehr agents located in the Caribbean, and was not given access to the standard radio code book. Modern Cuban sources question Schoonover on this: they point to a telegram that was sent to Lüning from

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

instructing him to change frequencies on his radio "in which he transmitted and received messages." These Cuban sources note that Schoonover did not perform any of his research inside of Cuba, due to Cuban travel restrictions on American citizens. One letter was of particular interest to the Bermuda station. The letter was from the

Falangist Falangism () was the political ideology of three political parties in Spain that were known as the Falange, namely first the Falange Española, the Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FE de las JONS), and afterwa ...

businessman Bienvenido Alegría in

Gijón Gijón () or () is a city and municipality in north-western Spain. It is the largest city and Municipalities of Spain, municipality by population in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Asturias. It is located on the coa ...

, in which Bienvenido used Lüning's real name and address in Havana. After reading this letter, MI6 officers and FBI agents flew to Havana and began coordinating with the Cuban authorities, and especially with General Manuel Benitez.

Arrest and execution

On 5 September, 1942, Lüning was arrested by Captain Mariano Faget at a guest house by where he was staying in Old Havana, on Teniente Rey Street. The police seized two inoperable

shortwave radio Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the High frequency, high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30& ...

transmitters In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna with the purpose of signal transmissi ...

, radio tubes, invisible ink, a

false passport A fake passport is a counterfeit of a passport (or other travel document) issued by a nation or authorised agency. Such counterfeits are copies of genuine passports, or illicitly modified genuine passports made by unauthorized persons, sometimes ...

, letters, maps, documents, and a specially designed pistol. That special pistol - a pistol in the shape of an ink pen that fired a single

12 mm caliber This is a list of firearm cartridges which have bullets in the to range. *''Length'' refers to the cartridge case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Specia ...

shot - is currently in the Museo Oscar María de Rojas in

Cárdenas, Cuba San Juan de Dios de Cárdenas, or simply Cárdenas (), is a municipality and city in the Matanzas Province of Cuba, about by air by roadeast of Havana. Cárdenas is the 15th most-populated Cuban city and the second most populated one not being ...

. It was featured on display in 2018. Lüning was taken to the Castillo del Príncipe, where he remained as an inmate until his death. For

J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American attorney and law enforcement administrator who served as the fifth and final director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) and the first director of the Federal Bureau o ...

, and General Manuel Benitez, the capture of Lüning proved to be a press field day, and they used this event each to provide legitimacy for their organizations in the media. However, most of the officials in these organizations might have known that Lüning had no value as an intelligence asset to the Germans. After his capture, Lüning was subjected to interrogation by the Batista regime on over 30 separate occasions. Most of his information was reliable, because he did not like the Nazis, so he gave the Cubans everything that he could think of to provide. The CIA officer assigned to serve with General Benitez wrote of Lüning:

Wrapping up the PYL

The greatest impact that his interrogations had on the war is the fact that he had knowledge of German spies operating in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

, and confessed to receiving a wire transfer for $1,500 that originated there. The Chilean

Minister of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and foreign relations, relations, diplomacy, bilateralism, ...

at the time, Ernesto Barros Jarpa, was reluctant to move on this information because he had consistently denied the existence of German agents in Chile, and had actually arrested the journalist Benjamín Subercaseaux only the month prior for printing a story that stated such. Chilean Interior Minister Raúl Morales Beltramí moved on Lüning's information, arresting a large number of members of what had previously been known only as PYLREW or the PyL Network, which is what the network would sign their communiques with. Prior to Lüning's arrest, American intelligence officials were aware of the PyL, but could not locate them in Chile. They were known only to operate somewhere to the east of Valparaiso. "PyL," in Spanish is an abbreviation for "''Patria y Libertad,"'' or in English "Fatherland and Liberty." Foreign Minister Jarpa resigned as a result of the backlash and scandal surrounding the arrest of the PYL.

Trial and execution

In a closed-door trial, five judges unanimously sentenced Lüning to death. On November 10, 1942, Lüning was

executed by firing squad Execution by firing squad, in the past sometimes called fusillading (from the French , rifle), is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war. Some reasons for its use are that firearms are usually re ...

, only hours after he discovered that his request for pardon had been rejected. The journalists present at his execution noted that he remained calm, did not say a word, and did not even flinch as the soldiers took aim and fired.

In popular culture

* ''

Our Man in Havana ''Our Man in Havana'' (1958) is a novel set in Cuba by the British author Graham Greene. Greene uses the novel to mock intelligence services, especially the British MI6, and their willingness to believe reports from their local informants. Th ...

'', 1958 novel by

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...

* ''

Our Man in Havana (film) ''Our Man in Havana'' is a 1959 British spy comedy film shot in CinemaScope, directed and produced by Carol Reed, and starring Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ralph Richardson, Noël Coward and Ernie Kovacs. The film is adapted from ...

'', 1959 film adaptation of the novel

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Luning, Heinz 1911 births 1942 deaths 20th-century executions by Cuba Abwehr personnel killed in World War II German people executed abroad Military personnel from Bremen (city) Nazis executed by firing squad People executed by Cuba by firing squad People executed for spying for Nazi Germany