News and Events

More Honour for WWII Resistance worker, André Heintz, OB

Sunday 28th March 2010, 10:39am

André Heintz was a member of the French Resistance in the city of Caen (one of the main targets of the ‘D-Day’ landings) and from 1940 to 1944, when the city was liberated, he gathered information to give to the Allied forces about German positions. He helped scupper German defences using some basic equipment and a fair amount of imagination.

He learned about the proposed ‘D-Day’ landings in Normandy on 5 June, through a coded message broadcast by radio and, when Caen underwent terrible bombardment, he was part of the emergency team that helped many people wounded by the extensive shelling.

This year, on the anniversary of the British capture of the city of Caen in July 1944, André will be invested as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.

André is already well recognised with existing honours such as the rank of Commander des Palmes Académiques, Chevalier dans l’Ordre du Mérite and the Médaille du Combattant Volontaire de la Résistance as well as having an honorary doctorate to add to his career of interpreting, teaching, professorship and directorship.

André was born in Caen in 1920 and completed most of his secondary education at the Lycée Malherbe there apart from the year 1935, which he spent here at Bristol Grammar School to improve his English. He returned to BGS after the war in 1956 on a teaching exchange with Eric Dehn, our fondly remembered erstwhile language and travel ambassador. André has been a member of the OB Society for many years and assisted with OB tours of the Normandy Battlefields in the early 2000s.

All at BGS proudly wish André every congratulation on his new, well-deserved honour.

André Heintz with Eric Dehn: