Heymann was born on March 14, 1896, in Mannheim to a Jewish family.[1] After completing school, he did an apprenticeship as a banker. Heymann volunteered for military service in the First World War and was wounded several times. At the conclusion of the war, he took part in the proclamation of a Soviet in the Palatinate alongside Ernst Toller and Erich Mühsam. Heymann joined the Communist Party of Germany upon its foundation. He was dismissed from his job at a bank in Mannheim due to his communist sympathies. Heymann was an active member of the Rotfrontkämpferbund, and held regional leadership roles in the organization. In 1924 he was sentenced by a court in Leipzig to three and a half years in prison for "preparing for high treason", but was pardoned in 1926.[2] Heymann was active in the charitable organizations Rote Hilfe and Workers International Relief. From 1928 to 1929 he was a member of the Landtag of the Republic of Baden, succeeding Paul Schreck.[2] From 1930 to 1932 he worked as an editor of the Die Rote Fahne in Berlin.
From January 1933, Heymann was editor-in-chief of the newspaper Arbeiterzeitung in Breslau. After the Nazi Party seized power in 1933, Heymann was arrested and later sent to the Kislau concentration camp in 1936. In 1938, he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp and then in 1940 to the Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1942, he was sent to the Auschwitz-Monowitz concentration camp, where he was a clerk in the infirmary, and in January 1945 he was sent back to Buchenwald.[2][3][4]
Stefan Heymann's first marriage was with Erika Heymann (née Geck), the daughter of the Reichstag member and Offenburg publisher Adolf Geck. The marriage produced two children, daughter Sonja Nerlich (née Heyman) and Dr. Dieter Heymann.
After the liberation from Nazi rule, Heymann was a member of the Communist Party regional leadership in Thuringia and founding member of the Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime – Federation of Antifascists.[5] From 1950 to 1953 he was the ambassador of the German Democratic Republic to Hungary. In 1953, he became the ambassador to Poland, replacing Aenne Kundermann.[6][7][8] He would remain in this role until 1957, when he was succeeded by Josef Hegen.[9] He then became head of the press department in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and in 1960 professor at the Walter Ulbricht Academy of Political Science and Law. Heymann died on February 3, 1967, in East Berlin.[10]
German Empire