Bert Heller (30 March 1912 – 29 April 1970) was a German painter and illustrator who for two years in the later 1950s served as Rector of the Fine Arts Academy in the Weissensee district of Berlin.

[2] Bert Heller was born in Aachen, where in 1927 he enrolled for three years as a student at the Fine Arts Academy (as the institution was known at the time).

On completing his three years at the academy he undertook a study tour that took in the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria, before embarking on a career as a freelance artist based in Laurensberg (Aachen), very close to Germany's Dutch frontier.

[3] Heller's period as Rector ended suddenly, with his dismissal: it was later suggested that he had fallen foul of the authorities by siding with students' criticisms of "simple curriculum stuffing, that left no space for independent research choices and insights",[6] according to the historian Hiltrud Ebert.

[3] He had never officially been disgraced and appears to have been at least partially rehabilitated following his removal from the academic establishment, and was permitted to visit China for a study tour in 1963.