Hein studied biology, geography and politics at the Free University of Berlin, graduating in 1969.
In addition, Hein worked with the public, especially in the autumn to confirm identification of edible fungi.
He was part of collecting expeditions to West Africa,[3]: 19 Europe (Scotland, Norway, the Alps), South America (Costa Rica, Venezuela) that increased the number of specimens in the herbarium by several hundred.
From the late 1990s he was responsible for construction of an early on-line database summarising taxonomic information about 5000 members of the Dermateaceae, including writing the software.
[4][5] Hein is the author or co-author of at least 20 scientific publications and several books, including:[1] He described three new genera (Bryodiscus (now Sphaeropezia), Naevala and Naeviopsis) and 18 species.