Franz Josef Heinz

Along with some other members of the liberal German People's Party (DVP), Heinz saw this as an opportunity to reject the Prussian militarist state.

The new government adopted a currency based on the French franc, which it promised would deal with the problem of the current hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic.

[1] With the approval of the Bavarian government, a detachment of the Viking League, enemies of the separatists, under the command of Edgar Julius Jung planned to assassinate Heinz.

[2] On 9 January 1924 Jung's troop of around twenty nationalists forced their way into the dining room of the Speyer Wittelsbacher Hof hotel and shot Heinz dead.

[4] A monument was later put up in the Speyer cemetery to the two murderers, Franz Hellinger and Ferdinand Wiesmann, who died in the shootout with Heinz's supporters after the assassination.