The historian Friedrich Heer was born in Vienna in 1916. He received a PhD at the University in Vienna in 1938. Even as a student he came into conflict with pan-German thinking historians as a staunch opponent of National Socialism.

Friedrich Heer was arrested for the first time on 11 March 1938 by the Austrian Nazis. He founded a small Catholic resistance group and sought to amalgamate into one organised band the Christians, Communists and Trades Unionists against the Nazis, and as a soldier later came into contact with the resistance group "Soldatenrat".

From 1946 to 1961 Friedrich Heer was the editor of the weekly magazine Die Furche [The Furrow] and in 1961 he was appointed chief literacy to the Vienna Burgtheater. He taught at the University of Vienna. The majority of his books have been translated into several languages.

In 1967 Friedrich Heer became the first winner of the Martin Buber-Franz Rosenzweig Medal, awarded by a group of fourty-four German societies for Christian and Jewish understanding, for his achievement with God's First Love.

Friedrich Heer died in Vienna in 1983.