The company was originally founded on 15 February 1934 as Wilhelm Heyne Verlag by its namesake in the city of Dresden, the "Wilhelm" part of the name thereafter dropped. The publisher specialized in releasing books in the fiction genre, but the publishing house was destroyed in the bombing of the city by allied bombers in World War II in February of 1945. After the war, in 1948, founder Heyne decided to relaunch his company in Munich, then located in the by the Western allies occupied part of Germany, in an effort to avoid being caught in the then-communist part of Germany, which was later formalized by Germany becoming two separate nations.