While a law student in his native Berlin Heinz Unger heard Bruno Walter conduct Mahler's The Song of the Earth in Munich in 1915 and decided on the spot to become a conductor and a champion of Mahler. In 1919-20 he made his professional debut, conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in several Mahler concerts, including the Symphony No. 1 and The Song of the Earth.

in the mid-1930s he was under contract with the Leningrad Radio Orchestra for annual six-month seasons. Unger's enthusiasm for the musicianship of Russian and Ukrainian orchestras and the responsiveness of their audiences was dampened eventually by his experiences with Soviet bureaucracy.

In 1933 Unger settled in London. He conducted the Northern Philharmonic through to 1947 and was a guest with the major British orchestras including the London Philharmonic, with which he made over 100 wartime appearances across Britain.

After World War II Unger renewed his travels as a conductor, appearing particularly in Spain, but also in Latin America, Switzerland, and an invitation by Furtwangler led to two concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1956, Unger's first apperance in his native city since 1933.

Primarily a guest conductor, Unger programmed only works of whose merit he was convinced. His repertoire, though focused on the Austro-German masters from Bach to Richard Strauss and the young Schoenberg, was large.

He tended at times to overconduct, but he always succeeded in bringing the music to life and conveying its emotions to the audience.

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