https://www.bhistory.it/2019/03/28/the-mysterious-admiral-canaris/
28 Marzo 2019
In February 1944, Wilhelm Canaris, Admiral and Chief of the Abwehr, the German army intelligence service, was arrested and imprisoned by the SS at Lauenstein Castle. Fervent patriot but opposed to Nazism, one of the first architects of many Germany victories during the Second World War is finally sentenced to death and executed when the dawn rose on April 9, 1945. Who was really this officer hanged by the Führer’s direct order? And to what extent does he embody German Resistance to Hitlerian totalitarianism? Dark and mysterious figure of the History of World War II, Wilhelm Canaris was no less important, in particular because of his action at the head of Third Reich counter-intelligence.However, unlike other Wehrmacht superior officers such as Wilhelm Keitel or Admiral Dönitz, Canaris was a fierce opponent of the Nazi Party ideology and used his influence to defend Germany’s interests against Hitler.
An intelligence officer
Born into a family of German bourgeoisie, nationalist and monarchist, W. Canaris, a polyglot and brilliant young man, chose to pursue a military career in 1905 by integrating the German Navy. Lieutenant serving on the Dresden during the First World War, Canaris fought the British on South American seas before being captured and then escape to Germany in 1916. He enrolled in the intelligence services at that time, notably participating in the surveillance of military movements in Spanish ports. As a nationalist and anti-communist officer, he was fiercely opposed to the Spartakist movement that threatens Berlin in the inter-war period. A year after Hitler’s takeover and at the end of his career, in 1934, he was called by the government to head the Wehrmacht‘s secret service, the Abwehr.
The Abwehr reorganisation
Canaris immediately maintained a direct and respectful relationship with Reinhard Heydrich, a naval officer just like him, right arm of SS leader Heinrich Himmler, and also director of RSHA or Reich Security Office, a complex bureaucracy leading the German repressive apparatus, in particular the famous political police, the Gestapo. While Heydrich headed security services of Hitler’s Germany, Canaris’ role was to ensure the collection and analysis of strategic information for military purposes. Weakened by the conditions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, the Abwehr was reorganized by Canaris in order to make it a complete counterintelligence and sabotage service for the Reich. The multilingual admiral emphasized the importance of languages, drastic selection of personnel, and interdisciplinarity by recruiting military and civilians with varied skills.
Towards the war
In 1939 the outbreak of the Polish campaign marked the beginning of a new world conflict, even harder than the one Admiral Canaris knew in 1914. Hitler made the decision to invade Poland in late May 1939, after the Polish government refused his demands for annexation of the Danzig territory, in order to access East Prussia. Canaris was then trying to demonstrate to the German General Staff including its leader W. Keitel that the war could take a bad turn. The German-Soviet Pact signed by the Nazi government with Stalin’s USSR, however, eliminated the threat of a war on two fronts, facilitating the decision to attack. In early September Hitler finally attacked Poland and World War II began in front of Admiral Canaris’ eyes.
Opposition to Nazism and Hitler
Canaris, fiercely opposing communism and defending the German Nation, could have seen in Hitler’s election a positive aspect especially with the remilitarization of the Rhineland and the virulent anti-Marxism of the new government. However, the admiral rejected the brutal methods of Hitler’s regime. The Eastern territorial expansion of Nazi Germany shocked the naval officer by disrespect for war and civilization rules which he considered as key principles. Indeed Heydrich sent out troops of assault, the Einsatzgruppen, to eliminate the “enemies of the Reich”, namely Jews and Gypsies, in the conquered territories of Eastern Europe, engaging in barbaric acts. After the invasion of France, Canaris therefore issued false passports, through his secretary Inga Haag, to Jews and other minorities persecuted to protect them from deportation. The Führer’s attitude towards his generals, and in particular the evictions based on false files of generals Von Fritsch and Von Blomberg, also represented a central element in Canaris’ opposition to the German leader.
Tensions with the SS
Heydrich and his security services were also trying to control the German society and closely monitor all the Reich dignitaries. In particular, Heydrich played a central role in the elimination of the SA leaders in 1934, during the “Night of the Long Knives”, to ensure the predominance of the SS organization. If Canaris had cordial relations with Heydrich, he rejected his barbaric and violent methods. Heydrich for his part suspected Canaris of anti-Nazi opinions, and tried to constitute a file concerning the Admiral. SS intelligence service, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), also found many leaks towards the Allies regarding military operations since 1940, and Heydrich saw it as an action of Canaris’ subordinates. Tensions between SS superior officers, notably between Heydrich and Himmler himself, and between SS and Nazi party leaders, for example with Secretary Martin Bormann, preserved however the Abwehr and his leader from a frontal attack. In May 1942, a Czech commando parachuted from London assassinated Heydrich, who was also Protector of Bohemia-Moravia. The Czech government in exile in London was trying to make a demonstration in order to revive the local resistance, but English intelligence services also strongly pushed the operation to be effective. Historians thus question the hypothetical goal of protecting a “mole” that Heydrich was dangerously close to.
Was it Canaris?
From opposition to conspiracy
The Sudeten crisis of 1938 had been a first occasion for Canaris and other German military leaders, including his assistant Hans Oster, to prepare plans to dismiss Hitler, seen as a foolish ruler.In early 1942, before Heydrich’s death, the Gestapo tapped some of Canaris’ collaborators. Suspicious testimonies were accumulated and Heydrich’s successor, Kaltenbrunner, conducted further investigations on the Abwehr. A close collaborator of Canaris, Dohnanyi, was thus arrested at the premises of the Abwehr in April 1943. After the fall of Mussolini, Germany invaded Italy which had signed an armistice with the Allies, who have just invaded Sicily. The SD found confidential documents there indicating relations of mutual understanding between the Abwehr and Italian partisans whereas Canaris had falsely reassured Hitler about Italy loyalty. In 1944 a resistance circle in the Berlin high society was infiltrated by Gestapo agents who discovered Abwehr officers. Hitler finally lost confidence in Canaris and in February 1944, the Abwehr was absorbed by the SS administration and Canaris was placed under house arrest. On July 20, 1944, Hitler escaped a bomb that was prepared to kill him while he was examining maps with his generals at the General Headquarters of Rastenburg, East Prussia, in his famous den nicknamed Wolfsschanze. That was the Walkyrie Operation.
A tragic end
The conspirators of the Walkyrie Operation wanted to kill Hitler to overthrow the Nazi regime and establish a conservative dictatorship, or eventually restoring the monarchy. They hoped to make peace with the Allies while continuing the war against the Soviet Union. Among them were several senior officers including retired General Ludwig Beck and General Hans Speidel, Chief of Staff for the famous Erwin Rommel, who was informed of the plot without involvement. The central figure of the operation was Claus von Stauffenberg, a witness of SS brutality in Russia, opposed to Nazism. After the failed attack of July 20, 1944 against Hitler, in a period of acute paranoia, the Gestapo officially arrested Canaris on July 23. With a few collaborators, he was transferred to the Flössenburg concentration camp. The fallen admiral was subjected to various degrading treatments and physically exhausted, but he did not reveal any strategic information to his jailers and even managed to obtain news from outside. In April, Hitler personally ordered Operation Walkyrie conspirators execution. Canaris was hanged on April 9, 1945, in a Germany that has been ravaged by the war and that he failed to save from a deadly ideology. In the mean time, the discovery of Canaris’ diaries by Kaltenbrunner’s investigators confirmed his knowledge of various machinations to overthrow Hitler. Pushed by religious and moral sentiments, acting as a man of values, Canaris risked his career and his life to protect personalities of the Jewish community including Rabbi Yosef Schneersohn, thinker of the Chabad movement, but also simple civilians in Poland or France. More than half a century after his execution, the Yad Vashem memorial is still studying the possibility of declaring him “Righteous among the Nations” …
PLM
Books
- Brissaud (André), Canaris. Le petit amiral prince de l’espionnage allemand (1887-1945), Paris, Perrin, 1970
Press articles
- Decaux (Alain), “Le mystère Canaris”, in Les dossiers d’Alain Decaux, 1986, Antenne 2
- Smith (David), “Why my friends felt they had to kill Hitler”, in The Guardian, 2004
- Stabile (Alberto), “La spia di Hitler che Israel vuole tra i Giusti”, in La Repubblica, 2009
