Wilhelm Canaris

Wilhelm Canaris
Birth name Wilhelm Franz Canaris
Born 1 January 1887
Aplerbeck, Westphalia, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Died 9 April 1945 (aged 58)
Flossenbürg concentration camp, Bavaria, Nazi Germany
49°44′06″N 12°21′21″E / 49.734958°N 12.35577°E
Allegiance  German Empire
 Weimar Republic
 Nazi Germany
Service/branch  Kaiserliche Marine
 Reichsmarine
Nazi Germany Abwehr
Years of service 1905–44
Rank Admiral
Battles/wars

World War I

World War II
Awards Iron Cross First and Second Class
German Cross in Silver
The Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918
Wehrmacht's Twelve and Twenty-Five Year Long-Service Ribbons.

Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral, and chief of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, from 1935 to 1944. During the Second World War, he was among the military officers involved in the clandestine opposition to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. He was executed in the Flossenbürg concentration camp for the act of high treason.

Early life and First World War

Canaris was born in Aplerbeck (now a part of Dortmund) in Westphalia, the son of Carl Canaris, a rich industrialist, by his marriage to Auguste Popp. Canaris believed that his family was related to the Greek admiral, freedom fighter, and politician Constantine Kanaris, which influenced his decision to join the Imperial German Navy. While on a visit to Corfu, he was given a portrait of the Greek hero which he always kept in his office. But Richard Bassett claims that a genealogical investigation in 1938 showed that Canaris's family was of Northern Italian descent, originally called Canarisi, and had lived in Germany since the 17th century.[1] His grandfather had converted from Roman Catholicism to Lutheranism.

In 1905, aged seventeen, Canaris joined the Imperial Navy and by the outbreak of the First World War was serving on board the cruiser SMS Dresden as an intelligence officer. This was the only warship that managed to evade the British fleet for a prolonged period during the Battle of the Falkland Islands of December 1914, largely due to the excellent deception tactics of Canaris. While anchored in Cumberland Bay, Robinson Crusoe Island, Dresden was trapped and forced to scuttle after the lost Battle of Mas a Tierra with the Royal Navy. Most of the crew were interned in Chile in March 1915, but in August 1915 Canaris escaped, using his fluency in Spanish; with the help of some German merchants he returned to Germany in October 1915, on the way calling at several ports, including one in Great Britain.

Canaris was then given intelligence work and sent to Spain, where he survived a British assassination attempt. Returning to active service, he ended the war as a celebrated U-boat commander from late 1917 in the Mediterranean and was credited with eighteen sinkings. He spoke English fluently (as well as four other foreign languages), and as a naval officer of the old school had great respect for Great Britain's Royal Navy, despite the rivalry between the two nations.

Interwar years

During the German Revolution of 1918–1919, Canaris helped organise the formation of freikorps paramilitary units in order to suppress the Communist revolutionary movements that were attempting to spread the Russian Revolution into central European nations. He was also a member of the military court that tried (and mostly acquitted) those involved in the assassination of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. He was appointed to the adjutancy of defence minister Gustav Noske.[2] In 1919, he married Erika Waag, also the child of an industrialist. They had two daughters, Eva and Brigitte.

Canaris, while a Korvettenkapitän

Canaris remained in the military after the war, first as a member of the Freikorps and then as part of the Reichsmarine. He was promoted rapidly, becoming a Captain in 1931, the Executive Officer of the cruiser Berlin and then the Commanding Officer of the battleship Schlesien. At this time, he became involved in intelligence work again. He made a series of contacts with high-ranking German officers, politicians and industrialists for the purpose of creating order in German politics. During his Freikorps period, he was on intimate terms with people such as Horst von Pflugk-Harttung who were accused of political assassinations of leaders of the left, and was even accused himself, although later acquitted, of being involved in the assassinations and other crimes (such as his alleged involvement in Rosa Luxembourg's "trial"). During the 1930–33 period, Canaris was following a course quite parallel to the one followed by the future Nazi Party leaders although never a party member himself.

After Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Canaris was made head of the Abwehr, Germany's official military intelligence agency, on 1 January 1935. Later that year, he was promoted Rear Admiral. During the period 1935–36, he made contacts in Spain to organise a German spy network there, due to his excellent Spanish.

Until 1937 he was a supporter of Hitler's rule, considering the Nazi movement to be the only available political entity capable of stopping the spread of Communism from the influence of the Soviet Union. However beginning in 1938 he started to radically alter his thoughts on the nature of the Third Reich, and Hitler's policies and plans.

He tried to hinder Hitler's attempts to absorb Czechoslovakia and he also advised Franco not to permit German passage through Spain for the purposes of capturing Gibraltar. Arguments used by Franco to counter Hitler's demands for German access to Spanish territory were influenced directly by Canaris, who met with a number of his top advisors.[3] Additionally, a significant sum of money had been deposited by the British in Swiss accounts for Franco and his generals to maintain their neutrality.[4]

Munich Agreement

During the 1938 crisis over Czechoslovakia that culminated in the Munich Agreement, Canaris was together with the army chief of staff, General Ludwig Beck and the Foreign Office’s state secretary Ernst von Weizsäcker, a leader of the "anti-war" group in the German government, which was determined to avoid a war in 1938 that it felt Germany would lose.

This group was not necessarily committed to the overthrow of the regime, but was loosely allied to another, more radical group, the "anti-Nazi" faction centered around Colonel Hans Oster and Hans Bernd Gisevius, which wanted to use the crisis as an excuse for executing a putsch to overthrow the Nazi regime.[5]

His most audacious attempt was in planning, with Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin, to capture and eliminate Hitler and the entire Nazi party before the invasion of Czechoslovakia. At this particular moment, von Kleist visited Britain secretly and discussed the situation with British MI6 and some high-ranking politicians. There, the name of Canaris became widely known as the executive hand of von Kleist in the event of an anti-Nazi plot. The high-ranking German military leaders believed that if Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, or any other country, then Britain would declare war on Germany. MI6 was of the same opinion. The British declaration of war would have given the General Staff, in their belief, both the pretext and support for an overthrow of Hitler.[6]

The British reaction, however, to Hitler's demands on the Sudetenland was more cautious. At a meeting with Hitler in Munich, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier chose diplomacy over war. Munich was a severe disappointment for Kleist and Canaris. It gave Hitler's international reputation an important boost for two reasons: one, he was able to play the part of a man of reason and compromise; and two, he could boast that his predictions that Great Britain and France would not respond with war had proven to be correct. There are claims that Canaris, who was extremely shocked by this 'dishonest and stupid decision' (his own words), decided to be cautious and wait for a better time to act against Hitler.

In January 1939, Canaris manufactured the "Dutch War Scare", which gripped the British government. By 23 January 1939 the British government received information to the effect that Germany intended to invade the Netherlands in February 1939 with the aim of using Dutch air-fields to launch strategic bombing offensive intended to achieve a "knock-out" blow against Britain by razing British cities to the ground.[7] All this information was false, and it was intended by Canaris to achieve a change in British foreign policy.[8] In this, Canaris was successful, and the "Dutch War Scare" played a major role in causing Chamberlain to make the "continental commitment" (i.e. sending a large British ground force to the defence of France) in February 1939.[9]

Nevertheless, it appears likely that MI6 maintained contact with Canaris even after the Munich Agreement signed on 30 September 1938. When Winston Churchill came to power after the resignation of Chamberlain in May 1940, Canaris' hopes were renewed, given the new Prime Minister's strong position against Hitler.

World War II

Reinhard Heydrich, who as a naval cadet had served under Canaris and had become his protégé, friend, and neighbour, was at the time the leader of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and now became Canaris's rival. The posting of Canaris to the Abwehr is supposed to have had the secret approval of the dynamic Heydrich, who preferred him to his predecessor, Commander Pfatz, who had been out of step with the Nazi party. Heydrich wanted an Abwehr which could be controlled and was keeping a close eye on Canaris. Outwardly Canaris gave the appearance of siding with his friend Heydrich, but this was in order to give the Abwehr a chance to grow and become a considerable force. According to Bassett, Canaris was deeply frustrated by a briefing given by Hitler before the attack on Poland.[10] During this briefing, he learned about a series of exterminations which had been ordered and was required to take notes on them. These notes, the book states, were sent to the British intelligence service, MI6. After the outbreak of war between Germany and Poland, in September 1939, Canaris visited the front and witnessed examples of the war crimes committed by the SS Einsatzgruppen, including the burning of the synagogue in Będzin. He also received reports from Abwehr agents about several incidents of mass murder throughout Poland.

After hearing reports of and even witnessing massacres in Poland, on 12 September 1939 Canaris visited Hitler's headquarters train, at the time in Upper Silesia, to register his objection to the atrocities; before getting to see Hitler he met General Wilhelm Keitel whom he informed: "I have information that mass executions are being planned in Poland, and that members of the Polish nobility and the Roman Catholic bishops and priests have been singled out for extermination." Keitel warned Canaris to go no further with his protest, as the detailed plan of atrocities came directly from Hitler himself.[11]

Shocked by these incidents, Canaris began working more actively, at increasing risk to himself, to overthrow Hitler's régime, although he also cooperated with the SD to create a decoy. This made it possible for him to pose as a trusted man for some time. He was promoted to full Admiral in January 1940. With his subordinate Erwin Lahousen, he formed a circle of like-minded Wehrmacht officers, many of whom would be executed or forced to commit suicide after the failure of the 20 July Plot. At a conference of senior officers in Berlin, in December 1941, Canaris is quoted as saying "the Abwehr has nothing to do with the persecution of Jews....no concern of ours, we hold ourselves aloof from it".[12] It has been speculated that Canaris was in contact with British intelligence during this time, despite the war between the two countries. It is thought that during the invasion of Russia, he received a detailed report of all the enemy positions that was known only to the British. The head of MI6, Stewart Menzies, who shared Canaris’s strong anti-communist beliefs, praised Canaris’s courage and bravery at the end of the war.

In June 1942, Canaris sent eight Abwehr agents to the East Coast of the United States as part of Operation Pastorius. The mission was to sabotage American economic targets and demoralize the civilian population inside the United States. However, two weeks later, all were arrested by the FBI thanks to two Abwehr agents betraying the mission to America. Because Abwehr agents were arrested in civilian clothes, they were subject to court martial by a military tribunal in Washington D.C. All were found guilty and sentenced to death. Two others who cooperated with the FBI received sentences of life imprisonment instead. The others were executed by the electric chair in the District of Columbia jail. Due to the embarrassing failure of Operation Pastorius, no sabotage attempt was ever made in the United States.

After 1942, Canaris visited Spain frequently and was probably in contact with British agents from Gibraltar. In 1943, while in occupied France, Canaris is said to have made contact with British agents: he was conducted blindfolded to the Convent of the Nuns of the Passion of our Blessed Lord, 127 Rue de la Santé, where he met the local head of the British Intelligence Services, code name "Jade Amicol", in reality Colonel Claude Olivier. Canaris wanted to know the terms for peace if Germany got rid of Hitler. Churchill's reply, sent to him two weeks later, was simple: "Unconditional surrender".[13]

During Heydrich's posting in Prague, a serious incident put him and Canaris in open conflict. Heydrich requested that Canaris put the Abwehr under SD and SS control. Canaris appeared to retreat and handled the situation diplomatically, but there was no immediate effect on the Abwehr for the time being. In fact, Canaris had established another two links with MI6 — one via Zurich, and the other via Spain and Gibraltar. It is also possible that Vatican contacts provided a third route to his British counterparts.

Canaris also intervened to save a number of victims of Nazi persecution, including saving Jews, some by getting them to Spain.[14] Many such people were given token training as Abwehr "agents" and then issued papers allowing them to leave Germany. One notable person he is said to have assisted was the then Lubavitcher Rebbe in Warsaw, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn.[15] This has led Chabad Lubavitch to campaign for his recognition as a Righteous Gentile by the Yad VaShem Holocaust memorial.[16]

Foiling Hitler's plot to kidnap Pope Pius XII

Colonel Wessel von Freytag-Loringhoven's son Niki, testifying in Munich in 1972 and in recent revelations, reports that Canaris was involved in the foiling of Hitler's plot to kidnap Pope Pius XII.[17][18] Colonel Freytag-Loringhoven was a subordinate of Canaris, and his son, Niki, reported that within days of the arrest of Benito Mussolini as ordered by King Victor Emmanuel III, the Führer commanded the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (the Third Reich's Security Headquarters) to retaliate against the Italians via the kidnapping or murder of Pius XII and King Victor Emmanuel.[17]

In 2009, Niki von Freytag-Loringhoven, then 72, came forward to reveal new details about the plan, reporting that on 29 and 30 July 1943 his father and Erwin von Lahousen, who were employed in the section of German intelligence dealing mainly with sabotage, attended a meeting in Venice where Canaris informed the Italian General, Cesare Amè, of the plot.[17][18] General Amè relayed the news which allowed the plot to be foiled.[17] The Italian paper Avvenire maintains that the younger Freytag von Loringhoven's accounts agree with von Lahousen's Nuremberg war crimes trials deposition.[17]

Downfall and execution

Flossenburg concentration camp, Arrestblock-Hof: Memorial to members of German resistance executed on 9 April 1945

The evidence that he was playing a double game grew, and at the insistence of Heinrich Himmler, who had suspected him for a long time, Hitler dismissed Canaris from the Abwehr in February 1944, replacing him with Walter Schellenberg and merging most of the Abwehr with the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). Some weeks later, Canaris was put under house arrest, preventing him from taking part directly in the 20 July Plot, 1944, to assassinate Hitler.

However, just after the Stalingrad disaster, Canaris had already planned a coup against the entire Nazi regime in which many Nazi officials would be accused for known crimes, while Hitler would be arrested as an insane person based on his exposure to mustard gas in World War I, then imprisoned for life. After the 20 July Plot, Canaris's long-time rival, SS leader Heinrich Himmler discovered that one of the officers involved in the plot, a friend of Canaris who had committed suicide, had kept the plot details in a metal box. The investigations also revealed that a number of other assassination plots (possibly another 10 or 15) had been activated but had failed and were covered up at the last minute. Most people who participated in these plots were people Canaris knew well. In the aftermath of the attempt on Hitler's life, the Gestapo found no direct evidence tying Canaris to the plot, but his close association to many of the conspirators that were arrested was enough to seal his fate.

Himmler kept Canaris alive for some time because he planned to use him secretly as a future contact with the British in order to come to an agreement to end the war with himself as the leader of Germany. Hitler also wanted to keep him alive in order to get the names of additional conspirators. When Himmler's plan failed to materialize, he received the approval of Hitler to send Canaris to an SS drumhead court-martial presided over by Otto Thorbeck with Walter Huppenkothen as prosecutor that sentenced him to death.

“ I always believed in National Socialism but never in Hitler. ”
– Quote attributed to Canaris

Together with his deputy General Hans Oster, military jurist General Karl Sack, theologian Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Ludwig Gehre, Canaris was humiliated before witnesses and then executed on 9 April 1945, in the Flossenbürg concentration camp, just weeks before the end of the war. He was led to the gallows naked. The night before his execution, in a coded message tapped out on the wall of his cell and heard by another prisoner, Canaris denied he was a traitor and said he acted out of duty to his country.[19]

Erwin von Lahousen and Hans Bernd Gisevius, two of Canaris' main subordinates, survived the war and testified during the Nuremberg Trials about Canaris' courage in opposing Hitler. Lahousen recalled a conversation between Canaris and General Wilhelm Keitel in which Canaris warned Keitel that the German military would be held responsible for the atrocities in Poland. Keitel responded that they had been ordered by Hitler. Keitel, who also survived the war, was found guilty of war crimes at Nuremberg and hanged.

Decorations and awards

During his military career, Canaris had been decorated with the Iron Cross First and Second Class, the Silver German Cross, the Cross of Honour and the Wehrmacht Twelve and Twenty-Five Year Long-Service Ribbons:

In popular culture

References

  1. ↑ Bassett, Richard (2005). Hitler's Spy Chief: The Wilhelm Canaris Mystery. Cassell. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-304-36718-4. His name was of Italian origin, as was later shown in an elaborate family tree
  2. ↑ Wilhelm Canaris. LeMO: Lebendiges virtuelles Museum Online
  3. ↑ Bassett, Richard (2005). Hitler's Spy Chief: The Wilhelm Canaris Mystery. Cassell. p. 200. ISBN 978-0-304-36718-4. Franco's position at Hendaye was totally influenced by Canaris
  4. ↑ Bassett, Richard (2005). Hitler's Spy Chief: The Wilhelm Canaris Mystery. Cassell. p. 201. ISBN 978-0-304-36718-4. Churchill ... had ordered 10 million dollars to be deposited ... to 'persuade them of the sweets of neutrality'
  5. ↑ Müller, Klaus-Jürgen "The Structure and Nature of the National Conservative Opposition in Germany up to 1940" pages 133-178 from Aspects of the Third Reich edited by H.W. Koch, Macmillan: London, United Kingdom pages 162-163 & 166-167.
  6. ↑ Bassett, Richard (2005). Hitler's Spy Chief: The Wilhelm Canaris Mystery. Cassell. p. 159. ISBN 978-0-304-36718-4. Hitler, about to be betrayed by nearly all his generals, was facing a well-thought-out coup d'etat
  7. ↑ Watt, D.C. How War Came, New York: Pantheon Books, 1989 page 101
  8. ↑ Watt, D.C. How War Came, New York: Pantheon Books, 1989 pages 103–104
  9. ↑ Watt, D.C. How War Came, New York: Pantheon Books, 1989 pages 102–103
  10. ↑ Hitler's Spy Chief: The Wilhelm Canaris Mystery, by Richard Bassett, 2005, Cassell, London, ISBN 0-304-36718-4.
  11. ↑ Gilbert, Sir Martin, The Second World War: A Complete History, p. 8, MacMillan 2004
  12. ↑ MI6 Sub-section Vf files NA HW 1/327
  13. ↑ Is Paris Burning by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, published by Pocket Books, 1977
  14. ↑ Segev, Tom, The Good Germans, Haaretz, Apr. 2, 2010
  15. ↑ Altein, R, Zaklikofsky, E, Jacobson, I: "Out of the Inferno: The Efforts That Led to the Rescue of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn of Lubavitch from War Torn Europe in 1939–40", page 160. Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, 2002 ISBN 0-8266-0683-0
  16. ↑ Chabad: Make Nazi commander a 'righteous gentile', By MATTHEW WAGNER, jpost.com, Aug 5, 2009.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 MORE PROOF OF HITLER'S PLAN TO KILL PIUS XII: Son of German Intelligence Officer Comes Forward, Zenit News June 16, 2009
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Italian newspaper reveals details behind Hitler’s plan to kill Pius XII CBCP News June 17, 2009
  19. ↑ Abshagen, Karl Heinz (1956). Canaris. London: Hutchinson. pp. 252–255.
  20. ↑ Canaris (1954) at the Internet Movie Database

Further reading

External links

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