German Military Leaders/Nazi Era/Canaris

"Admiral Wilhelm Canaris"

First, the Abwehr was the term used for the German military intelligence service of the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces.* Since military intelligence is clandestine by its very nature, anti-Nazi conspirators were able to remain concealed to a great extent from Nazi agents. That does not mean Abwehr personnel were above suspicion. There were a number of important men in the anti-Nazi resistance within the Abwehr, but this article is about the head of the intelligence branch. As I like to mention at times, these articles are brief and basic, but if something strikes your interest, please go to your local library and see what they have on the person or subject.

Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was born in what is now a part of Dortmund in the German state of Westfalen (Westphalia). He served in the German navy in World War One, and he later served in the navy again after the war, although he first became involved in rightwing paramilitary operations. Multilingual, including fluent English, Canaris had been temporarily involved in a small intelligence operation during the war, a field he again visited in the early 1930s, and indeed a bit later, Hitler appointed him as the head of the Abwehr. Like many of the upper level German military people, Canaris grew concerned about what seemed to be Hitler's intention to attack Czechoslovakia in 1938, and he contacted the British with the information in hopes of stiffening their resolve to oppose Hitler, and informed them too, of his desire to then lead anti-war and anti-Nazi forces to overthrow Hitler,** but the ceding of the German areas of Czechoslovakia to Hitler by the British and French boosted Hitler's popularity even more, and stopped the German resistance from taking action.

During the German invasion of Poland, Canaris learned about German atrocities against Polish Jews and other Polish civilians, which only heightened his desire to remove Hitler and the other Nazi leaders, but there was little he could do with Poland on the brink of defeat, and Hitler's popularity soaring. Canaris seems to have remained in contact with the British well into the war, but the secretive nature of the intelligence services of both countries, and the need to prevent the Nazis from finding out about his contacts, leaves much unclear, although Canaris had hopes of somehow getting rid of Hitler and then signing a peace deal with the Western Allies, through the British.*** Canaris had to play at being loyal to Hitler, while simultaneously trying to figure out how to remove him. This was a dangerous game, as Hitler's SS leaders tried to uncover the Abwehr chief's dealings with the British. All of the ins and outs were a prelude to the Cold War espionage/counterespionage. If you are interested in such things, there are several books on the subject and you will not be disappointed by the thrilling maneuvers of all parties involved.

Canaris was also fluent in Spanish and maintained contacts with General Franco's government during the war.**** "Supposedly" he even traveled to Spain for secret meetings with Allied agents, and he also helped shuttle some Jews and resistance people to freedom through that country.

The SD tried to keep tabs on Canaris and the Abwehr, and while there were strong suspicions about Canaris playing both sides, the SD could never come up with exact evidence against the admiral or others in the Abwehr. Nevertheless, the suspicions were enough, and Hitler dismissed Canaris in early 1944 and he was arrested, which kept him from participating in the bomb plot against Hitler in July 1944. The many arrests and interrogations of Canaris associates in the aftermath of the attempt on Hitler's life brought no true evidence against the wily admiral, but he was kept in prison in Berlin. In February of 1945 Canaris was sent to a concentration camp and was hanged there in April 1945, just two weeks before the camp was freed by American troops. During the Nuremberg Trials witnesses and evidence were presented demonstrating how Canaris had tried to oppose Hitler from his position as head of the Abwehr.

* Abwehr literally means "defense," but in this sense it was used with the notion of "information on other nations obtained for the defense of Germany." For those studying German, the noun is feminine; thus, "die Abwehr."

** The interesting thing about the possible German invasion of Czechoslovakia and the anti-war plotters is, Hitler certainly seems to have been bluffing about an attack on the Czechs to frighten Britain and France into giving him the German areas of Czechoslovakia. (Of course, what would have happened had he not gotten his way? Would he have attacked, lest he be seen as weak?) Canaris, and other plotters who contacted the British, only reinforced the idea of the possibility of a German attack, since they themselves believed Hitler was committed to such an attack. This truly DID scare the hell out of the British, who were far from ready for war, and prompted them to try to find a peaceful way out of the situation, rather than taking a hard line stance, as was desired by the German plotters. Thus Czechoslovakia's German areas became the bargaining chip and Hitler's acceptance of a discussion over the situation made him appear to be more moderate than the conspirators had indicated to the British. This made the British view future information from the conspirators with some amount of skepticism. Further, during the whole Czech crisis, the British had wondered how serious the conspirators really were about removing Hitler, or if they even had the capability of doing so. A valid question.

*** The Nazi SS had its own intelligence branch, the Sicherheitsdienst (commonly known by its initials "SD"), which was a rival to the Wehrmacht's Abwehr, and its leaders would have loved to discredit the Abwehr and to thus advance their own desire for the SD to become Germany's prime intelligence service.

**** General Franco, while a fascist-type dictator who had been helped into power by Mussolini and Hitler, kept a certain distance from the two fascist bigwigs, and he never committed Spain to the Axis side during the war, although attempts were made by both the Italians and Germans to get Spain into the war. Essentially the best he did was allow a Spanish division to be sent to Russia to fight the Soviets, but even then it went and fought as a part of the German army as the 250th Infantry Division, and it was also known as the "Blue Division," after the blue shirts worn by the Spanish Falange/Falangist Party. Franco was a tough negotiator, who was not convinced that it was in Spain's interest to enter the war on the Axis side. I don't recall the exact quote, but after a meeting with Franco, Hitler said something to the effect that he'd rather have a couple of teeth extracted than sit through another session with Franco.

WORD HISTORY:
With-This common word goes back to the Indo European root "wi," which had the notion of "apart, separate." This was expanded to "wi-tero," which emphasized the "separation," as being "more separate, more apart." This gave Old Germanic "withro," which meant "against, opposite" (the notion of "apart, separate" underlies "opposite, against"). This then gave Anglo-Saxon "with," along with the same meaning, but later the meaning began to change, probably influenced by its relative "vidh/vith," from North Germanic (Old Norse), which already had taken the semantic turn to association; that is, "along side, by, near," rather than "against, opposite," although the original meaning still survives in some compounds, like "withstand," "hold out determinedly against something." The meaning "near, along" continues to this day, and eventually replaced the original English word for "with," the now archaic "mid," although it is still in use in "midwife;" that is, "a woman who is 'with' a woman during childbirth" (close relatives German "mit" and Dutch "met" both mean "with" ). "With" has relatives in the other Germanic languages: German "wider" (=against), but German also has "wieder," Low German has "weder" and Dutch has "weer," all of which trace back to the same Germanic root, but they took a semantic turn later on and now mean "again." Danish has "ved" (=by, at), Swedish has "vid (=by, at), Icelandic has "við" (=by, with), and Norwegian has "ved" (=close to, near, at).