Hitler's Spy Chief (16 page)

Meanwhile, the momentum of German rearmament continued. In February, the Abwehr was asked to monitor France, Britain, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Spain for possible reaction to an eventual German announcement of conscription and rearmament. In the first week of March, the French announced they were extending national service from eighteen months to two years. This was the opportunity for which Hitler had been waiting. The announcement on 16 March that the German army
would expand to thirty-six divisions was, as has been written, the ‘epitaph of German disarmament.'
26

The French and British were caught off guard and handsomely
brûl
é but the reaction, in the form of the Stresa Front, offered litde impediment to Germany's plans, though the resulting international hullabaloo afforded Canaris an opportunity, on 29 March, to dictate a directive rather in the style of Nicolai, noting: ‘Times of foreign political tension are a test for intelligence organisations and their abilities. I expect from all ranks their best efforts in the service of the Fatherland.'

There now began a period of rapid transition. The Reichswehr became the Wehrmacht, the Truppenamt the Generalstab and the Reichswehrministerium the Kriegsministerium. The Abwehr did not change its name but its activities and budget expanded. In particular it began to infiltrate potentially hostile foreign agencies by expanding cooperation with friendly intelligence organisations. Canaris now began to establish closer relations with the head of the Hungarian military intelligence and Colonel Roatta, the chief of the Italian service. These officers were all Anglophiles and had insights into French and British intelligence activity that were at that stage denied to Berlin. Here, Canaris, thanks to his naval background, was able to effect formidable connections. He had served with Hungary's regent, Admiral Horthy, in the First World War, while his establishing of close links with Roatta, long neglected by Patzig, came with the blessing of Hitler and Mussolini.

At the same time, the Abwehr, again cooperating with the SD, drew a tight net over French and British agents monitoring German armament firms. The trawl brought several agents to book, including Captain Demphoff, nominally in the pay of the Czechs but whose intelligence was being passed to Paris and London. Demphoff was hanged for treason after he had, in Canaris' words, ‘sacrificed life, honour and the fortunes of his family by betraying the Fatherland.' The net fell also on Marxists, Communists and thousands of other politically unreliable people who were
sacked from jobs in sensitive industries and often rounded up with ruthless efficiency by the Abwehr and SD. In contrast to those who might have imagined the Abwehr to consist solely of dilettantes and patriotic eccentrics, it is as well to recall that at this stage it was proving both a formidable adversary to those intent on prizing military secrets out of Berlin, and an instrument of internal repression. Hotels were now staffed almost exclusively by informers and agents of the SD and Abwehr. Every industrial complex in Germany had its Abwehr representative at board level.

A year later, by the time Hitler came to reoccupy the Rhineland, the Abwehr's reputation was in the ascendant. The events of spring 1936 were to consolidate its position even further. In a meeting with Hitler, early in February 1936, Canaris showed the Führer an invasion plan of Germany jointly prepared by the French and Czechoslovak general staffs. Its immediate effect (though it was later proved a forgery) was to spur Hitler into bringing forward to March his plan to remilitarise the Rhineland. However, before giving his final consent to operation ‘Winter Manoeuvre', he demanded an accurate intelligence assessment of London's possible reaction. Here the Abwehr, to the chagrin of the foreign ministry, proved woefully accurate in its assessment of the British government's reaction. While the service attachés in the embassy in London, having been called in to the Admiralty and shown plans to mobilise the fleet, cabled Berlin tersely: ‘Situation Serious. War 50/50', Canaris assured Hitler that London would not react. His sources, which by this time must have included someone very close to the highest political intelligence circles in London, had made it clear that London would not oppose Hitler's move.

Vindicated by Britain's and France's failure to offer any robust response to this flagrant breach of international agreements, with its unilateral abrogation of the Locarno treaties, Canaris would later draft a memorandum urging service attachés
en poste
to ‘keep their nerve' in times of international tension. Geyr von Schweppenburg, the military attaché in London who had, with his air force and naval colleagues, signed the
illstarred telegram, was unamused. He had always rejected anything more than superficial cooperation with the Abwehr and Admiral Birkner's foreign affairs section. He remained obdurate, noting tersely; ‘I shall remain a gentleman in London'. Unfortunately for Canaris, who must have savoured this moment of victory over his rivals both internal and external, von Schweppenburg would not be
en poste
in London for much longer. Britain was moving more and more towards appeasement and a degree of cooperation was beginning to take place at many levels in the wake of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement a few months earlier, in which London had already given, for those who could see, the brightest of green lights to German rearmament.

Nevertheless, an event was about to take place that hot July which would once again enable Canaris to exploit his strengths: in Spain, a conservative politician by the name of Calvo Sotelo was murdered by Republican policemen. Within days the Spanish Civil War had broken out and Canaris would have a new field for his talents.

CHAPTER SIX

SPAIN

I left him to retain as I shall ever retain the impression of those words exchanged in the noble sombre room of a Spanish palace, majestic as all those proportions are in that land of majesty … I had been in the air of what has always been the salvation of Europe … 1 mean the Spanish Crusade
.

HILAIRE BELLOC
1

The Bishop's Palace in Salamanca in October 1936 resounded to the crack of brisk commands and the zing of spurs on limestone. Here in this great cube of Spanish masonry, all the paraphernalia of armed rebellion had been constructed and stored; ordnance, guard posts, sentries, and horses were, with the more modern instruments of telephone and telegraph, harnessed to the headquarters of the new ‘saviour' of Spain, General Francisco Franco.

The assassination of Calvo Sotelo, leader of the monarchist opposition, had lit the long prepared fuse with the result that within days the army had called for an insurrection against the Republican government. While the army fought successfully in Navarre, Aragon and Galicia, the military insurgents suffered grave setbacks in Madrid and Barcelona. In Tetuan, however, the army of Morocco remained firmly under the control
of General Franco and Franco was now in Salamanca, expecting a certain Latin American, Juan Guillermo, for lunch. According to his papers, Juan Guillermo was an Argentine. Fortunately, the plane that had flown from Stuttgart at high altitude had not needed to refuel in France. Señor Guillermo's seat was among petrol cans in a cabin stripped down to give maximum range. Señor Guillermo was of course Wilhelm Canaris.

Two months earlier, Franco had asked two Germans in Tetuan, Johannes Bernhardt, a businessman and Adolf Langenheim, the Nazi party chief in Morocco, for help in organising an airlift between Tetuan and Seville on the Spanish mainland. Franco's army lacked ships and transport to cross the Strait of Gibraltar. The Spanish air force had declared for the government, and in the navy the crews, mostly Communist, had massacred their officers. Pinned down in Morocco, Franco needed desperately to move his troops to the mainland. Colonel Saenz de Buruga asked Franco: ‘What shall we do if we cannot get the Army of Africa across?' Franco typically replied: ‘We shall do everything that is possible and necessary but not surrender.'
2

Everything possible included asking Mussolini but
Il Duce
, on receiving a telegram from Franco asking for help, scribbled in bold blue pencil on the telegram, ‘NO!'

France, then supplying arms to the Spanish government, was even less inclined. London took the moral high ground of neutrality and awaited developments. At first, Berlin appeared no less indifferent. When Bernhardt and Langenheim arrived on a Lufthansa flight in the German capital, armed with a letter from Franco to Hitler, their reception was distinctly cool. In the foreign ministry in those pre-Ribbentrop days, caution and discretion were still the currency of German diplomacy. Herr Dieckhoff, the director of the political department of the foreign ministry, noted: ‘It is absolutely imperative that the German authorities and the party maintain the utmost reserve in the present state of affairs. Deliveries of arms to the rebels would very soon become known …
our merchant shipping and navy would be heavily compromised.'

Dieckhoff considered the secret delivery of aircraft as ‘impracticable and not at all realistic.'
3
He went further: ‘We might consider allowing Franco's representatives to make agreements here now for when they have attained power. However, even if that eventually happens, the German authorities must for the present remain at a distance from the whole affair.' The German foreign minister von Neurath added in his neat hand in the margin of this memorandum: ‘Precisely'.

Not to be put off, the two Germans went to party headquarters where Gauleiter Böhle of the foreign party organisation introduced them to Rudolf Hess, who sent three party officials with them to Bayreuth, where Hitler was attending a performance of Wagner's ‘Ring' cycle. Langenheim and Bernhardt had to wait until the epic performance of ‘Valkyrie', conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, was over before being ushered into the Führer's presence to deliver the letter from Franco. Hitler received them cordially and then, despite the late hour, immediately summoned Goering, Blomberg and Canaris, who had all been attending the opera, to a meeting to discuss the issues involved in helping Franco.

Both Blomberg and Goering were sceptical of intervention, though Goering later, somewhat artificially, recalled he saw it as an excellent opportunity for his air force to train.
4
Goering, always conscious of relations with the West, wanted to avoid the risk of serious differences with France and Britain. Only Canaris formed an immediate argument in favour of support. He was the Spanish expert and knew the developments of the recent weeks better than most. It was clear to him from the intelligence he had received that Stalin was determined to subvert Spain by bringing the Communists to power. Should Stalin succeed, Canaris argued, south-western Europe would be lost to the Kremlin. France, already in the throes of a popular front government, would rapidly follow suit and Communists would then threaten Germany.

Quietiy but resolutely, Canaris continued to build up the case for
intervention. While Goering thought the military rebellion too uncertain to support, the intelligence chief, having established the wider strategic rationale, developed his theme by dwelling on the unusual personality of Franco. He had got to know Franco very well in Madrid during the course of 1935, when there had been meetings with him and members of the defence ministry to discuss German arms sales to Spain. Like Hitler, he was a man of personal austerity, Canaris said. Like the Führer, Franco did not smoke, did not drink alcohol and avoided involvement with women. Canaris recalled how Franco had told his officers in Morocco: ‘I want neither women nor drinking bouts'. Moroever, Franco was a gifted military leader, a man of rock-like calm and at the age of thirty-three the youngest European general since Napoleon. As Canaris drew this attractive portrait of Spain's ‘saviour' he did not, of course, dwell on Franco's fiercely independent nature, his contempt for ‘foreign systems' nor indeed his firm belief that Spain was superior to any other European state.

Gradually, the fluency and conviction of Canaris' arguments began to tell. Having planted a certain sympathy for Franco at a personal level with Hitler, he proceeded to move with ease to the financial advantages of assisting Franco. There was, Canaris noted quiedy, a chance to earn a not ‘negligible' amount of foreign exchange by supplying arms. Here the old henchman of Zaharoff, Juan March and Ullmann was in his element. The logistics of smuggling in the Iberian peninsula were very familiar to him. Canaris' network covered every city in Europe, including London. He had intelligence that Franco was being backed financially by some important interests in London. These interests would be prepared to pay for German aid and weapons. Spain was a country rich in resources and would also contribute handsomely in the event of a victory.

Like a conjuror whisking rabbits out of a hat, Canaris had yet another card to play. There was a risk that if Germany did not support Franco, Mussolini would eventually support the nationalists and extend Italy's sphere of influence in the Mediterranean without Germany's support.

It is hard to underestimate the effect of such fluid and worldly reasoning on provincial political and military minds, especially as it was doubtless delivered with that gravitas which is the preserve of all great experienced intelligence chiefs. Those who argue that intelligence and spymasters cannot materially affect military events or decisions
5
are unfamiliar with the interplay of rigid military minds on the one hand and subtle masters of elasticity on the other. Canaris' softly spoken
tour d'horizon
is as pure an example of the decisive influence of well-informed and argued intelligence as one can find. By the time the meeting broke up at 4 a.m., Goering and Blomberg had been persuaded to meet the Spanish delegation with Canaris later that day. Canaris had persuaded Hitler that the success of the rebels would depend entirely on the aid Franco received. Hitler's decision to support Franco was therefore to have tangible implications for Spain's future.