Hitler's Spy Chief (18 page)

Within a few months Canaris had concentrated in his hands litde formal power but immense informal influence, which was, as always, far more effective. Hardly any decision involving Germany and Spain did not pass through his hands. Nor was such influence limited to those two countries. Canaris, who by this stage was actively involved in the plans to coordinate
aid with Italy, even managed to persuade Mussolini to write to the German ambassador in Rome asking that the German intelligence chief be given negotiating as opposed to observer status in conversations involving Italian aid to Spain. This development swiftly resulted in far closer cooperation between Italy and Germany than had hitherto taken place.

Collaboration between the two countries was now to be forged on the anvil of aid to Spain. Hitherto Canaris had been – for all his personal rapport with Roatta and affection for Italy – wary of too close an involvement on the political, as opposed to intelligence, plane with the Italians. Indeed, the Abwehr had supplied weapons through London to the Abyssinian insurgents in 1935.
17
(Canaris always feared that unilateral action by Italy was an unfortunate example for Germany, which the Nazis would inevitably be eager to one day imitate.) But Spain, more than Abyssinia, was the litmus test for those who saw Bolshevism as the enemy and the scale of Soviet intervention in Spain was a dramatic warning of Moscow's ambitions and capabilities.

Diplomatic relations between Berlin and Rome now warmed up at a cracking pace. No longer would Roatta ask his Austrian counterpart, Lahousen, to peer over the Alps to see what he could discover about German military strength. By November the ‘Pact of Steel', with its secret provisions giving support to Italy in the Mediterranean and Germany in Eastern Europe, was signed and Italy's and Germany's fates were seemingly irreversibly linked. As Italy became more and more embroiled in the conflict, she became less and less capable of independent diplomatic action. France and Britain began to isolate her, throwing Rome into Berlin's welcoming arms.

At a stroke, the intervention in Spain, as well as eventually stalling the tide of Communism in that country, also sealed the Italo-German alliance. By the time Canaris sat down with the Italian foreign minister Ciano on 6 December 1936, a ‘methodical and effective programme for the future' was virtually worked out. While Germany sent the Condor
Legion, Mussolini began to send well-equipped fascist militia to cooperate with the Spanish army. By the beginning of 1937, this force equated to an infantry division of 50,000 men, though after initial victories it was spectacularly routed by the International Brigades on the Guadalajara front. Given that one of the International Brigades in this action was composed of German Communists and Jews, this gave the western liberal media much to crow over the Italian intervention.

Even the nationalist soldiery made fun of the Italians. In this difficult situation, Canaris forbade any criticisms of the Italians among his officers and travelled frequendy to Spain to iron out disagreements, actively encouraging the senior officers of the Condor Legion and the Italians to fraternise even when they were barely on speaking terms with each other.

On the whole, the German infiltration was far more subtle, and while German ordnance and anti-aircraft weapons were extensively tried out in Spain, German personnel were sworn to strict secrecy. It was related at the time that a few officers who had talked to their families about the mission had been arrested and sentenced to death for treason. Later, with the war going more favourably, Franco was able to make the tentative suggestion to Canaris that the Condor Legion be withdrawn. There was never to be any secret military alliance between Hitler and Franco, though in April 1939 Canaris would be entrusted with the mission of persuading Franco to join the Anti-Comintern pact. Nevertheless, even after military aid of 5 billion Reichmarks, described as an ‘unconditional gift' to Spain, Franco would never be a German stooge and his policy would be one of subde insubordination: a policy in which he was ably assisted by Canaris.

As Franco himself pointed out in the decree establishing his authority on 19 April 1937: ‘As initiator of the historic epoch in which Spain will fulfil its destiny … the Caudillo will exercise absolute authority … The Caudillo is responsible to God and to History.'
18

Thus, while adhering to the Anti-Comintern Pact, Franco also courted France, promising Paris neutrality in the event of a war between France
and Germany in return for the end of French aid to the Republicans. As von Weizsäcker commented to the Spanish ambassador when the latter was called into the German foreign minstry to explain this
démarche:
‘When he alluded to the continuity of Spanish policy, I observed to him that we had nevertheless been somewhat astonished at the haste with which Spain had promised France to remain neutral in the critical days of September 1938.'
19
Canaris would have briefed Franco fully on the European situation and it was Canaris' firm view that Spain should keep out of any impending European war. In any event German supplies would be cut back as Berlin deployed all available material to central Europe.

As the crisis in Europe developed, the conflict in Spain lost the character of a civil war and became more and more the batdeground of powerful foreign interests. It was perhaps only to be expected that the intelligence chiefs of both the Soviet Union and Germany should become personally involved. While Canaris, disguised as the Argentine Guillermo, travelled between his various agents in the peninsula, the Soviet spy chief Jan Karlowich Bersin was operating in the guise of the military attaché Colonel Gorjew in the Soviet Embassy in Madrid.
20

Already the Abwehr had set up a station in Algeciras to monitor Soviet agents and activities under Korvettenkapitän Wilhelm Leissner (cover name Colonel Gustav Lenz). This station rapidly began uncovering Communist agents, especially those linked to Soviet companies exporting arms to Spain from London and Holland. In the Hague, they found a powerful Soviet network of arms traders under the control of General Walther Krivitski. The Spanish Civil War was offering a unique and unprecedented opportunity to infiltrate agents across Europe, and the Soviet Union embraced the chance with vigour. Working closely with the Gestapo, the Abwehr stations began rolling up enemy networks with the utmost ruthlessness. On the other hand, Eberhard Funk, one of Canaris' best agents, who supplied useful information on Republican forces, was caught and shot.

Unfortunately for Canaris' long-term plans, one agent of the Comintern he failed to unmask was the correspondent of the
Times
attached to General Franco's forces, Kim Philby. Philby was to play a significant role in derailing all of Canaris' attempts to help bring about an Anglo-German understanding during the Second World War. Krivitski, Canaris' opponent in Holland, almost identified Philby when he told the Foreign Office after he defected to the US that Moscow had an ‘Englishman who was sent to Spain as a journalist.'

In Spain, Philby – already a recruited Soviet agent complete with ciphers – made the acquaintance of the Abwehr and saw how influential the organisation was. It was clear to his keen mind that Franco was winning the war on account of German support and advice and Anglo-Saxon capital. In his attempt to supply his Communist masters with information he made all possible efforts to ingratiate himself with the German officers attached to Franco's headquarters.

One of the German officers in Spain, Ulrich von der Osten, (codename Don Julio)
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was visited often by Philby, who even tried to insinuate himself into the German's company by effecting an introduction to his English lover Bunny Doble. Philby would later claim that von der Osten was far more important than he was and that the German regularly invited him to ‘Abwehr headquarters', a fantastic exaggeration as the Convento de las Esclavas in Burgos where Philby went was a logistics depot. Von der Osten was relatively junior and only tangentially linked to the Abwehr, but his acquaintance gave Philby the chance to pose as an expert on German intelligence, elevating the unsuspecting von der Osten into a senior Abwehr officer. This would be something that would prove to be of extreme importance in Philby's soon-to-be flourishing career in British intelligence.

It was thanks to these encounters in Spain that Philby could be considered a suitable officer to evaluate intelligence from Canaris during the war: the man the Soviets considered the ‘most dangerous man in Europe'. Had the admiral known how decisive Philby would be in sabotaging his
later plans, he would have doubtless proceeded with more ruthlessness against the
Times
correspondent. There is some circumstantial evidence that the Abwehr had its suspicions, but naturally could not easily proceed against the correspondent of what was then the most prestigious newspaper in the world. Nevertheless, on his first trip to Spain as a journalist, Philby had been arrested in Cordoba and only just managed to swallow his cipher, which was made of specially treated rice paper.
22

The Abwehr would have seen the file concerning the arrest and may even have provoked it. Together with the Gestapo, they advised the Spanish police on foreigners in Spain. But at that time, the thought of war between England and Germany seemed remote while the struggle with the Soviet Union was just beginning to crystallise. Abwehr and British intelligence agents cooperated with each other, exchanging information on the Soviet networks in the country. The idea of a future alliance between England and Moscow would have struck most people in both Germany and England at that time as absurd.

But as the Spanish war ground on to its conclusion barely weeks before the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, it proved the backdrop to a series of seismic shifts of the European diplomatic plates. As Hitler focussed more on his ambitions in central Europe, Spain came to play the role of a useful source of continuing tension. As Hitler would later declare during the military conference of 5 November 1937: ‘A total victory for Franco is not desirable in the German interest and we have a greater interest in the war continuing.'
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Canaris was under no illusions that German policy aimed to defeat the Republicans while leaving Franco dependent on Germany. While the war in Spain continued, it afforded some distraction from Hitler's moves on the Sudetenland. At the same time, Hitler calculated that by involving Mussolini more and more in the affairs of the peninsula, Italy would no longer be in any position to resist Germany's designs on Austria.

As the storm in Europe began to gather momentum, Canaris
found increasing solace in his tours of Spain. He found Spain a welcome distraction from the events of growing crisis in central Europe. For Canaris there was a ‘constant exhilaration' associated with Spain. He loved Spain, not because of its sights or landscape, but because he sensed an empathy with its soul and character. His staff noted how his spirits rose when he was in the Iberian peninsula. The ruinous Spanish roads, the undeveloped, in some areas almost feudal, conditions seemed so remote from his homeland of modern Germany and yet thanks to his superb command of the Spanish language, his unteutonic appearance and his intelligence, he could pass as a Spaniard whose home these worn sierras, windowless churches and mud-built villages were.

If Spain was to underline the fault-lines in European ideological conflict, it would impress upon Canaris how strongly drawn he was by a culture which was not German. In the long months of visiting little wayside inns, savouring southern dishes and contemplating the near-impenetrable gloom of great cathedrals, Canaris may well have reflected on the irony that though he was increasingly a Spaniard-manqué, it was the very fact of his being a German which allowed him his power and influence in the peninsula. But the loyal servant of the German state and the German patriot were about to collide as the focus of diplomatic and military activity moved away from the dusty plains of Spain and towards the snow-clad peaks of the eastern Alps.

CHAPTER SEVEN

FALLEN BASTIONS

War means a catastrophe far greater and beyond comprehension for Germany and all mankind in the event of the victory of this Nazi system
.

CANARIS, QUOTED BY LAHOUSEN,
SECRET DEBRIEFING TO BRITISH INTELLIGENCE
1946
1

As Germany and the Soviet Union became more and more embroiled in an intelligence duel in Spain, Soviet and German agents were increasingly pitting their wits against each other in other parts of Europe. The relationship between the German army and the Soviet military inevitably continued to deteriorate.

In barely ten years, it had gone from fulsome cooperation to mutual suspicion, reinforced by Hitler's denunciation of the secret training treaty of 1926 and his unwinding of all the former Chief of the General Staff, von Seeckt's, careful networks of cooperation.
2
The two biggest armies in the world had been forcibly separated and arranged in opposite camps. But it remained one of Hitler's obsessions that his army had never abandoned the policy of secret understanding with the Russian army that had prevailed in the Weimar republic under the inspiration of von Seeckt. Hitler was haunted that the two armies would preserve a sympathy that would one day turn them against their respective regimes.

As Ian Colvin speculated: ‘Suppose then that the German and Russian generals ever met each other secretly and complained: “We soldiers understand each other – it is these two political systems, Bolshevism and National Socialism, which make our people enemies”.'
3

The military training agreement of 1926 had been signed on the German side by General von Seeckt.
4
The Russian signatory was Marshal Tuchachewski, a distinguished officer, trained in the Czar's army and the embodiment of the Russian military tradition. Tuchachewski had represented his country at the funeral of George V in February 1936. The Abwehr received intelligence that while in London he had secredy met emissaries of the White Russian, General Miller. On his way back to Moscow, the Abwehr also noted that he had met with some White Russian émigrés in Berlin. Significantly, though the Marshal was expected to return to London for the coronation of George VI, he was posted to an obscure Volga command.