Hitler's Spy Chief (34 page)

With Godfrey no longer available it was logical for Canaris to turn his focus onto Menzies, the other member of the Schwerin lunch party.

Despite the immense precautions after Venlo, and the atmosphere of suspicion and distrust that Canaris' feelers would inevitably arouse in SIS, Menzies appears not to have ruled out grounds for exploring further contacts.

Part of the reason for this might have been that some months earlier Menzies had received yet more evidence that his German opposite number was someone he could cooperate with. Early in 1942, ‘C' had come to the conclusion that ‘the horse' to back in France was not necessarily De Gaulle, or Admiral Darlan, whom the Americans were wooing, but General Henri Giraud, who had commanded with distinction the French Seventh Army during the battle for France in 1940.

Giraud, however, had not only been captured by the Germans and incarcerated in the castle of Königstein in Saxony, Hitler had given orders to Canaris, presumably on account of Allied interest in the general, to have him murdered in captivity. Even if Giraud could escape, the odds were not stacked in the general's favour: he was sixty-three, six foot three inches tall, had only one arm and was barely able to speak two words of German.

Hitler's orders to Canaris to have Giraud murdered somehow found their way to London, though it is not clear how. Political assassination, even in the Third Reich, was not usually the subject of wireless traffic. It was noted, however, that despite Hitler's orders no action was taken against the general.

Menzies, it has been suggested, had ordered MI9, his section specialising in exfiltration of agents from Fortress Europe, to organize Giraud's escape in March 1942, discussing it with Cadogan on the 25th, who noted in his diary: ‘Interesting talk with ‘C' about LUCAS (codename for Giraud) and future plans.'
16

Somehow – it is still not clear how – the general escaped and despite his appearance and a huge reward (carefully monitored in London through SD intercepts), against rather high odds, he made it to Switzerland more or less in time to reach North Africa by the end of 1942 and take over from Admiral Darlan, who was a thorn in the side of British interests and who, it seems, with some British encouragement, was assassinated on Christmas Eve by a young French ‘idealist'.

Canaris had undoubtedly played a role in the organisation of the escape, according to Lahousen. The admiral subsequently skilfully deflected the criticism directed at him by blaming his ‘failure' to liquidate Giraud on his having given the ‘job' to Heydrich in Prague a few days before the Reichsprotektor was himself liquidated.

Once again it would seem a common interest between Menzies and Canaris could be registered by the discerning eye. If Menzies had wanted proof that Canaris would not exploit contacts with him to Britain's disadvantage, the escape of Giraud was a textbook example of ‘good faith'.

If Menzies, with his legendary intuition, sensed that his links with the admiral were those between two kindred spirits he appears to have been sometimes strangely indifferent to the fact that it would incur the unwelcome interest of certain circles within his own organisation.

Throughout his career he seems to have consistently underestimated
the sheer ruthlessness of the Communist intelligence machine and its extensive penetration of the British establishment. Canaris, however, was fully aware of the risks he was running in his contacts with Menzies. Already before the war, he had told his friend Juan March that ‘I have penetrated the Naval Intelligence Division and MI6. So if any German, however important and discreet, felt tempted to work with the British Secret Service, be sure I should find out about it.'

The admiral went further in his advice to March, hinting that he knew how parts of the British service might work against his secret communications with London: ‘Now in that service there are conflicting minds and it could well happen that one section of the secret service would keep faith, but that the other would not hesitate to betray any such Germans either to me or someone else in the Abwehr.'
17

The need for caution would have no doubt been confirmed later through exchanges of information with the Russian service between September 1939 and January 1941. Canaris would with his skill and experience hardly have failed to appreciate the extent of Soviet penetration of British institutions.

By the end of 1942, the Allied landings in North Africa had taken place thanks to Operation Torch. Most sources note that the complete surprise of the attacks was evidence of the Abwehr being caught off guard. Other sources suggest Canaris deliberately did not pass the evidence of his agents to the High Command.
18

However, according to documents in the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich, the landings had been accurately predicted by the Abwehr. The Algeciras station could hardly have failed to note the build-up of vessels across the strait and even its opponents admitted the Algeciras station was one of the Abwehr's best. According to the documents deposited in Munich this intelligence had been overruled by Ribbentrop, ever jealous of the Abwehr, who relied on his intelligence service within the embassy in Spain. The view from the chancery in Madrid, robustly expressed,
extensively discounted the Allies landing before the end of the year and the Abwehr's reports were ignored.
19

Irrespective of the causes of the intelligence lapse, the landings had a number of interesting and possibly unpredicted side-effects. One, completely unforeseen by the Allies, was that Panzer Army Africa was saved from imminent extinction by the swift arrival of German reinforcements provoked by Vichy's sudden switch of sides.

Another was that with the landings in North Africa ‘Menzies was now in a position to open direct negotiations'
20
if he wished with Canaris and accept the invitations which Trevor-Roper and Gomez-Beare had encountered.

The question of whether such a meeting ever took place must now be addressed. At first glance it would appear no such encounter occurred. Menzies, when asked after the war about Canaris, simply said that any such meeting ‘had been blocked by the Foreign Office' for fear of ‘offending Russia'.
21
But for the Foreign Office to have ‘blocked' or even ‘advised against' such a meeting, a case for such an encounter would have had to have been made. Therefore if the meeting were to be ‘blocked', a proposal, however brief, should have had to have been prepared.

Unsurprisingly, given the sensitivity of the subject matter, there are no documents pointing to such a proposal. Therefore, officially, the meeting, though clearly discussed at a high level, if Menzies' words are to be taken at face value, did not take place. In fact, the only trace is Colvin relating an exchange with a senior intelligence officer late in 1942, who asked him ‘Would you like to meet Canaris?' A question that implies some preliminary planning of a meeting.
22

Another version suggests that Eden refused Menzies permission for the meeting.
23
Again there are no documents, though this is certainly plausible given Eden's determination to keep the Russians happy in the face of huge tensions between Moscow and London, not least over Soviet territorial demands. Eden more than Churchill took the classic Napoleonic
line that Russia was Britain's natural ally. Churchill, with America now embroiled in the war, was far less sympathetic to the Soviet demands. As the travails of London's ambassador to Moscow at this time, Sir Stafford Cripps, reveal all too vividly, December 1942 was a low point in Anglo–Soviet relations.
24

In the absence of any documents directly referring to the proposed meeting, it is surely a fair question to ask where the two spy chiefs were in the weeks following Canaris' ‘invitation' to Menzies in the late ‘autumn' as referenced above by Trevor-Roper and Gomez-Beare. If Eden had been consulted and proved to be a sticking point, it is interesting to note that from 7 December until the end of the month, Eden was travelling to and visiting Moscow and not therefore personally accessible. From the moment Eden left Euston for Scotland on the morning of the 7th, Menzies needed to fear no direct interference from that quarter.

According to Abshagen, Canaris was in Spain late December 1942 and arrived in Algeciras a few days before New Year's Eve, where his staff found him in the highest of spirits, joking and cooking for his staff, even appearing wearing a chef's tall hat and apron while he prepared a German Christmas turkey. Canaris had put some thought into the party, securing the services of a Spanish cook that he knew and could work with. Several writers have observed how optimistic the admiral appeared, notwithstanding the criticism for failures over ‘Torch'. ‘For a few hours Canaris gave up his worries … and was once again the avuncular friend of his staff.'
25

That Canaris would be in Spain is hardly surprising. He was a virtual nomad and had complete licence as to where he could travel, although Christmas and New Year's Eve are traditionally times when most Germans, if they could, would celebrate with their families.

Far more intriguing is the fact that Menzies, ‘the man who never went anywhere beyond St James's unless in the imperial interest,'
26
had spent the previous few days, while Canaris was preparing his ‘Sylvester' dinner,
secretly in nearby Algiers and Gibraltar. On Christmas Eve, according to Frederick Winterbotham in his book
The Ultra Secret
, Menzies had ‘a splendid lunch on the sun-drenched roof of a little house in Algiers.'

Menzies only twice set foot outside England during the war and on this particular occasion he was now suddenly within virtual spitting distance of Algeciras and Canaris.

Menzies, according to Winterbotham, had flown out when he had heard the ‘news in London' that Colonel Rivet, the head of the French secret service, had managed to get out of France and had arrived in Algiers. Yet this does not tally with either the date or the suddenness of Menzies' secret departure from London.

‘C''s personal assistant, Patrick Reilly, after the war, told Anthony Cave Brown the following curious tale: ‘This was the strangest episode of my term as ‘C''s personal assistant. At the beginning of December 1942 ‘C' asked me whether I would like to take a short leave.' Reilly left the office some time in the third week in December with ‘C still working at his desk. Reilly recalled: ‘When I got back ‘C' was still at his desk'. Reilly did not know that Menzies had been away until forty years later.

‘I am now inclined to the view that he gave me leave at that time because he wanted me out of the way while he was abroad,' Reilly stated.

It has been suggested that Menzies was in Algiers to ‘plan' the assassination of Admiral Darlan.
27
But this also does not ring true. Darlan's murder, though wished by many in Churchill's circle, could never have been an SIS mission. As in Prague earlier in the year, the immediate fingerprints of assassination, if they pointed in any British direction, were those of SOE, not an organisation Menzies had a great deal of time for. The events surrounding the murder of Admiral Darlan, whose negotiations with the Americans provoked Cadogan into minuting ‘We shall do no good until we have killed Darlan,' remain controversial.
28

Unlike Prague, Darlan's assassination had major political implications that would logically involve the secret service chief, especially as
Darlan's successor would be Giraud, whom Canaris had helped exfiltrate. But even so it is still surprising that Menzies absented himself from London only for something as banal as the ‘immobilisation' of an awkward Frenchman.

However, we know from Churchill's correspondence with Eden a year earlier that SIS was actively involved in evaluating the sincerity of German opposition peace-feelers.
29
But if the purpose of Menzies'
absentia
had been to meet clandestinely with his German counterpart to explore the possibilities of ‘an understanding', no evidence survives as to whether the encounter ever took place.

Having examined the geographical proximity of our two protagonists, we should look closely at the motive behind such a possible meeting. It would have been an opportunity, as one writer has suggested, to bring off the biggest coup of the war; two spy chiefs ready to open negotiations for an early end to the conflict.
30

Certainly, if Britain had ever needed to explore Canaris' offer of an understanding, this would have been the moment. The invitation had been repeatedly extended; the relationship of trust between the two men was tried and tested in the Giraud operation and the dynamic of war was showing both sides, after three years, that uncharted dangers lay ahead.

The ‘conversation' initiated by Churchill might have to be reopened, not least because the first disturbing reports were coming through that some circles in Germany were, even as Russians and Germans slaughtered each other by the thousand around Stalingrad in those days, contemplating an accommodation with Stalin.

The secret telegrams of the neutral powers from September 1942, intercepted by Menzies, contained ominous references to ‘a separate peace between Germany and Russia'. The Japanese government was involved for several weeks trying to broker a deal.
31
Moreover, as Hitler would himself admit to the Japanese ambassador, Oshima, the following spring, noting
that he was imparting ‘information of an extremely confidential nature', Germany had only once seriously ‘made a peace proposal to Russia towards the end of 1942.'
32

This proposal had, in Hitler's words, offered to ‘return all the conquered territories except the Ukraine.'

At about the same time as the German peace offer, Eden's December mission to Moscow would end, in Churchill's words, ‘without any flourish of trumpets', and the future of Anglo–Soviet relations seemed likely to founder on the thorny issue of frontiers, mutual suspicion and ideological conflict. Stalin could never rid himself of the idea that somehow the German attack on Russia had been orchestrated by London in some devious plan, which had at the last moment miscarried, to keep Britain in the war against Germany. At the same time the German army was still mounting a vigorous campaign. The surrender of Stalingrad was several weeks away.