Hitler's Spy Chief (41 page)

The failure of Canaris should not distract us from his achievements, which underline, at a time when we hear so much about the importance of team work, the great role the individual can still play in the realm of intelligence.

His intervention materially altered the course of the war. His support for Franco against Hilter at Hendaye was without doubt critical to shoring up Britain's entire position in the Mediterranean in the dark days of 1940. As Goering later ruefully noted to Kirkpatrick, it cost Germany the war.

His consistent and deliberate over-estimation of British forces available to repel invasion after Dunkirk was also a vital factor in the delay and cancellation of operation Sealion.

His commitment to defending certain standards of ethical behaviour
permeated everything the Abwehr undertook. He may have occasionally overestimated the mental ability of some of his closest subordinates, but he had confidence in the integrity of those in whom he reposed trust, and here Canaris rarely, if ever, made a mistake. He was not in a position to influence the unique and terrible bestiality of the Holocaust but he did save many Jews from certain deportation to the camps.

The collapse of the Abwehr following Canaris' dismissal and its merger into the SD is a lesson to all intelligence services that if spying is conducted on the lowest ethical plane, the whole organisation quickly becomes contaminated, and both the intelligence officers and their political masters are doomed.

There are other lessons to be learnt from the tragedy of the German Abwehr. No one reading the story of the Abwehr's links with Britain can fail to be impressed by the sure touch of British policy. At every crisis Churchill displayed a firm grasp of the essentials in pursuing a policy which would equip his country with huge reserves of moral strength to play a leading role in Europe, transatlantic relations and the Commonwealth.

With the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the formal post- war arrangements concerning Europe, the challenges Canaris faced may appear remote. But as more recent conflicts have shown, the values of Western civilisation that Canaris espoused remain by no means free from threat in the twenty-first century. The political pressures on the integrity of his service would be instantly recognisable by every modern spy chief whose activities, compared to those of Canaris, must seem at times highly circumscribed. True, they are unlikely to have to pay the high price Canaris paid for following the dictates of his conscience but, at the same time, it would be a rare member of that tiny breed who would not express some faint nod of admiration, if not envy, for the way the little admiral wove his independent path through the thorny maze of the most deadly crisis of modern times.

Acknowledgements

Writing must be one of the most selfish of all creative pursuits. While the writer loses himself in the seductive labyrinth of mental creativity, his wife, children, friends and colleagues are subject to the company of someone who is in an unsatisfying state of near permanent self-absorption. I must therefore thank, first and foremost, my wife Emma-Louise, my children Edmund and Beatrice, my mother, parents-in-law and other relatives who have had to put up with the demands of'the admiral'. I should also like to take this opportunity to thank my agent, Kate Hordern, without whose tireless encouragement none of this would have been possible.

The riddle of Admiral Canaris first impinged on my mind several years ago when, on leaving journalism, I had the privilege to work quite closely for a few years with the late Julian Amery, the late Alan Hare and the late Nicholas Elliot. For the benefit of their insights, kindness and camaraderie, I shall always be immensely grateful. In many ways the story of Canaris is also the story of the challenges and choices these men faced. In some cases, as this book shows, they played more than just walk-on parts. I am also grateful for the wisdom and kindness of the late Ihsan Bey Toptani, whose knowledge of Anglo-German wartime intelligence relations was profound.

This book would also never have been possible without the kindness
and support of many friends in many different countries. In Spain, I am indebted to the hospitality and company, among others, of Boojum, Peebles and Dorry Friesen in whose Mallorquin library I first chanced upon the story of the Abwehr. Also in Spain, I am grateful to members of the Spanish Diplomatic Service including Carmen Fontes and Alfonso La Palata. In Portugal, I have also enjoyed the help and hospitality of Anthony Allfrey and Frances Beveridge.

In Germany, the staff of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich, surely the most comprehensive archives on the Second World War in Europe, were unfailingly helpful. I am especially grateful to Mrs Grossman and Mr Bockner who, over many weeks, guided me through what seemed, at times, to be miles of microfilm. I have also been helped by Anton Graf Wengersky, Dr Nina Bushart, Dr Christine Pfeiffer, Fr. Christoph Martin, Frau Claudia Eiles, Karl-Christian Jacobi and my ever patient colleagues in the Koeniginstrasse. I should also like to thank my many friends in Kronberg, notably Andreas and Gabriela von Erdmann, and Donatus von Hessen in whose tower at the Friedrichshof part of this book was written. I should like also to extend my thanks to the staff of the German Military Archives at Freiburg in Breisgau, and to the Canaris family.

Also in Germany, I am especially grateful to Erich Vermehren, whose defection to the Allies had such dramatic consequences for the Abwehr and Admiral Canaris. His sharing of memories and thoughts with me has illuminated the extraordinary events of early 1943. In Berlin, I have been helped immensely by the kindness of Gabi and Daniel von Scheven. I am also particularly indebted to Diemut Köstlin who enabled me, after some days of fruitless research, finally to identify Canaris' house in Schlachtensee. I am also grateful to David Blow and Andrew Clegg Littler for consistent advice, especially on some details of the 1940 Finnish campaign.

In Italy, I am grateful to Luciana Frassati, perhaps the last person alive to have known Heydrich in Prague. I am also indebted to Tiziana
Frescobaldi, Francesca Galli, Wanda Gawronska, Fr Anthony Barrett S.J., Alessio Altichieri, Piero Kern and Paolo Rumiz. I should also like to record my thanks to the staff of the Vatican library and Don Vincenzo Paglia. In Trieste, I am grateful for the insights and kindness of the late Baron Gottfried von Banfield, who served with Canaris in Pola during the Great War.

In Salzburg, I have been helped by Elizabeth Waldedorf, Cornelia Meran, and above all, Reinhold Gayer of the Paracelsus Bookshop, which together with that oasis of civilisation, Gilbert's Bookshop in Düsseldorf, has been largely responsible for securing many of the German secondary sources for me. In Vienna, I am grateful to John Nicholson, Charlotte Szapary, and the late Georg Eisler. In Prague, I was helped by Marian and Lisa Schweda and Daniel and Victoria Spicka. In Warsaw, I am indebted to Igor Witkowski and his friends in Polish Military Intelligence. I am also grateful to Mikolaj Radziwill and Eva Dzeduszinska.

In London, I am indebted to the sterling efforts of my two researchers in Kew, El'vis Beytullayev and Beytulla Destani. Documents held at the Public Record Office are Crown copyright and are reproduced by permission of the controller of H.M.Stationery Office. In Chile, Crispin Sadler generously shared his archive of eyewitness accounts of the aftermath of the sinking of the
Dresden
after the Battle of the Falkland Islands.

I have also been helped by Inge Haag, one of Canaris' secretaries, Francesca Scoones, Andrew Gimson, Gina Thomas, Joachim von Halasz, Giles MacDonough and Desmond and Tina MacCarthy, whose library at Wiveton offered the calm necessary to prepare the early stages of this manuscript. Mary and Johnny James' Aldeburgh Bookshop was one incomparable source of elusive books, the London Library another. I am also grateful for the insights and company of the late Justin Crawford, whose interest and enthusiasm for obscure but important footnotes to twentieth-century history was always an inspiration.

I should also like to thank Mrs Ian Colvin, Neal Ascherson, David
Smiley, Jill Hare, Elizabeth Elliot, Penelope Tay, Leo Amery, Professor Norman Stone, Mark Almond, John Stevens, Katharina Kelton and Brendan Donnelly. I should like to record my thanks to the Imperial War Museum for allowing me access to the diaries of my wife's cousin, Captain Troubridge R.N., who was naval attaché in Berlin before the war. My former colleagues at Janes, notably Clifford Beale, Nic Cook and Chris Aaron, all helped significantly in different ways.

In Ridge, where much of this book was written, I must extend my thanks to my Wiltshire neighbours, notably Charles Elwell, Robin and Iona Carnegie, Daphne Lamb and Gordon Etherington Smith, the last surviving member of the senior staff of our embassy in pre-war Berlin. Clare and Julian Thomas, James and Sarah Rundell, Rosemary Macdonald, Joe Cant and Michael and Henrietta Dillon helped sustain the creative process.

In the United States, I should like to record my thanks to Cran Montgomery III and the late Ted Shackley, whose insights into historic trends in intelligence matters I was briefly privileged to share.

Finally, I should like to thank all those serving members of various intelligence services whom it would be invidious to name but who have offered, in that true spirit of fraternity which Canaris would have certainly recognised, support and direction for this modest enterprise.

Ridge 2004

SOURCE NOTES

Introduction

1
Interview, Sir Stewart Menzies with Anthony Cave Brown, quoted in
The Secret Servant
, p. 6, London 1988

2
This account is taken from Soltikow's memoirs,
Ich war mitten drin
, Vienna 1980. Though a bluff aristocrat with a passion for ladies, Soltikow's account is remarkably dispassionate and convincing.

3
Soltikow, op. cit. p. 428-9

4
See Stafford,
Churchill and Secret Service
, London 1997

5
Soltikow, op. cit. p. 428

6
Cave Brown, op. cit. p. 8

7
Gehlen,
Der Dienst
, p. 119ff, Berg 1971

8
See Leon Papeleux,
Entre Hitler et Franco
, Paris 1977. Also Hans Stille, deposition in the IfZ Munich

9
Stafford, op. cit. p. 203

10
Allfrey,
Man of Arms: Life and Legend of Basil Zaharov
, London 1989

11
Stille, IfZ

12
Kirkpatrick,
The Inner Circle
, p. 195, London 1959

13
Popov,
Spy Counter Spy
p. 62, London 1957

14
Padfield,
Hess
p. 297, London 1991

15
Cornhill Magazine, Vol XI, March 1950

16
Goebbels,
Diaries 1939-1941
, 21 March 1941, London 1982

17
Philby, quoted by Cave Brown in
Treason in the Blood
, p. 328, New York 1994

18
Author's interview with Vermehren, 12 April 2004

19
See Ingeborg Fleischhauer,
Die Chance des Sonder-friedens
, Siedler 1986; also Paul Leverkuen,
Die Abwehr
, Chapter 7, 1954

20
Frankfurter Zeitung
, 28 March 1943, quoted by von Hassell in
Diaries
, p. 266, London 1948

21
Schmidt,
Statisten auf der Weltbuehne
, p. 9

22
Gehlen, op. cit. p. 56ff

23
Banfield private papers, Trieste

24
Banfield interview, 4 April 1982

25
See Erlam,
The German Navy
, London 1939

26
Banfield,
The Art of Naval Warfare
, m/s p. 1 Triest 1979

Chapter One

1
Geoffrey Bennett,
Coronel and the Falklands
, p. 177ff, London 1962

2
F.A.Z. Archive

3
Bennett, op. cit. p. 110

4
Dresden
papers, unpublished, Chile

5
Bennett, op. cit. p. 155

6
op. cit. p. 150

7
op. cit. p. 151

8
Diaries of Captain J. D. Allen, unpublished

9
See MacCormack,
A Life of Ian Fleming
, London 1978

10
Stafford, op. cit. p. 80

11
See Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck,
Heia Safari
, 1921

12
Krause memoirs, unpublished, Chile

Chapter Two

1
Gerd Bucheit,
Der Deutsche Geheimdienst
, p. 17ff, Munich 1966

2
op. cit. p. 17

3
Asquith,
Letters to Venetia Stanley
, p. 26ff, Oxford 1982

4
Heinz Hoehne,
Patriot in Zwielicht
, p. 149, Munich 1976

5
Author interview with HIRM Empress Zita, August 1983

6
Hoehne, op. cit. p. 53

7
W. Gottlieb,
Studies in Secret Diplomacy in World War One
, London 1957

8
David Kelly,
The Ruling Few
, London 1952

9
Allfrey, op. cit. p. 39

10
op. cit. chapter 4

11
Richard Deacon,
A History of the British Secret Service
, p. 218ff, London 1969

12
PRO (FO 372/715 40624 62729)

13
PRO (FO 372/714/44763 50055)

14
ibid

15
FO 372/715/66312, n 129

16
FO 371/2468 80541

17
FO 371/72761 87167 n 141

18
FO 185/1237 749

19
Farago,
The Game of the Foxes
, p. 6, New York 1971; and André Brissaud,
Canaris
, p. 9, London 1973

20
Patrick Beesley,
Room 40
, p. 190, London 1982

21
op. cit. p. 20

22
Hoehne op. cit. p. 19

Chapter Three

1
Theodor Fontane: Unter ein Bildnis Adolf Menzels, Fontane,
Collected Works
, p. 103, Frankfurt 1978