Canaris.

This is coolbert:

From a comment to the blog by Steiner: "At this point, will it surprise anyone if the trail of subversion leads to the office of Wilhelm Canaris, a man hostile to his own government and connected to MI6 at the highest levels?"

We are speaking of Canaris - - Wilhelm - - Admiral German Navy and head of the Abwehr [German military intelligence] both prior to and during much of the Second World War [WW2].




Canaris, a most controversial character of which not a lot [?] is ever written.

A German most controversial, either a patriot or a traitor, depending upon your viewpoint. Canaris - - disliking in the extreme Hitler and the Nazi regime. A man too who during the war was in contact with the British perhaps in a way that astounds!

Of Wilhelm Canaris it can be commented: [in no specific order or importance]

* Just prior to the outbreak of hostilities [1939] - - someone - - that someone never being positively identified, dropped off and left at the British embassy in Oslo a brand new, working, up-to-date and state of the art German Enigma cryptographic machine. Canaris has been long suspected as the culprit.

* Most experts concede that German military intelligence PRIOR to 1939 was pretty good. However, during the war German military intelligence NEVER did get any BETTER, the Abwehr being highly susceptible to allied deception campaigns. Allied intelligence, in contrast, was NOT very good prior to 1939 but during the duration of the war only got better and by the end of the war had improved by magnitudes!

* Canaris was definitely an anti-communist and also definitely in contact with those elements of German society hostile to Hitler! Those conspirators that wanted Hitler dead! It should be noted that while Canaris was anti-Hitler he was not necessarily anti-war. Those German conspirators desired a true or a peace settlement with the western allied powers while continuing the war on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union!

* Canaris maintained files on both Heydrich and Himmler. Heydrich maintained files on Canaris and Himmler. Himmler maintained files on Canaris and Heydrich. This cannot have made for a cordial, warm, and friendly working atmosphere.

* It was a revelation to me that the famous Oskar Schindler was in the employ of the Abwehr pre-war - - serving as a case officer in the Sudetenland. Schindler working against the Czechs - - recruiting ethnic Germans loyal to the "fatherland"!

* The Abwehr again was German military intelligence. NOT to be confused with the SD, the intelligence arm of the SS! As with the old Soviet Union [KGB, GRU] and Russia today [SVR, GRU], two competing intelligence agencies working against the same targets simultaneously but with different priorities!

* Canaris would have had a perfect cover for maintaining contact with the British [MI6]! Officers such as Bonhoeffer were on the payroll as counter-intelligence [CI], with authorization to make contact with the enemy at the discretion of the individual CI officer, playing a false "double game" the announced intent.

* It is not beyond comprehension for adversaries to maintain contact with one another even during time of war, carrying out a dialog!

Canaris met a very bad end, hanging from a piano wire naked for quite a long time before expiring. Such was quite often the fate of those Germans opposed to Hitler.

coolbert.