He approached the Narrows on 8 November. From the Spanish side strong searchlight beams illuminated the waters to the North African coast throughout the night, creating a lit area patrolled by numerous small warships and a submarine lurking in the shadows. Canaris wrote: ‘Under the Moroccan coast are many patrol boats. They present the greatest danger. Basically they are large American motor boats and small torpedo boats that are very difficult to make out in the darkness.’45 The situation was not promising. At midnight he confided to the war diary: ‘Boat is blinded in powerful searchlight beam, we do not see a silent destroyer until within 200 metres. Turned away at full revolutions, hard astern, emergency dive. Trimmed at forty-five metres.’46
Canaris bet everything on a single card: he attempted to run submerged below the light barrier. A steamer followed him and seven depth charges tumbled down; both electric dive rudders failed, but Canaris got UB-128 steady at sixty metres and coupled in the hand machinery. It was the most dangerous moment of his U-boat career. Now he got lucky; when the screws of the enemy ships became inaudible he surfaced; a destroyer was so close that it screened him from the patrol boats searching the waters. He remained unseen and in the early hours slipped unnoticed through the last light barrier.47
The Armistice conditions for the Navy were made known on 11 November 1918. All U-boats were to be handed over within fourteen days, the High Seas Fleet was to intern or disarm within seven days. Vizeadmiral Hopman wrote in his diary: ‘The blackest day in German history. Consequence of the last thirty years of Wilhelm II. Servility.’48 Two days before the Armistice agreement, General Groener had declared frankly to the Kaiser in his Great Headquarters at Spa that the Army would ‘march back calmly and in good order under its leaders and commanding generals, but not under the command of Your Majesty, for it no longer stands behind Your Majesty’.49
The Kaiser abdicated and accepted exile in Holland the next day. Groener, a ‘political’ military man of the new type with an awareness for social change, which in his view made social compromise and a policy of egalitarianism essential, saw himself as a liberal-conservative, above politics, who had recognised that the Hohenzollern dynasty had outlived its usefulness. In pro-monarchical circles, however, he was considered a traitor.
The Armistice and the handover of power in Germany destroyed the political ambitions of the naval leadership. Admiral Scheer and other senior officers resigned from active service; the Admiralty survived but lacked the strength of the Prussian War Ministry or the Army High Command.50 In future it would be controlled by the newly formed parliamentary Council of Deputies, whose chairman was the Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert, who was himself controlled by an executive formed from workers’ and soldiers’ councils handling the work of the government. Ebert co-opted Ewald Vogtherr of the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) – a leftist group that had splintered in April 1917 from the Social Democrats (SPD) – and Gustav Noske, governor of Kiel, to supervise the Admiralty. Noske, sent to Kiel to quell the Revolution there, would be an important figure for Canaris.
News of the dramatic events in Germany since 3 November and the rebellion of major elements of the armed forces, which had spread across the Reich, reached Canaris in fragmented form through telegraphed signals to the Mediterranean U-boat flotilla. The Revolution came as a shock to pro-monarchist loyalist officers, while the hate of the revolutionaries was aimed primarily at this class and the world image for which they had struggled all their lives.
On 12 November Canaris received the signal advising him of the Armistice. The following day he noted in his war diary the ‘abdication of His Majesty the Kaiser’ and the ‘Proclamation of the Republic in Germany’.51 Having assembled his crew, he made the sensational announcement. The last day of the voyage home was spent gloomily imagining what awaited them on their arrival. Their families had no information about the boat; Canaris’s brother Carl received news from the Admiralty on 19 November 1918 that Canaris had sailed from Cattaro52 and on 27 November confirmation that Canaris had reached Norway and was waiting for a pilot to make the run to Kiel.53
On 25 November eleven U-boats, escorted by Norwegian warships, headed for the Kattegat. Martin Niemöller wrote: ‘We simply could not believe that the newspaper reports we read really provided a true picture of the circumstances in Germany and the mood of the German people, and we had the faint hope that perhaps very soon a counter-revolution would wash away the shame of 9 November.’54
Most Imperial Navy commanders thought in the same way. To the defeat was added the disgrace of the Revolution; to the military failure was added the poison of the alleged betrayal in the homeland. The U-boat men who headed for Kiel Harbour that day were neither potential pacifists nor future democrats. Neither Niemöller nor Canaris had the least desire to be welcomed home to red flags and soldiers’ councils. The eleven commanders agreed to enter harbour flying the Imperial ensign and the home-coming pennant, and swore that the red flag would never be hoisted on their boats.55
PART II
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE REPUBLIC
5
Servant of Two Masters
On 29 November 1918 the remnants of the U-boat flotilla led by Canaris entered Kiel Harbour; Noske, governor of Kiel, came down to meet them.1 Crewmen disembarked by the landing stage ‘black, from gruelling service’2 and through Noske’s address of welcome were given a broad picture of the events that had come to pass in Germany in their absence. As midday struck, the last act began; Canaris noted: ‘Decomissioning. Commander’s address. With three hurrahs, ensign and pennant hauled down.’3
Later, the crews gathered in a small hall at Kiel Castle to hear Noske again. ‘They were on tenterhooks: crammed together, courageous, well disciplined men,’ Noske wrote. The mood at Kiel was tense, rumours of a putsch were circulating. Halfway through Noske’s address a warning was given that naval artillerymen were on the march, intent on his life. The report was false, but not inopportune: ‘When I finished my speech, the commander [Canaris] mentioned the event briefly and asked who amongst the men was prepared to stand by the governor. Like a pistol shot several hundred tough young mariners stood up. They promised me loyal support.’4 That Noske would succeed in claiming the U-boat crews for his cause5 was by no means certain; most U-boat men were negative or indifferent towards the Revolution, but not the men from Kiel. The revolt had begun in the High Seas Fleet, where the social conflicts and the gulf between the officer corps and the men had intensified after the 1917 mutinies. Martin Niemöller related later that on entering Kiel none of the U-boat crews had been interested in who was governor,6 yet in the next few months it would be Noske who played the decisive role in defeating the revolutionary forces. He saw himself as ‘Germany’s saviour’, while for others he was ‘the bloodhound’ and ‘the slaughterer of the workers’. ‘Noske’, according to his biographer Wolfram Wette, ‘can claim to have been the most controversial politician of German social democracy and he remains so today.’7
As governor of Kiel, Noske made it his primary task to restore discipline and to work as a moderating influence on the hostile groups. While Ebert sought cooperation with the Army High Command, Noske addressed the disempowered and beleaguered naval officers, in his opinion the only group with the skill to end the chaos. In this early phase he mediated between the officers and the new powerholders and was recognised by both sides as the ‘integration figure’.8 To realise his plans he was forced to forge some unlikely alliances. When the Soldiers’ Supreme Council at Kiel demanded the setting up of a ‘revolutionary security force’, Noske opposed it by creating his own mobile defence squads. Holding the council at bay with his own demands, he talked to Emil Alboldt, chairman of the Deck-Officers’ Federation, and Obermaat Hirschmann, chairman of the Association of Active NCOs; they were both in favour of social democracy, but bitterly opposed to the naval officers.
Noske made clear at a session of the Soldiers’ Council that no good would be served by the setting up of a ‘Red troop’
since ‘enough career soldiers were available who could achieve the same thing’9 and with the support of Alboldt and Hirschmann he created the ‘Iron Brigade’, generally seen as his own house troop. The brigade was the first unit intended for the internal struggle in Germany, to protect the government and oppose the radical-left councils.10
Two days after Noske’s speech, Canaris was appointed to the U-boat Inspectorate and acted a little later as liaison officer between the Baltic Command and Noske.11 Korvettenkapitän Wilfried von Loewenfeld was another senior naval officer who saw himself as a fighter ‘for the national tradition and the national future’,12 and considered Noske to be a man of action who ‘simply had more initiative than all the senior officers in influential positions at the time’.13 Soon Loewenfeld would form his own Freikorps.14 He had ended the war as No. 1 general staff officer at the German Admiralty. On 17 November 1918 he was detached to Baltic Station Kiel and became one of the most active committee members of the Naval Officers’ Association, Baltic (SOVO). The main objective of this circle of naval officers was to oppose the Revolution. Supported by the Station Command at Kiel, SOVO had recruited ‘probably every naval officer in the vicinity’;15 it was the nucleus for the later 3rd Naval Brigade ‘Loewenfeld’, in the formation of which Canaris played a leading role. Loewenfeld used his position in the committee to undermine the Soldiers’ Council and the Deck-Officers’ Federation, which made decisions on military issues. This enabled the naval officers to reassert their original position.
The assault battalion of the Loewenfeld Brigade was commanded by the legendary U-boat ace Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, who had smuggled Canaris out of Spain in a cloak-and-dagger operation in 1916.16 Canaris was one of Loewenfeld’s first and closest collaborators and setting up within his naval brigade an ‘outstanding intelligence bureau’,17 he liaised between Noske and Loewenfeld, but neither Loewenfeld nor Canaris was anxious to involve Noske in secret plans to form an independent naval brigade because Noske would not have been able to obtain official support for the idea and Canaris did not want to risk deceiving the deck officers and NCOs and thus provoking the resistance of the Soldiers’ Council.18
At the beginning of December 1918, Loewenfeld sent Canaris to Berlin to contact groups ‘possibly preparing a kind of counter-revolution’. The Reich Admiralty was not interested, but he was successful at the Garde-Kavallerie-Schützen-Division (GKSD), a royal elite troop commanded by Generalleutnant Heinrich von Hoffmann. In March 1918 on Ludendorff’s order Hauptmann Waldemar Pabst joined GKSD as its chief of general staff to convert it from a cavalry into a rifle division.19 Under Pabst, GKSD became the strongest counter-revolutionary unit in Germany, the ‘backbone of all troops deployed’ upon which Noske relied.20 Pabst’s main aim was to overthrow the Republic and its Socialist leaders. He gathered like-minded men around him, and amongst the GKSD staff were, Kapitänleutnant Horst von Pflugk-Harttung and his younger brother Heinz. All were fanatical militarists, anti-Communists and enemies of the Republic.21 This contact brought Canaris into the shadowy circles of the most determined opponents of the new Republic.22
Loewenfeld, Pabst and Canaris were intent upon disbanding the Deck-Officers’ Federation and building a Freikorps to replace Noske’s Iron Brigade.23 Loewenfeld later noted with satisfaction that ‘in his very skilful manner’ Canaris succeeded in maintaining the relationship with the Federation intelligentsia, receiving daily reports as to the intentions of the Spartacists,24 a radical-left circle around Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. Although Canaris, Pabst and Loewenfeld were amongst ‘the most active counter-revolutionary military figures in Kiel and Berlin’,25 Noske did not suspect that they were in collaboration at this time.
In Berlin a conflict was simmering between the government and the revolutionary VMD (People’s Naval Division), which had 1,800 men quartered at three locations in the capital.26 Initially the VMD was controlled by the police chief of Berlin, Emil Eichhorn, a member of the USPD, with which the Spartacists were allied. The political leanings of the VMD – a militia formed to protect the government – were variable. When the Berlin City Commandant Otto Wels (SPD) requested from Noske a battalion of pro-government troops as reinforcements, he received on the orders of the government leader, Ebert, and USPD-member Haase 600 radical naval ratings from Cuxhaven, who integrated into the VMD ‘with difficulty’. Thus ‘reinforced’, the VMD drifted ever more to the left as the Social Democrats became less revolutionary. As it was loyal to Eichhorn and in the parliament supported Haase against Ebert, the VMD became increasingly drawn into politics. When the deputies refused the VMD demand for pay, and two of their men were killed in a violent affray with a pro-government unit, the VMD occupied the Reich Chancellery on the night of 23 December 191827 and held the city commandant, Wels, hostage.
Realising that Wels was in serious danger, Ebert asked the Prussian War Ministry for help the same night, and towards eight next morning troops of General Arnold Lequis attacked under Pabst’s leadership.28 USPD Deputy Emil Barth informed Pabst that the government had given permission to fire if necessary,29 and a bloodbath ensued with numerous casualties. Once Eichhorn’s security militia, the Red soldiers’ militia and armed workers joined the fray on the side of the VMD, Lequis was ordered by Ebert to retreat.30 On Christmas night 1918 the VMD thus had the upper hand and inflicted a bitter defeat on the Social Democrat majority in the parliament and on pro-government troops. Wels resigned, and the USPD contingent threatened to resign from the government because it had used force without informing them beforehand. On Boxing Day Ebert summoned Noske,31 who arrived with Konteradmiral von Trotha and spoke his mind at the crisis session in the Reich Chancellery: ‘In the Reich one looks with disgust upon this intolerable Berlin government,’ he said. Every effort had to be made to bring about some order;32 if the USPD faction resigned, the Social Democrats would have to rule alone and in the event of further disturbances he offered his reliable Kiel sailors to rescue the Berlin government. The adjutant to the Prussian War Ministry reported that Noske was very much in favour ‘of shooting, should this seem necessary to restore order, and at anybody who crossed the sights of the troops’ weapons. Without bloodshed there can be no solution.’33 At that the USPD deputies had resigned and Noske was co-opted to the council,34 taking over the ‘Army and Navy portfolio’ from Ebert.35 The Reich president warned of Noske’s ‘evil etiquette’; everyone who went into that witches’ cauldron was in danger of becoming a ‘bloodhound’.36
Noske’s military position was precarious. ‘In early January 1919, of the 20,000 armed men in Berlin, 4,500 were security militia, several thousand VMD, 12,000 Republican People’s Militia plus many thousands of disgruntled soldiers lounging in barracks, and there were not 100 soldiers upon whom the deputies could rely.’37 In Noske’s own estimation, the most powerful man in Berlin was not himself but Pabst,38 who, after the defeat at Berlin Castle, withdrew his troops to the city limits, purged all ‘pro-Spartacist elements’ and set about building an elite.
Pabst had often met with Karl Liebknecht and considered him a dangerous enemy. One of his officers requested that Pabst should allow Rosa Luxemburg to address the troops, but after hearing her, Pabst recognised ‘the real danger of Frau Luxemburg. She was more dangerous than all the others, even those with weapons.’39
The danger of a Socialist republic on Soviet lines was represented by Liebknecht and Luxemburg. Two days after the collapse of the Social Democrat–USPD coalition, the Communist Party of Germany (KDP) held its inaugural session. The Spartacus faction broke with the USPD to join the Communists. Although KPD leaders were in favour of participating in the elections for the new National Assembly, Liebknecht and Luxemburg supported the majority of the delegates in their ‘appeal for a putschist adventure’.40
The first opportunity soon presented itself. Police President Eichhorn, a USPD leftist, had supported the VMD against the government in the Christmas fighting; his position was obviously now untenable, but he was refusing
to resign. On 4 January 1919 he was ejected from office by the Prussian minister-president, creating a furore that was to go down in history as the ‘Spartacus Uprising’.41
On Sunday 5 January more than 100,000 soldiers and civilians demonstrated against the government.42 Noske, watching the columns of protesters in Unter den Linden remembered later the ‘nice call for change’ of the demonstrators: ‘Liebknecht, Haase, up! Ebert, Scheidemann, down, down!’43 Towards evening it was reported that the SPD newspaper building and other publishing houses had been occupied by the Spartacus League. Fired up by propaganda, all Berlin regiments supported the call for the violent overthrow of the Ebert-Scheidemann government and Liebknecht also agreed that it was necessary. The revolutionary committee at KPD headquarters called for a general strike.44 At the Reich Chancellery the government discussed the situation with the military in Cabinet. Noske suggested the use of military force against the insurrectionists; ultimately it was unavoidable. ‘Then you deal with it,’ somebody said – nobody knows who. Noske did not hesitate: ‘Someone has to be the bloodhound – I am not frightened of the responsibility.’45 War Minister Reinhardt gave his consent and appointed Noske commander-in-chief with wide-ranging powers to restore order in Berlin.46 The same afternoon Noske set up his provisional headquarters at Berlin Dahlem. One of his ‘most active’ officers was Pabst of the GKSD,47 whose adjutant was Canaris.48 Immediately after being appointed, Noske asked Kiel for help, and within a few days two regiments of deck officers and senior NCOs, a force of about twelve hundred men, was ready to leave for the capital.49
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