Canaris

by Mueller, Michael;

  After Oster was told of Halder’s alleged remark that he was ready, but without von Witzleben commanding i.Armee in the West he was powerless,50 he decided to visit von Witzleben at his Bad Kreuznach headquarters. Since he required a written approval and an order to do this, which he did not think Canaris was likely to issue in his present frame of mind, Groscurth rang von Witzleben and suggested he should telephone Canaris asking him to send Oster. When Witzleben rang, Canaris was wary, but finally acceded, enabling Oster and Gisevius to meet Witzleben on 7 November.51

  It was a sobering session, for Witzleben commenced by telling them that he no longer believed the offensive could be stopped. He was particularly unhappy about the younger officers’ attitude, which he described as ‘infatuated with Hitler’. The only possibility he could see was if all three Army Group commanders-in-chief refused to carry out the attack order. He was subjected to a long period of persuasive talk before agreeing to speak to Halder, and in addition Witzleben wanted the approval of his commander-in-chief, Ritter von Leeb, whose headquarters was in Frankfurt; Oster should make an intermediate stop there to prepare Leeb. At the end of their conversation, Witzleben lost his temper when Oster brought from his pocket copies of the two appeals that Beck was to make to the German people and the Wehrmacht: ‘What? You had that on you in the car? Then I will not receive you again,’ he is alleged to have said to Oster.52

  At Frankfurt Oster spoke to Oberst Vicenz Müller, whom Witzleben had recommended. Müller listened attentively before warning that the circle of accomplices must be kept as small as possible, and asked whether Oster was carrying any incriminating papers on his person, making him burn them at once in a large ashtray. Although Müller promised to speak to Witzleben again, Oster took his leave knowing that he had failed. In the officers’ mess at Frankfurt Oster and Gisevius began drinking heavily and Oster had to be taken out into a side-room for safety once he began to speak out volubly against the regime. There he left copies of Beck’s appeal, which he had failed to burn at Müller’s request, and a list with the names of the members of a provisional government. These were discovered by a well-disposed officer.53

  Next morning Gisevius was the first to learn the sensational news – ‘Hey! They tried to bump Emil off yesterday!’54 The previous evening a lone assassin, Georg Elser, attempted to kill Hitler by leaving a home-made bomb at the Bmgerbraukeller in Munich, but Hitler had left the hall immediately after delivering his speech, ten minutes before the bomb exploded. The official version accused the British secret service of the attempt. In the framework of an SD operation led by Walter Schellenberg, successor to SS-Brigadeführer Best as head of the Polizei-Abwehr, RHSA Amtsgruppe IV, the British SIS agents Major R H Stevens and Captain S P Best were captured next day in no-man’s land in a café between the German and Dutch borders at Venlo; the Propaganda Ministry used this coup to support their version of events at Munich.55

  Gisevius feared that the attempt on Hitler’s life might have been staged in order to strike against the Resistance, upon his arrival in Berlin, he discovered that the Abwehr had no knowledge of the background nor the culprits. Canaris was increasingly more nervous and urged his circle to be more cautious. Gisevius and Oster wrote another memorandum for Halder, accompanied by a personal letter from Groscurth. Halder passed it to Brauchitsch and gave vent to his annoyance at Gisevius’s hectic activities, particularly the endless conferences with Beck, Schacht, Helldorf and Goerdeler. Canaris had become more wary for the same reason and warned against close contact with Gisevius.56 Additionally Witzleben had passed to Halder through Oberst Müller his concerns about Oster’s behaviour on 7 November; Halder was beside himself with rage and advised Groscurth to report the matter to Canaris officially, but Groscurth would not do this because Oster was a friend.57 Oster escaped with a reprimand from Halder, but by now Canaris had had enough of the game and forbade all further conspiratorial activities, and now, without the dynamic Oster, the circle of plotters threatened to break up, since he had told Gisevius that ‘he would definitely not do any more’.58

  Leeb’s meeting with the three Army Group commanders-in-chief bore no fruit, and Leeb resigned.59 Stülpnagel paid a last visit to Witzleben and learned of the refusal of the Army Group commanders-in-chief to resign en masse. Groscurth noted: ‘No more talk of resistance,’60 and one day later, he wrote: ‘Generals therefore will do nothing.’61

  21

  ‘Now There is No Going Back’

  The two-month-long conspiracy thus came to an end. Canaris was not only deeply depressed but found the attitude of the Army leaders incomprehensible; he was certain that through them Germany could avoid certain disaster.1 Although the attack date continued to suffer regular postponements, up to May 1940 almost thirty times, the Resistance did not revive, and Hitler delivered the ‘coup de grace’ personally.2

  On 23 November 1939, nearly two hundred commanding generals and senior officers of all Wehrmacht branches were ordered by Hitler to assemble in the Conference Hall of the New Reich Chancellery; Canaris was amongst them.3 In view of the conflicts with the Army leadership in recent weeks, Hitler now went onto the counter-offensive and for Brauchitsch in particular: ‘If, as in 1914, senior commanders have nervous breakdowns, what can one expect from the simple rifleman? . . . I will not cower before anything and I will destroy everybody who is against me. I will stand or fall in this struggle. I will not survive the defeat of my people. Outwardly no capitulation, inwardly no revolution.’4 Groscurth remarked later: ‘Tragic impression of a mad criminal’,5 but nobody dared protest, not even the most infirm of the Army generals. That evening Hitler accused Halder and Brauchitsch of being responsible for the failure of the Army leadership and repeated his threat to exorcise the ‘spirit of Zossen’. Brauchitsch offered his resignation, which Hitler declined to accept, saying that the commander-in-chief must do his duty.6

  Two powerful tirades7 from Hitler had reached out to stifle a possible military uprising. The commander-in-chief of the East, Generaloberst Blaskowitz, sent a memorandum to Brauchitsch on 27 November 1939 which left nothing to be desired in clarity: ‘The troops reject identification with the Sipo atrocities’ and refused ‘all cooperation with these Einsatzgruppen working almost exclusively as execution commandos’. This ‘rush of blood’ represented for the Wehrmacht ‘an intolerable burden . . . since almost everything is done in a field-grey uniform’.8 The memorandum was shown to Hitler, who retorted: ‘One cannot prosecute a war with Salvation Army methods. Also confirms a long held aversion. He had never trusted Gen. Bl.’9 By his protest, Blaskowitz had forfeited the Führer’s trust – he was the only Generaloberst of the Polish campaign not to be promoted to Feldmarschall and was recalled from Poland six months later.10

  By now Brauchitsch was ‘a lonely and melancholy man’11 and Halder had abandoned his plotting against Hitler and was advocating that ‘time was not yet ripe’. On the morning of 30 November 1939, recalled ambassador von Hassell paid Canaris a visit. After their conversation Hassell recorded of him: ‘He has abandoned all hope of resistance from the generals and believes there is no point in trying anything further in that direction.’12 Only Blaskowitz had not yet given up and in Groscurth he had a helper who was ever tireless; on 18 December Groscurth travelled with a new report by Blaskowitz for the Western Front where it provoked ‘great excitement’.13

  In satisfaction, after his return he noted: ‘We have worked up the most important sections of the Western Front for a putsch. With success I hope!’14 But there was no success and barely a month later Halder criticised him, and all ‘who were thinking of a putsch, but were disunited, even fighting amongst themselves, and were mostly only reactionaries who wanted to roll back the wheel of history’.15 He inveighed most strongly against Groscurth for his trip to the Westwall – one ought not to burden the Front unnecessarily with worries – but to Groscurth this was water off a duck’s back. At his request Canaris informed Halder16 of Blaskowitz’s opinion that the officers lacked courage:
‘No human intervention for those unjustly persecuted’.17

  Halder was visibly annoyed over Groscurth’s stubbornness and a little later Groscurth was removed from the Abwehr and transferred to the field as a punishment.18 The news was given to him by his immediate superior, Generalmajor Tippelskirch, but Groscurth was convinced that Brauchitsch and Halder had ‘cooked it up between themselves’ and that his close relationship with Canaris was a reason to wish to be rid of him, as Tippelskirch ‘openly told’ him: ‘Halder said to Canaris on the evening of the day before yesterday, everything was in order. A fine game! But I go willingly according to honour and I have nothing to reproach myself for.’19 On 15 February 1940 Groscurth was transferred into the OKH Führer-Reserve and took part in the French campaign as a battalion commander. His spirit of resistance remained unbroken, however; during the war of extermination in Russia he opposed the indescribable atrocities, and at Stalingrad, under the greatest difficulties, he still managed to maintain contact with the Berlin Resistance in the attempt to prevent the senseless sacrifice of 6.Armee. After the defeat there he was taken into Soviet captivity and died of typhus at Frolov camp on 7 April 1943.20

  On 13 February there occurred a violent argument between Canaris, Tippelskirch and Halder in which the admiral emphasised how important it was ‘to have officers unobjectionable in character who said what they thought even if it might be unpleasant for them and risked their position’.21 Oster and Groscurth had dealt on his behalf and the plans for Berlin had been worked out with Etzdorf at Zossen; by this he can only have meant the plans in preparation for the coup, of which Halder denied all knowledge, putting everything on Slfilpnagel. Groscurth wrote: ‘A strong piece of work. He urged me to commit murder and asserts that for some time he had carried a pistol in his pocket to gun Hitler down.’22 In the violent exchange Halder – according to Groscurth’s account – distanced himself in every respect from the coup plans and he even went so far as to say ‘the circumstances in the East would be forgotten later – they were not so bad.’23 Groscurth noted: ‘It is deplorable and incomprehensible. I cannot believe in any way in the decency of Halder any more.’ He went on: ‘Canaris told Halder that he was ready to act at once, he made it clear that he had a large unified officer corps behind him that would take on the struggle against H[itler] and H[immler].’ Was Groscurth exaggerating here, or did Canaris really threaten that his resignation might have unsuspected consequences? The Abwehr chief belonged to the more cautious breed of men and often reined in his intrepid and uninhibited subordinates. But perhaps today the angered and embittered admiral was less careful in his choice of words than usual – and Halder followed suit. Groscurth reported: ‘Halder suddenly identified his great confidant and schoolfriend Etscheit as an SS man and informer, he wants to have nothing more to do with him. Canaris should unload him at once. And how he protected him to the last!’24 The lawyer Alfred Etscheit had excellent contacts in diplomatic circles. He had been sent to Switzerland in the autumn of 1939 as an Abwehr spy on a fact-finding mission. Here he endangered one of the most intricate operations of the Resistance circle, set up by the Abwehr.

  The aim of Josef Müller’s activities at the Vatican was to make contact with British Government circles to obtain their support for a coup attempt;25 one of the objectives of this was to convince Halder and Brauchitsch that the Allies would become involved in such plans.26 The plan had been developed in 1939 by Dohnanyi and Oster after discussions with Beck and Canaris,27 as both of the latter allegedly knew the pope from his time as nuncio in Berlin.28 Beck told Oster to restore the liaison with Pope Pius XII and to obtain through him an introduction to the British ambassador to the Vatican, Sir Francis d’Arcy Osborne. Oster entrusted this delicate mission to Catholic lawyer Josef Müller, who then arranged personal connections to the pope’s staff.29

  Since the outbreak of war it had been very difficult to obtain approval for trips abroad, but the espionage work of the Abwehr was an exception, being seen as important for the war effort.30 In 1942 Ernst von Weizsäcker wrote in a file note for Ribbentrop that ‘persons entrusted by the leader of the Abwehr with missions abroad have the freedom to travel abroad using true or false passports, whenever necessary and without special permission. To have to request special permission for such journeys would frustrate or even cripple the Abwehr in the timely and convenient execution of its duties.’31 Canaris explained to the dubious Keitel that Müller had to use his Vatican contacts in order to observe how things were developing in Italy, whose attitude the OKW chief had been following with suspicion for some time.32

  For safety’s sake, Canaris informed Heydrich when asking for ‘play material’ to string the British along about the internal political situation in the Reich, but Heydrich declined because he could not take the decision alone and an enquiry to Himmler was inopportune.33 In October 1939 Müller left on his first Vatican trip; the operation and the Vatican contacts of Canaris and Oster were directed by Abwehrstelle Munich; Dohnanyi was responsible at the Tirpitzufer.34

  Müller succeeded in making indirect contacts to the British Foreign Office through the pope’s private secretary, Pater Robert Leiber, the former presiding prelate of the centre, Ludwig Kaass, and the general abbot of the Premonstratensian Order in Rome, Hubert Noots.

  On 20 October Groscurth wrote in his service diary: ‘The pope himself is very interested and considers an honourable peace possible, giving his personal guarantee that Germany will not be deceived as it was in the Compiegne Forest. In all peace negotiations one finds the categorical demand for the removal of Hitler and the definite return of Czechoslovakia. Disarmament will not be required since a strong Germany is seen as a protection against Bolshevism.’35 Müller was in Rome again from 6 to 12 November, but as a result of the Venlo incident, the contacts dried up36 and he had to leave Rome because Heydrich was watching him.37 On 12 January 1940 Pope Pius XII spoke on the matter to British ambassador d’Arcy Osborne for the first time, and in a further audience on 7 February more broadly about the aims and intentions of the German Resistance. Müller stated later that Canaris was not informed as to the details of the conversation and its results,38 but in view of the fact that he covered MGler’s mission with Keitel and Heydrich it is to be inferred that he knew exactly what was in progress. From the autumn of 1939, Müller’s so-called espionage reports were drafted and supplied into Abwehr everyday business to legitimise Canaris’s approach to Heydrich.

  In the run-up to the Venlo incident, Schellenberg had used the method of ‘counter-play’ to test British readiness and commitment for an ‘understanding’ and Bürkner, head of Abteilung Ausland, requested from the Foreign Ministry ‘play material’ and true reports ‘to use in discussions with intelligence services of neutral nations as well as exchange material for our own agents’.39

  At the end of January, after talks between Dohnanyi and Müller, the first version of the so-called ‘X-Report’ appeared in the summary of the exploratory soundings through the Vatican, Müller being identified only as ‘X’ for security reasons. This report, discovered amongst Dohnanyi’s files found at Zossen after 20 July 1944, is no longer extant. He did not receive this final version until mid-March 1940, after Müller submitted an assurance from the British Government transmitted by the pope, in which ‘the will for a just peace’ was guaranteed, provided that Hitler was toppled.40 On 4 April the ailing General Thomas, believing the X-Report to be a true Abwehr document, himself took it41 to Halder together with a covering letter authored by Dohnanyi. Halder passed the papers to Brauchitsch;42 they had been doctored beforehand with certain amendments that the conspirators considered valid in the campaign to convince Halder and Brauchitsch.43

  Dohnanyi did not believe that the X-Report would actually convince anybody and he was proved right. While Halder was doubtful about the material, did not like its anonymity nor certain contradictions in the content, Brauchitsch stated categorically that treason against the State was impermissible for a soldier in wartime, and
urged the arrest of the X-Report author for treason, which Halder resisted with the words, ‘If anyone should be arrested, then arrest me.’44

  Hans Oster, with Beck’s knowledge, now warned the British Government of the imminent German attack on Denmark and Norway through Müller’s Vatican contacts, having already informed the Netherlands. On the evening of 8 October 1939, while driving through Berlin with Franz Liedig, Oster asked his friend to drop him outside the house of the Dutch military attaché Lt-Colonel Gijsbertus Jacobus Sas and wait. Sas and Oster had met during the 1936 Olympics, and Sas knew Oster’s attitude to the regime. When Oster returned, he told Liedig: ‘Now there is no going back;’ he had just committed treason against the State by promising to give Sas timely warning of the German attack date. Liedig noted Oster’s remarks:

  It is much simpler to take a pistol and shoot somebody, it is much simpler to run into a spray of machine-gun bullets than to do what I have resolved to do . . . I beg you, to remain even after my death the friend who knows how it was with me and what motivated me to do things which others perhaps can never understand or at least would never have done themselves.45