A British intelligence report immediately after the war confirmed that Britain knew very little about the German Abwehr until 1941;8 few, if any, documents had been captured, nor telegrams decoded. That changed in 1942 when the decryption experts were regularly able to present the assessors and analysts with Abwehr telegraphic material, although the picture remained fragmented. The interpretation of the decrypted material often proved difficult.
The final breakthrough came with the Allied landings in the framework of Operation Torch in North Africa in November 1942, with the capture of Abwehr officers. From then on the British secret service was able to penetrate the Abwehr so deeply that no important activity remained unknown to the intelligence service until the dissolution of the Abwehr in the spring of 1944.9
The decisive event occurred on 7 November 1942, immediately after the Allied landings in Spanish Morocco and Algeria, when the Abwehr staff in Algiers decamped and headed for Tunis. Passing American convoys and slipping through checkpoints as ‘Frenchmen’, at a crossroads they eventually met a troop of French officers whom they could not deceive and were taken prisoner. One of the Abwehr prisoners, whose name remains a British top secret, was given the cover name ‘Harlequin’ and became one of the most important informers of the British intelligence service. He knew the structure, work method and personnel of the Abwehr, and the British took him to the United Kingdom immediately, where they interrogated him throughout December.10 ‘Harlequin’ was cooperative and expressed the convictions of a Canaris or a Moltke – the war could no longer be won, the National Socialist regime was unworthy of a cultured people and had to be eliminated, the now hopeless struggle against the Western democracies should be discontinued, for all weakening of German power with regard to the continuing fight against Bolshevism and Soviet mastery was to be deprecated. He even mentioned the idea of a European Community led by a State with a long democratic tradition, for which only Britain was qualified.11
‘Harlequin’ mentioned Canaris: ‘He [‘Harlequin’] is obsessed by the idea of a compromise peace. He believes that this can be achieved through the office of Admiral Canaris, himself and perhaps Prinz Hohenlohe being the liaison people,’12 a report recorded in early April 1944.
The relationship, particularly between the British Foreign Office and MI5, was not without its complications, and ‘Harlequin’ was stubborn in insisting that his contacting Canaris to sound out peace had been guaranteed in his first conversations with the British;13 he had made this a condition of his cooperation. Meanwhile, rumours were circulating about Canaris’s downfall, and the negotiations with ‘Harlequin’ were now less useful. He had already provided a great quantity of insider information, he saw the basis for his cooperation withdrawn, and requested – plagued by conscience – his ‘discharge’ and transfer to a PoW camp.
The situation for Germany at this time was catastrophic. 6.Armee had just capitulated at Stalingrad and the Front in North Africa was in a state of imminent collapse. At the beginning of February 1943, in the company of Lahousen and the new ‘Brandenburg’ commanding officer, Alexander von Pfuhlstein, Canaris discussed the critical situation of Army Groups Centre and Don with Keitel and Jodl at FHQ Rastenburg; both generals expressed fears that the Allies would invade Portugal and Spain. Canaris countered this by explaining that K-Org Spain would report the first signs of such an operation immediately, but neither general took much comfort from this assurance.14 At Nikolaiken, Lahousen reported on the success of Abwehr II in Gibraltar and North Africa, but otherwise Canaris had little positive to report, especially about the Tunisian Front. On 26 February 1943 Canaris conferred with Generalfeldmarschall Kesselring in Italy about the apparent discord between the Abwehr in Tunis and local units. He flew out each morning from Frascati in a bomber put at his disposal by Kesselring, and within ninety minutes landed in Tunis. Here Canaris and Lahousen saw long columns of American prisoners, exhausted, dispirited ‘but well-fed, American football types’.15
Over breakfast with Generaloberst von Arnim and his chief of Staff, the disastrous situation of the German troops there was detailed. Only a fraction of the required fuel was getting through to Tunis, in barrels transported by aircraft because ships were unable to pass through the Allied blockade. Von Arnim said he could predict the date when it would end;16 nobody knew who was in charge any more. In the south, Rommel was leading an attack with two divisions which was officially an Army Group but had no Staff nor Ic officers responsible for intelligence. In addition, Rommel would be returning shortly to Germany, while Kesselring and his Command Staff were running Army operations in North Africa from Frascati in Italy.
Von Arnim was also critical of the Abwehr, especially Fiedler, Canaris’s appointee, who was currently at odds with the SD and everybody else and whom von Arnim considered an unsuitable leader. From Abwehr I he had received only misleading reports, while Abwehr II at least was in the position to recommend how to inflict the occasional pinprick on the enemy, while forcing him to commit forces to protect the rear. He said he would use Arabs for sabotage and commando missions in future because of the ‘waste of people of high soldierly qualities, who were very difficult to replace in the desert’.17 Canaris leapt to the defence of his men but promised to think about recalling Fiedler, although he saw the root of the problem as being in the typical jealousies between SD and Abwehr.
With an escort of three fighters he flew next day to Rome, where ‘a severely wounded man, who needed an immediate operation to save his life, was stretchered aboard. He had lost both eyes and his face to a mine explosion, his head was hidden in white muslin with holes to breathe. He was set down beside Lahousen and passed the whole flight without a word of complaint.’18 At Frascati Canaris caught the next flight out for Venice, in company with Lahousen and Bentivegni.
A person in Canaris’s position at this time could no longer remain unaware that the situation was worsening daily. Total defeat in a total war was a mere question of time, and no hope existed of convincing the Allies through clandestine channels to drop their demand for unconditional surrender in favour of common cause against the Soviets. Thus the plans for a coup were revived, the initiative coming from a group of conspirators of Army Group South around Tresckow, Schlabrendorff and Gersdorff.
Since January 1943 at the Bendlerstrasse, Gisevius had been revising the 1938 coup plans in a room put at his disposal by General Friedrich Olbricht, head of the General Army Office and acting commanding officer for the Reserve Army. As before, Beck was ‘Head of the Movement’,19 Oster acted as chief of Staff and liaison man, and Olbricht had the role of organiser and ‘technical chief’20 of the conspiracy, and was planning the necessary steps for the seizure of Berlin and strategic locations in Cologne, Munich and Vienna. At the end of 1942 Olbricht had assured Tresckow that he needed eight weeks for the preparations; a month later cooperation was agreed between the Berlin conspirators and Army Group Centre plotters Tresckow, Beck and Goerdeler.21 Olbricht told Schlabrendorff: ‘We are ready. You can light the first fuse.’22 The final touches between the coup conspirators in Berlin and the ‘action centre’23 at Army Group Centre followed.
‘For this purpose,’ Schlabrendorff remembered, ‘Admiral Canaris organised a service flight from Berlin to Army Group Centre headquarters at Smolensk. He arrived with a large entourage and, so that nobody suspected the real reason, arranged a big conference of Abwehr officers active in the intelligence service.’24
The aircraft touched down on 7 March 1943 and Canaris, Dohnanyi and Lahousen alighted. The cargo was explosives and a delay fuse of the newest kind intended officially for Abwehr II attached to the Army Group. In February, Oster had asked Lahousen if Abwehr Il-kommando at Smolensk had enough explosives since the senior General Staff officer, Oberst von Tresckow, was interested in them in connection with an advised visit of the Führer.25 Lahousen guessed from this ambiguous statement what the true purpose was, and was asked by Dohnanyi for the newest type of explosive and fuses.26
Canar
is knew what the aircraft was carrying and, contrary to his decision three years before, Lahousen let him know its purpose.27 Canaris was impressed by the work of the Abwehr group and, dining with Ic Gersdorff, a plotter, was given ‘some enlightening anecdotes about the attitude of the Hungarians to the war in the East’. The Hungarians kept strictly to the orders of their vice-regent to avoid hostilities with the Red Army and only engage in security duties to the rear; Gersdorff spoke of the intention ‘to spare Hungarian blood at any price’.28 The explosives passed to the Abwehr squad via Gersdorff,29 and that evening Dohnanyi and Tresckow agreed a code between the two groups for use after a successful assassination attempt.
The opportunity for which Tresckow and the conspirators were waiting came when Hitler arrived five days later at Smolensk with a huge retinue to discuss the Kursk Offensive. That morning, as agreed with Dohnanyi, Schlabrendorff rang Abwehr-Hauptmann Ludwig Gehre and gave the password for the imminent initial move. The original plan to shoot Hitler in the officers’ mess had fallen through, and Tresckow would now explode his aircraft in the air instead.
After his conference, the company dined in the mess. As the visitors were about to depart, Tresckow asked a member of Hitler’s entourage, Oberstleutnant Heinz Brandt of the General Staff operational section, to take back to OKH a package for Oberstleutnant Hellmuth Stieff; it was not an unusual request, and Brandt readily agreed. The contents of the package were ostensibly two bottles of Cointreau, but actually were two pairs of British limpet mines type ‘Clam’. The timer was set for thirty minutes. It was planned that the aircraft would explode over Minsk, but a few hours later its safe arrival at Rastenburg was confirmed. It is not known why the detonators failed, although perhaps the severe cold in the cargo-hold was the reason. Tresckow rang Brandt in Berlin telling him that there had been a mistake and he should hold on to the package, and next morning Schlabrendorff arrived in Berlin and at OKH exchanged the bomb package for two bottles of cognac. The bomb was disarmed in the couchette of the train that brought Schlabrendorff to Berlin.30 Lahousen stated after the war that the explosives and materials used for this unsuccessful attempt were not those brought aboard Canaris’s aircraft.31
The next opportunity presented itself a few days later. Gersdorff volunteered to be a suicide bomber. His intention was to blow up Hitler and himself during the Heroes’ Memorial Day celebrations on 21 March 1943 in Berlin. After the ceremony in the courtyard of the Berlin Zeughaus, Hitler was to inspect an exhibition of weapons confiscated from the Russians. Gersdorff stood at the entrance, and as Hitler passed him, Gersdorff activated the detonator of the bomb, which was concealed beneath his greatcoat. It was set for ten minutes, the shortest time possible. Unfortunately for Gersdorff, Hitler almost ran through the exhibition and left two minutes after his arrival. All that remained to be done was disarm the bomb in a toilet.32 By chance, luck, intuition or the dark fates, Hitler had survived two bomb attempts within a very short time.
On the morning of 5 April 1943, police attorney Manfred Roeder and Gestapo Commissioner Franz Sonderegger arrived at the Tirpitzufer to arrest Hans von Dohnanyi. Canaris was shocked. When his secretary asked him if nothing could be done, he shook his head. As the two officers passed through Oster’s office to make the arrest, Oster said to Roeder: ‘You should arrest me at the same time, for Dohnanyi has done nothing that I do not know about.’33
Canaris and Oster were present at the arrest and witnessed the search of Dohnanyi’s office and safe. Although he kept little incriminating material in the office, documents were found relating to ‘Unternehmen Sieben’ (Operation Seven), the escape of fourteen Jews to Switzerland supposedly as agents for deployment in the United States, and also material covering a journey to Rome by Bonhoeffer and Josef Müller a few days ahead, with the secret purpose to contact Western Allied sources; these papers only mentioned planned espionage activities by Bonhoeffer in Rome.34
There now occurred the dreadful misunderstanding that developed into the well-known ‘Note Incident’. Dohnanyi whispered to Oster, ‘Send my wife a note,’ but in the confusion, Oster heard only the word ‘note’ and thought that Dohnanyi meant he should destroy a slip of paper taken from an assorted batch of documents by Roeder. This paper was innocuous and contained only instructions for Bonhoeffer’s journey to Rome, but now both Oster and Sonderegger wrongly concluded that it had a more sinister significance. Roeder insisted that Oster surrender the note and ordered him out of the room.35 The same day Roeder complained officially about Oster to Keitel, with the result that Oster was suspended from duty and placed under house arrest; nine days later he was dismissed from the Abwehr and transferred to the Führer-Reserve. Bonhoeffer and Christine von Dohnanyi in Berlin, and Josef Müller, his wife, secretary and a colleague in Munich were arrested. After the Berlin business was over, Canaris is alleged to have told Oster’s secret to Dohnanyi’s secretary and Freda von Knobelsdorff, adding that ‘if Dohnanyi had been wearing uniform, all that would not have gone off so badly’.36
Dohnanyi was charged with high treason, currency offences, corruption and breaches of service regulations.37 The investigation preceding his arrest was a complicated range of inquiries which included Unternehmen Sieben within the Abwehr, the ongoing Vatican conversations since 1939, financial transactions in connection with the ‘Cash Deposit’ case and the consul to Portugal, and an anti-Nazi agent attached to Abwehrstelle Munich, Wilhelm Schmidhuber.
The deadly threat for Canaris and his co-conspirators during the investigation came from two Abwehr staff members. Oberintendant Johannes Toeppen, head of Group Finances in Oster’s headquarters department, and Walter Herzlieb, head of the Legal Services Group, belonged amongst the majority of those in the Abwehr who had ‘no doubts about the military and political order of the Third Reich, or were fanatical Nazis’.38
Toeppen hated Dohnanyi and Oster, but while he subjected expense invoices from Abwehr staff and agents to the most minute scrutiny, Toeppen was very generous as to the boundaries of his own transactions. At the instigation of the alleged master spy Dusko Popoff, alias ‘Ivan’, he had opened a gold reserve for German agents in Great Britain. Since 1941 Toeppen had been promoting Dusko’s brother Ivo, godfather to Toeppen’s son, and was soon allowing Ivo Popoff to handle the major part of his financial transactions. In actual fact, Dusko Popoff, alias ‘Tricycle’, was head of a comprehensive British spy ring in the service of MI5’S ‘XX Committee’. Ivo Popoff belonged to this ring, and so did other relations and friends of Popoff. Dusko Popoff’s services were so highly valued by the British that he was granted British nationality after the war and became the only overseas agent to be awarded the OBE. The gold deposit in London set up by Toeppen was controlled by MI6.39
Toeppen felt that he had been rumbled by Oster when the latter requested a similar foreign exchange deposit with Abwehr banker von der Heydt which was not approved by the competent authority, and this movement of Abwehr funds into Switzerland had been uncovered by Keitel’s auditors. Oster and Dohnanyi, who had initiated Unternehmen Sieben at Canaris’s request, had been obliged to guarantee to the Swiss authorities the financial independence of the fourteen Jewish immigrants. Accordingly, it had not been possible to avoid involving Group headquarters finances in this rescue action and Toeppen as head of finance had inevitably discovered the preparations; he saw his chance for revenge and protested to Canaris. A huge sum such as this had only ever once been approved, namely for the disastrous Operation Pastorius against the United States, in which the agents had been unmasked, tried and some of them executed.40 Canaris ignored Toeppen’s complaint but the latter subsequently kept a close watch on Dohnanyi and Oster, especially after 29 September 1942, when the Unternehmen Sieben ‘agents’ left for Switzerland. His persistent requests for the activities of the agents pressurised Dohnanyi and Oster to such an extent that they falsely employed reports from other sources as reports of the ‘Swiss agents’.
Toeppen continued his inquiries, examining large book ent
ries made in connection with the sale of the valuables of the Jewish refugees and the ‘refinancing’ of their ‘spy mission’. Finally Toeppen requested an attorney, Ludwig Ruge, to investigate how the money, which had been turned over to the alleged agents, was being used in Switzerland.
Ruge travelled to Basle on behalf of the Abwehr and interviewed all fourteen refugees during December 1942. He had not been given the background to the affair and so did not suspect that he was being manipulated by Toeppen until his conversations with those involved in Switzerland made Toeppen’s motives clear. In Berlin he reported to ‘some accounting centre at OKW’ about his inquiries in Basle and had assured the appropriate authority that ‘everything was in order’.41 Bonhoeffer informed Dohnanyi and Oster, who told Canaris and demanded the dismissal of Toeppen. When Canaris saw that Toeppen had intrigued against him, he ordered his discharge for the year’s end, probably based on the dubious movement of funds by Toeppen to the Popoffs, which Dohnanyi and Oster knew in outline at least.42
Danger also threatened from the Legal Services Group. Dohnanyi was appointed by Canaris to examine their legal opinions and his reports were rarely favourable. For this reason Dohnanyi was not liked and had made many attempts to wriggle out of the assignment, but Canaris had told him that ‘here he gave the orders, and if he thought it correct to give to his own man things that actually came under the jurisdiction of others, that had nothing to do with those gentlemen’.43
The convinced Nazi Herzlieb, whose advice Canaris had often sought in the past, but who now realised he was being eclipsed by Dohnanyi, saw that a rummage into the background of Unternehmen Sieben would give him the chance to strike back. Herzlieb requested the head of administration, Archibald von Gramatzki, to allow him to research the operation, but Gramatzki, a great admirer of Canaris, informed the admiral of Herzlieb’s petition and so enabled Canaris initially to fight off this attack from within his own ranks.44
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