Canaris

by Mueller, Michael;

  Moltke had planned a third excursion to Turkey for January 1944 but was arrested by the Gestapo on 19 January, together with Otto Kiep. The latter was friendly with the Abwehr’s Erich Vermehren, whose wife had now arrived in Istanbul with the help of the German Foreign Ministry and Canaris in spite of Gestapo wishes. It may be that news of the arrests of Moltke and Kiep fortified the resolutions of the Vermehrens to change sides,9 and on 27 January 1944 both disappeared without trace.

  The telegram reporting their disappearance arrived in Berlin on the night of 3 February 1944. It was assumed that they were being hidden by the British until the chance arose to smuggle them out of Turkey, or that they were already on British territory. The K-Organisation sub-branch considered the passing of military secrets unlikely to be the primary force behind the defection but rather that Elisabeth Vermehren, as a ‘Catholic activist’ had decided to take up the political struggle against the Third Reich and would make radio broadcasts for the BBC. It was feared that the affair could ‘involve wider circles’ and that – especially as regards the defection of the wife, whose emigration from Germany had caused some misgivings on the military side – ‘persons inside the Reich possibly had an interest’.

  The finger of suspicion was quickly pointed at Foreign Ministry staff, who had provided Frau Vermehren with a service passport, money and a mission, and to get around the military borders the Foreign Ministry had even placed a seat at her disposal aboard a courier aircraft.10 The telegrams, now a Reich secret, made a concrete accusation against anonymous staff in the Wilhelmstrasse without mentioning the mission for which she had come to Turkey. It was agreed that OKW and principally the SD would look into the matter further.

  Adam von Trott was obliged to come up with an explanation since he had been the staff member at the Foreign Ministry who had supported Leverkühn’s petition in the Vermehren case. Herr Vermehren had appeared at the Foreign Ministry in December 1943 and said that he wanted to take his wife with him to Turkey; the Abwehr was not opposed, and apparently it was very urgent. He was in Istanbul and responsible for creating connections to an ‘interesting’ American; he had good insight into the British–US internal relationship but his political reports had been for the most part of no interest to the Abwehr and therefore appeared seldom in the embassy reports sent from Turkey. This was why it was important to use Frau Vermehren, so as to procure political information for the Foreign Ministry through private channels. This pitiful explanation did nothing to help the relationship between the Abwehr and Foreign Ministry in the Vermehren case.11 Canaris was alarmed because Herr Vermehren had also had ‘good insight into the organisations and activities of the Abwehr in Turkey’ and this gave rise to the ‘danger of betrayal with all the unpleasant consequences attaching thereto’.12

  Leverkühn suggested that OKW should take hostages in Germany and announce it in a radio broadcast to force the couple to surrender to the German authorities. Papen intervened against this plan, fearing further publicity and the revelation of Turkish secret service cooperation in the search for the absentees; under no circumstances must German–Turkish collaboration against Britain and the Soviet Union become apparent. Papen suspected that an Austrian resistance group supported in Turkey by the US secret service there had also had a finger in the Vermehren case, and he asked that none of the measures that the SD wanted should be implemented until his own inquiries were exhausted.13 Papen was soon under suspicion himself for procuring the entry visa into Turkey for Elisabeth Vermehren and also being related to her. Her father’s half-sister had married into a branch of Papen’s family, but this branch had separated from the line of the former Reich Chancellor two hundred years previously, a fact he found himself obliged to explain in a telegram to the Foreign Ministry.14

  The Vermehren case now began to draw in those wider circles as Papen had feared.15 Together with the Vermehrens, an Abwehr agent named Hamburger, and a married couple, the Kleczkowskis, had also disappeared, the latter having been sought feverishly since 11 February. Twelve embassy staff and three other Abwehr workers were recalled for complicity in the Vermehren defection, and the entry of all new Abwehr agents into Turkey was stopped.16

  The affair signalled extremely unpleasant consequences for Canaris, for in talks during the summer with the Abwehr, the Foreign Ministry had called Abwehr activities in Turkey ‘of extremely doubtful value’, and had demanded the recall of a number of staff including Hamburger and the Kleczkowskis. The Abwehr had declined to do so.17

  The Abwehr had discovered that the Italian military attaché in Ankara had been ‘very pleased’ to learn on 2 February that the ‘three birds had flown’, which could only have meant the Vermehrens and an escort, and the British press agency Associated Press in London announced that ambassador von Papen had broken off his leave because an embassy official had been missing for several days.18 Papen was forced to request guidelines for his replies and was told that if ‘the enemy press or radio should discuss the matter publicly’, he should state that Vermehren ‘was not an embassy official’ but ‘a minor employee working at the consulate-general in Istanbul who had been seduced by the British and against the wishes of the Turkish authorities, and had been removed from Turkey by force’.19 A week later the Germans remained none the wiser as to the whereabouts of the Vermehrens, although they thought it might be Lisbon, since Elisabeth Vermehren’s mother was living there as a correspondent for the periodical Das Reich. All Portuguese airports were being watched by Abwehr and SD agents,20 but in fact, the Vermehrens had actually been taken to Cairo.

  A Foreign Ministry report dated 20 February presumed that ‘the desertion of a married couple in high society is in the foreground for the British in their efforts for the Vermehren husband and wife, and that obtaining information about our Abwehr service plays a subordinate role’. This was wishful thinking, for the same report stated: ‘Vermehren knew our Abwehr system in Turkey, including the structuring of Abwehr representatives in the authorities of the foreign service there, also the Abwehr officers in Turkey and their cover designations as well as a large number of Abwehr agents with their cover names. He has not been instructed as to Abwehr activities in the field of counterespionage, sabotage and the Navy.’21

  Vermehren had prepared a forty-page treatise on Abwehr personnel and embassy staff. Whether he could supply the British with the key to the ciphers was not known for certain, and it was hoped that the actual damage to the intelligence service would be slight. The Foreign Ministry may have thought so, but Canaris considered it substantial, and Kaltenbrunner presented Hitler with a report on 7 February from his SD attaché in Istanbul that put the matter in a dramatic light. The affair hit Canaris at a time that could scarcely have been less favourable; his position in the National Socialist power structure had been weak since the beginning of 1944, and his rivals were now arming for the decisive battle to oust him.

  The exposure of a German spy ring in Argentina caused the government in Buenos Aires to sever diplomatic relations with the Reich. Moreover this scandal offered the German ambassador in Madrid, Dieckhoff, brother-inlaw of Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, the opportunity to strike against the Abwehr, whose sabotage activities in Spain had long been a thorn in his side. On 28 January he wrote to the Wilhelmstrasse: ‘The events in Argentina give me cause to take a basic stand on the whole question of using German agents in Spain.’22 The acts of sabotage against British shipping by Abwehr II and – since the defection of Italy – also against Italian ships in Spanish ports, had severely damaged diplomatic relations between Berlin and Madrid and brought the Spanish Government under pressure. Since the ‘Italian betrayal’ British intelligence had been informed of many details and was in a position to lay before the Spanish authorities ‘documentary and photographic’ evidence about the German Abwehr apparatus. One should not overestimate the durability of personal links and confidences existing since the Civil War – here Canaris was meant; he had made a friendly visit to Spain in October 1943 and a few days
later the Spanish authorities had caved in to British pressure by shutting down an Abwehr post. Dieckhoff demanded that

  all Abwehr posts should be removed from the service buildings of embassies and consulates as soon as possible so that in a given case we can give the assurance with some credibility that we have no knowledge of Abwehr activities . . . everything must be done to ensure that in future the remaining Abwehr staff receive only operations that are outwardly defensive . . . above all so-called active missions, as for example acts of sabotage, such as those undertaken a few weeks ago against British shipping in Spanish Mediterranean ports without sufficient camouflage or any obvious military or political purpose, will be made impossible from now on.

  Ribbentrop supported his brother-in-law. The Foreign Minister wrote to Keitel and Himmler, giving his staff members Ritter and Wagner the job of contacting the SD:

  In the expectation that both Keitel and Himmler will soon be issuing the instructions, it must be ensured that: (1) In Axis or neutral countries all sabotage activity ceases. If for any reason an act of sabotage is considered essential, the planning and execution can only be undertaken with the previous agreement of the Foreign Minister; and (2) that the dismantling of the Abwehr organisation, in so far as that is possible, is begun now.23

  Ribbentrop wanted to control Abwehr sabotage work himself and reduce the organisation, discussing this with Himmler and ignoring Canaris; he also prepared a memorandum on this for Hitler.24 On 3 February Canaris wrote to Ribbentrop: ‘Chief OKW has forbidden all further sabotage against British shipping in Spanish ports. However, he considers desirable the continuation of sabotage attacks against Badoglio-tonnage [Italian ships] in Spanish ports, and attacks against those carrying contraband to the enemy remain viable.’25

  Ribbentrop and Dieckhoff worked hand in hand. On 6 February 1944 Dieckhoff cabled to Berlin the current development in Spain; the house of Hauptmann Hummel, head of Abwehr II in Spain, had been searched, and Dieckhoff had received warnings that the Spanish were planning an operation against the entire German network of agents. The previous day the British had reported that a time-bomb of German origin had been found aboard a freighter travelling from Spain with a cargo of onions. ‘The Anglo-Saxons have reacted with a fury that the whole country is feeling today (fuel blockade),’ Dieckhoff reported.26 After speaking to Hitler, Ribbentrop informed Canaris on 8 February: ‘The Führer has stated that (1) all such acts of sabotage must cease absolutely; and (2) no acts of sabotage are to be made against Italian ships.’27 In connection with the breaking-off of diplomatic relations by Argentina, the Foreign Minister called the embassies in Ankara, Lisbon, Stockholm and Berne ‘without regard to special interests and internal German service posts’28 to determine which Abwehr and SD units were still viable and which could be recommended for dismantling.

  Canaris wanted to meet Dieckhoff in Madrid29 but held back, travelling finally in company with Lahousen’s successor Freytag-Loringhoven to Biarritz to confer with the head of K-Organisation Spain, Leissner, and the Foreign Ministry representative to the Abwehr, Freiherr von Grote; Dieckhoff also sent a deputy. The conversations increased the ill-feeling between Abwehr and Foreign Ministry. Canaris was forced to make major concessions, pulling out completely from embassies and consulates, and removing ten K-Organisation employees from Spain monthly, and sabotage activity in Spain and Spanish Morocco was forbidden. Canaris was embittered that Dieckhoff had used a complaint about worthless political reporting to arrange with immediate effect restrictions that included the transmission of political reports of any kind. In the long run, apart from counter-espionage, this was the reason for the existence of the Abwehr.

  The Foreign Ministry representatives Grote and Stille emphasised that ‘the rectification ordered by Admiral Canaris rests on his own decision’, the Foreign Ministry and embassy ‘had, together with a certain physical separation, considered it politic to diminish the complement of K-Organisation Spain in order to reduce the exposure to Anglo-Saxon pressures which is sure to come’.30

  Unusually, Canaris allowed Grote to see his resentment and resignation both on the flight and during the talks. He felt deceived by Dieckhoff, having assured the ambassador a few months before that good and reliable cooperation existed with the Abwehr. The Foreign Ministry inclined to the view, Canaris said, that ‘every difficulty arising from the political or military development in the relationship with neutral States could be traced back to Abwehr mistakes. He had been accused of responsibility for the severing of diplomatic ties with Argentina, and now he was the scapegoat-in-waiting should the Spanish do the same.’31 Grote had contradicted him, and ‘pointed to undeniable ineptitude’. In his notes for the Foreign Minister, however, Grote wrote that he could sympathise with Canaris’s disappointment, and the admiral had asked him a number of awkward questions to which he was unable to furnish an answer.

  Canaris’s complaints were obviously relayed to Dieckhoff who, in his hour of triumph, used his reply to Ribbentrop for a gloating settlement of the account with Canaris. Since taking the Madrid post in February 1943, he had been dubious about Abwehr activity and, when presenting his credentials to Franco, the Caudillo had spoken confidentially about Canaris, making clear that, as far as he was concerned, it was the ambassador, and not the admiral, who was the German partner for discussions;32 Franco had not wanted to meet Canaris on his last visit, and nobody on the Spanish side had a good word to say for him. The violent closure of Abwehrstelle Algeciras by the Spanish authorities made him doubt strongly ‘the alleged friendly understanding between Admiral Canaris and Spanish offices’. As for Canaris’s old friend and confidant Italian General Roatta, Franco hated him; irrespective of how firm the friendship between Canaris and Franco and other Spanish generals might have been during the Civil War, it could no longer be built on today.

  The telegrams sent to Berlin by Canaris during his visit to Madrid in October 1943 spoke in different terms.33 The correctness of the decision to close Abwehrstelle Algeciras was disputed even in Spain since, according to information from K-Organisation, it had been ordered by the Spanish Foreign Ministry without the knowledge of the Spanish secret service.34

  Dieckhoff’s offensive coincided with the political eclipse of Canaris. His conduct at Biarritz and his orders had created new enemies in the Foreign Ministry, even amongst those who were not in agreement with the suppression of the Abwehr political reports, for Spanish Foreign Ministry telegrams intercepted by K-Organisation agents were an especially important resource for the German Foreign Ministry.35 When Leissner’s negotiations with the Spanish generals fell through after the latter declared that in the current situation they had no guarantee that the Abwehr would exist in Spain beyond the German embassy, Canaris’s enemies had reached their objective.

  The end of Canaris was sealed. Too much had happened in recent months: the investigations of Dohnanyi and Oster, the suspicions against Canaris himself, the complaints of Abwehr incompetence over the Allied landings in North Africa and Allied plans for offensives, the diplomatic entanglements over the sabotage activities of Abwehr II, and finally the Vermehren affair, for which Hitler blamed Canaris personally – Hitler’s patience was exhausted. At the beginning of March 1944, after his visit to Obersalzberg, Goebbels noted in his diary how much the Vermehren affair preoccupied Hitler.36 Huppenkothen reported later that after an outburst of rage over the Vermehrens, Himmler’s representative at FHQ, SS-Brigadeführer Fegelein suggested on 11 February 1944 that ‘the Führer ought to transfer the whole box of junk to the Reichsführer-SS’.37

  Hitler agreed and informed Himmler immediately that Canaris was relieved of office and the entire German intelligence service was being placed in Himmler’s charge. The next day Hitler signed the following order:

  1. A unified German secret service is to be created.

  2. I appoint the Reichsführer-SS to head it.

  3. In so far as it touches on military intelligence and Abwehr, the Reichsführer-SS and head of OK
W will take the necessary measures in bilateral agreement.38

  The exclusion of Canaris was now official, and the news spread quickly amongst the Military Abwehr staff. Keitel and Jodl travelled to the new Abwehr headquarters at Maybach II, Zossen, in order to inform Canaris personally that he had been relieved, and was now obliged to proceed to Burg Lauenstein in the Franconian Forest to await details as to his future employment.39 On 23 February 1944 Keitel noted that ‘the future employment of Admiral Canaris will be decided later’ and until then he would be ‘amongst the OKW officers at my disposal’.40 A little afterwards at Burg Lauenstein Canaris received a message from Grossadmiral Dönitz: ‘The commander-in-chief Kriegsmarine informed Admiral Canaris on 10 March 1944 that he will enter the Retired List with effect from 30 June. The welfare and care provisions apply. Admiral Canaris is at the disposal of the Kriegsmarine. A new appointment is not envisaged.’41

  The laboratories, research equipment and workshops of the Abwehr were located at Burg Lauenstein, but how Canaris spent his time there, or received news of his enforced retirement, is not known. He was accompanied there by his chauffeur and two dachshunds, but had not been able to take leave of his family. His wife Erika had been evacuated to friends on the Ammersee to escape the bombing, his daughter Brigitte was at boarding school, and his sick daughter Eva lived in the Bodelschwingschen Institute at Bethel.42 Oberstleutnant Albrecht Focke, who ran Burg Lauenstein, was told to treat Canaris with courtesy and respect, allowing him freedom of movement there while shielding him as much as possible from the outside world. During this time his wife visited him once; Schellenberg also came, but the substance of their long conversation is unknown.