Why did Germany lose in WWII? Is it because Hitler was stupid or crazy? Was the Jewish side simply numerically superior? Or was treason to blame? In our investigation, we focus on the career of MI6 agent Admiral Canaris.
Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was born in Dortmund in Westphalia, the son of Carl Canaris, a rich industrialist, and his wife Auguste Popp. Canaris believed that he was related to the 19th-century Greek admiral Constantine Kanaris. While on a visit to Corfu, he was given a portrait of the Greek hero that he always kept in his office when he became an admiral of the navy. His family was actually of Northern Italian descent, originally called Canarisi, and had lived in Germany since the 17th century. He spoke fluent Spanish and English, which made him useful as an MI6 agent. He was chief of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, from 1935 to 1944.
Before the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938, Canaris planned with Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin to capture and exterminate all members of Nazi party. Kleist visited Britain secretly and discussed the situation with British MI6 and high-ranking politicians. The plan was to use a British declaration of war as an excuse to execute the coup. Unfortunately for Canaris, Chamberlin decided not to act as a pawn of the British military-industrial complex, and the plot was scrapped.
Canaris did not give up on his plans to destroy Germany. In January 1939, Canaris manufactured the "Dutch War Scare" in cooperation with the British. By 23 January 1939, the British government received information to the effect that Germany intended to invade the Netherlands in February 1939. This information was completely false, and it was intended to achieve a change in British foreign policy. Canaris was successful, and the "Dutch War Scare" played a major role in causing Chamberlain to send a large British ground force to the defense of France in February 1939.
Despite literally planning the extermination of Germany's largest political party, and orchestrating the war between Britain and Germany, Hitler had no clue what Canaris was up to. Canaris, accordingly, was promoted to the rank of full Admiral in January 1940.
At a conference of senior officers in Berlin, in December 1941, Canaris is quoted as saying "the Abwehr has nothing to do with the persecution of Jews....no concern of ours, we hold ourselves aloof from it". Canaris was in contact with British intelligence during this time. During the invasion of the Soviet Union, he received a detailed report of all the enemy positions that was known only to the British. The head of MI6, Stewart Menzies, praised Canaris' courage and bravery at the end of the war.
Canaris led a deliberately botched sabotage mission in America. In June 1942, Canaris sent eight Abwehr agents to the United States as part of Operation Pastorius. Two weeks later, all were arrested by the FBI thanks to two Abwehr agents who betrayed the mission. All were found guilty and sentenced to death. Two others who cooperated with the FBI received sentences of life imprisonment instead. Due to the embarrassing failure of Operation Pastorius, no sabotage attempt was ever made in the United States. This increased American morale and deceitfully made German espionage seem pointless.
In reality, Operation Pastorius was created by MI6, and designed to fail. In a sense, it was a false flag. Ernest Peter Burger, a supposed "Abwehr agent" for Operation Pastorius, was in reality a former concentration camp inmate who Canaris selected specifically because he could not be trusted to remain loyal to Germany.
After 1942, Canaris visited Spain frequently and was in contact with British agents from Gibraltar. In 1943, while in occupied France, Canaris made contact with British agents. He met the local head of the British Intelligence Services, Colonel Claude Olivier. Canaris wanted to know the terms for peace if Germany got rid of Hitler. Churchill's reply, sent to him two weeks later, was simple: "Unconditional surrender". Canaris was satisfied with this response, and continued cooperating with the Churchill regime.
Canaris had established another two links with MI6 — one via Zürich, and the other via Spain and Gibraltar. It is also possible that Vatican contacts provided a third route to his British counterparts.
Canaris protected traitors, including Jews, by sending them to Spain. Many such people were given token training as Abwehr "agents" and then issued papers allowing them to leave Germany. One notable traitor he assisted was Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn. This has led Chabad Lubavitch to campaign for his recognition as a Good Shabbos Goy (Righteous Gentile).
Canaris foiled of Hitler's plot to kidnap or kill the traitorous king of the Italians, King Victor Emmanuel III. At a meeting in Venice on 29 July 1943, Canaris informed the Italian General Cesare Amè of the plot. General Amè relayed the news that allowed the plot to be foiled.
Canaris was the one who allowed the German code to remain cracked open to the British. It is claimed that expatriate Poles cracked the German code, but it is possible that Canaris simply gave them the algorithms or the cipher key. In any case, members of the German cryptography service
changed the cipher once it was discovered that it had been cracked by the British. Canaris changed the cipher key
back, claiming that it had not been cracked.
The worst act of betrayal by Canaris was to single handedly convince Francisco Franco to stay out of the war. He told Franco that there was a massive conspiracy within the German government to bring Germany to ruins, and that if Franco joined with Hitler, he too would be destroyed. Franco thought he was doing what was best for his people by staying out of the war. But if Franco had ignored Canaris and alerted Hitler to this treachery, the war would have progressed in a very different way.
With his subordinate Erwin Lahousen, Canaris formed a circle of like-minded officers, many of whom were executed or forced to commit suicide after the failure of the 20 July Plot in 1944. He was finally revealed as a traitor by Himmler.
To summarize:
1. Canaris was a confirmed member of MI6.
2. Canaris planned to kill Hitler and all Nazis in 1938, but was foiled by Chamberlin's policy of peace in the west.
3. Canaris fomented the war between Britain and Germany through the "Dutch War Scare", which gave credibility to Churchill's hawkish faction within the British government.
4. Canaris set up Operation Pastorius to fail to give America a new "Zimmerman Telegram" propaganda victory, and to paint all German attempts at sabotage as futile to prevent any real action.
5. Canaris protected the traitorous King Victor Emmanuel III.
6. Canaris single handedly made Germany's cryptography pointless by changing the codes back to the old ones which had already been cracked.
7. Canaris convinced Franco to stay out of the war.
8. Canaris assisted the plot to assassinated Hitler, which was an attack on German morale and Hitler's health.
From the start to the finish, Canaris created the conditions for war between Germany and Britain, and he created the conditions for defeat. Without Canaris:
1. Britain may not have been as prepared for war in 1939. Either Britain would have remained neutral (and therefore, France as well) or the invasion of France would have been shorter, more decisive, and resulted in less casualties.
2. Germany would have launched more successful sabotage efforts in America and perhaps elsewhere in pro-Jewish states. America would have been denied a propaganda victory in Operation Pastorius.
3. King Victor Emmanuel III would have been assassinated, which would have hurt the Italian pro-Jewish collaborators.
4. The German enigma codes would have been permanently switched, and this would have given the German navy a significant advantage.
5. The plot to assassinate Hitler may have fallen through without the aid of Canaris.
6. Franco would have allowed Hitler to attack Gibraltar. Control of the Mediterranean would have eliminated the Yugoslav front, the Greek front, and the Italian front. Germany could have diverted its navy to North Africa and the Atlantic, which may have proved decisive in both theatres. The extra divisions tied down southern Europe would have been freed for the eastern front. Given the closeness of a battle like Stalingrad, this may have tipped the war in Germany's favor.
Germany was thus defeated by treachery. Canaris was only one man -- there were many more traitors within the government. It was a true
Dolchschoss.
