For educational purposes
Finally, no leading figure in Hitler's dictatorship has been surrounded by more mystery than Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, the Third Reich's foreign intelligence service.
His spy apparatus was considered Hitler's miracle weapon at the invisible front of the Secret Services.
Wilhelm Canaris, Head of the office Ausland - Abwehr, the counterintelligence department of the High Command of the armed forces, was a master of camouflage and double-dealing.
His spies and agents discretely and efficiently prepared the way for Hitler's offensive war campaigns while he himself had long since been striving for the elimination of his highest superior.
He facilitated the way for the escape of victims of political persecution and at the same time urged his subordinates to cooperate closely with the Gestapo.
In view of his contacts with the July 20th conspirators close to von Stauffenberg and his subsequent murder in a concentration camp he personified the myth of military resistance against the dictator.
Hanged by the SS only days before the war ended, Canaris' last words were: 'I did my duty as a German.'
Finally, no leading figure in Hitler's dictatorship has been surrounded by more mystery than Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, the Third Reich's foreign intelligence service.
His spy apparatus was considered Hitler's miracle weapon at the invisible front of the Secret Services.
Wilhelm Canaris, Head of the office Ausland - Abwehr, the counterintelligence department of the High Command of the armed forces, was a master of camouflage and double-dealing.
His spies and agents discretely and efficiently prepared the way for Hitler's offensive war campaigns while he himself had long since been striving for the elimination of his highest superior.
He facilitated the way for the escape of victims of political persecution and at the same time urged his subordinates to cooperate closely with the Gestapo.
In view of his contacts with the July 20th conspirators close to von Stauffenberg and his subsequent murder in a concentration camp he personified the myth of military resistance against the dictator.
Hanged by the SS only days before the war ended, Canaris' last words were: 'I did my duty as a German.'
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LearningTranscript
00:00September the 30th, 1942. Five transports are on their way to Auschwitz. More than 800
00:10Jews, most of them from Holland. On the same day, an express train travels from Germany
00:19to Switzerland. Its passengers are also Jews, 12 men, women and children. Their gate to
00:30freedom, the Badischer Railway Station in Basel.
00:49These people's saviour is one of Hitler's henchmen. Hundreds owe their lives to this man.
01:08Wilhelm Canaris, head of Hitler's secret service.
01:17Meanwhile in the East, German soldiers are fighting behind enemy lines on Canaris' orders.
01:23Their mission, espionage, sabotage and undermining enemy morale with a whispering campaign. A
01:30dirty war with heavy losses.
01:32Agents who work behind the enemy lines, if you ask me, 5-10% of them are still alive.
01:42Being a soldier under Hitler. For some, a battle between obedience and conscience. Suppression
01:51and protest. Hitler's henchmen and his adversary, saving some lives, yet guilty of the deaths of
01:59others. How could both be true? Wilhelm Canaris never found the answer.
02:08It's an insoluble question. It's a subject of Sophocles' Antigone. It's been with us forever.
02:16And the individual has to judge.
02:37The summer of 1935. A time of illusions. They have no idea what is in store for them in a few
03:03years. That year, Canaris became the chief spy. His secret service, the Abwehr, was part of the
03:12Wehrmacht. The army was still small, but had long been in step with the new state.
03:17Wehrmacht day. Canaris was there too, but not filmed. Secret service chiefs are camera shy.
03:32I met him as a good old man, over 50 years old. He was very proud to be part of the Navy.
03:43He was a very good German.
03:50Admiral Canaris was a very good, very quiet, very gentle person, in my opinion.
03:56He was small. He looked at you with innocent, cool eyes. And he enjoyed it when he could lead someone
04:11to the ice.
04:13After the war, Canaris became a mythical figure. The prototype of the good person in the shadow of a dictatorship.
04:21But the truth is more complex. Canaris started off as an admirer of the Führer. He once wrote,
04:28The German army must be a model for the pure realization of the Führer idea.
04:33Canaris was no Nazi, but he regarded Hitler, in the absence of the Kaiser, as the best possible head of state.
04:41He was a nationally committed patriot. In the 1920s, he saw the treatment of Germany,
04:48whatever the dictatorship, as an impossible behavior. Like many other democrats.
04:54And as Hitler, he pushed that aside, which he probably thought was good and right at first.
05:00And then he saw the horror behind it. Others saw the hand that pushed it aside as the hand of the devil
05:06and didn't see it that way.
05:09Canaris didn't want to recognize the devil. Nor did it bother him that Himmler's SS wanted to be involved in espionage itself.
05:17Canaris told someone who warned him, I can deal with those boys.
05:25The Abwehr, his intelligence service, soon made a name for itself. Espionage expanded.
05:31More and more agents with increasingly better equipment. The enemy was impressed.
05:39Canaris was a very respected professional, and they did some very good work.
05:46We like to think we did just as good work.
05:49The new master spy was not unknown to Hitler. A visit to the fleet in Kiel in 1933,
05:56where they got to know and think highly of one another.
05:59Canaris was still captain of the battleship Schlesien.
06:08Hitler remembered his name. Someone like that could be useful.
06:12Especially if, like Canaris, he already had quite a record.
06:18A highly decorated U-boat captain in World War I.
06:24A naval warrior who had also gained experience as a secret agent in neutral Spain.
06:30He escaped from captivity twice.
06:33Once over the high passes of the Andes from Chile to Argentina.
06:41And an escape from an Italian prison, allegedly in a priest's soutane.
06:48It was said he flirted with Matahari, the Kaiser's spy, a rumour he was happy to allow to spread.
06:56There is evidence of his involvement in Rosa Luxemburg's murder.
07:00Canaris served in the same unit as the perpetrator.
07:03He was one of the military judges and ensured that the murderer got off lightly.
07:08A two-year sentence.
07:11Soon after, an officer with a fake uniform and forged papers got the murderer out of jail.
07:16The person who set it up was Canaris.
07:19For him, murdering communists was not a crime.
07:23His superiors praised his particularly accurate assessment of political situations.
07:29An expert like him did well in the Nazi Reich.
07:45The first test for this supposedly incomparable man,
07:48the Spanish Civil War, 1936.
07:51Once again, the communists were the enemy.
07:56The hope of the right was Franco. Canaris knew him well.
08:00But Franco and his troops were stuck in Morocco and needed planes from Hitler.
08:06He was in Bayreuth with Wagner at the time and hesitated, fearing an unpredictable adventure.
08:18Canaris helped to calm his fears after the Valkyrie.
08:24German planes brought Franco's troops to their homeland, turning the tide in the Civil War.
08:33Franco and Canaris were now good friends.
08:36For his retirement, the Germans' greatest wish was a villa in Spain.
08:42On his desk in Berlin was a portrait of Franco, none of Hitler.
08:49Otherwise, there were mainly books, history, religion and philosophy.
08:54And the three monkeys, the inevitable symbolic figures of his work.
09:12This soon applied to Canaris himself as well.
09:15In 1938, Hitler demanded the Sudetenland and threatened to use force.
09:21In Czechoslovakia, mobilisation.
09:24Europe was on the brink of war, which Canaris feared.
09:29Should the Reich be risked for the sake of the people,
09:32or should the people be threatened by the Nazis?
09:35Europe was on the brink of war, which Canaris feared.
09:40Should the Reich be risked for the Sudeten Germans?
09:43Canaris was no pacifist, but he knew the strength of the Czech army and feared Western intervention.
09:49Canaris would act, if need be, against the warmonger.
10:05His fellow conspirators, Colonel Hans Oster, Canaris' friend and colleague,
10:10and the Chief of the Army General Staff, Ludwig Beck.
10:14But the plotters hesitated.
10:18High treason was still high treason, even if it was against Hitler.
10:22Nevertheless, Canaris did order a shock troop to arm itself to arrest Hitler when the time came.
10:29The conspirator would never be so close to his goal again.
10:35Those who disagreed with him about the past, were convinced that he was ready to put an end to it.
10:48But then, out of the blue, things changed.
10:51The British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, accommodated Hitler.
10:56He let himself be talked out of the Sudetenland to gain time for Britain to rearm.
11:02The warmonger was celebrated as a prince of peace.
11:06This stopped the plotters for the time being.
11:09A man who is so popular, they said, cannot be toppled.
11:16Canaris went into damage control.
11:18How much had the enemy found out about the plans for the coup?
11:22What did Heydrich, the new strongman in the SS, know?
11:27Canaris looked after this personally.
11:29He knew Heydrich from their time in the Navy and went riding with him regularly.
11:35Riding with Hitler's most zealous executor.
11:38Simply professional interest or friendship?
11:57He couldn't afford to have Heydrich as an enemy.
12:01Then he couldn't have done much of his job.
12:05But it was more than just a job.
12:07The Heydrichs moved into a large house opposite Canaris
12:10and the two families played music and shared meals together.
12:18One of the strangest relationships in Hitler's Reich,
12:21Canaris' friendship with the organiser of the genocide.
12:26It continued even when the terror became obvious and the first synagogues fell.
12:321938, Canaris was distraught.
12:40He complained to Keitel, his superior, but Hitler's lackey did nothing.
12:49Canaris wanted to help, to right a great injustice in small ways.
12:54Walter Heyden, his parish minister, protested against the pogroms
12:58and was arrested by the Gestapo.
13:00Canaris intervened on his behalf.
13:02Canaris was interrogated on the same afternoon
13:06and said that Father Heyden would never say such a thing.
13:11In this way, his head fell out of his throat
13:14and it was probably one of the best things he had done for my father.
13:33Canaris was a guest of honour because he served rearmament so well
13:37on the invisible front of espionage.
13:42His agents brought back Rich Spoils,
13:45an American bomb site which was far more accurate than the German ones.
13:50A key to the French navy's secret code could come in handy soon.
13:56But as well as controlling an army of agents,
13:59the spy headquarters in Berlin also exported terrorism.
14:03To Ireland, for example.
14:05Help for the IRA.
14:09They wanted a radio so that they could have communication with Germany.
14:13He got the radio.
14:15He wanted money because they wanted to buy arms and other munitions.
14:19And he wanted, eventually, I suppose, support,
14:23military support from Germany, but that was down the road.
14:27I don't think he was very serious.
14:29A scene of havoc in Broadgate, Coventry.
14:32The crowded thoroughfare was suddenly plunged into turmoil and confusion
14:35as a violent explosion swept bystanders off their feet.
14:38Windows were shattered, shopfronts were blown out,
14:41trams, buses, lorries and cars were wrecked.
14:44Worst of all, five people were killed and nearly 60 injured.
14:49Canaris shared the responsibility for the victims of these attacks.
14:54Protecting the persecuted and, at the same time, the author of injustice,
14:59was one a camouflage for the other, a tightrope act.
15:04August 1939.
15:07The Condor Legion returns from Spain.
15:10Canaris had prepared the way for their war.
15:14However, he now knew that this mission had been merely a prologue
15:18to the real war which was imminent.
15:21On the reviewing stand, the only remaining footage of the Admiral.
15:27In this period, he tried to find like-minded generals
15:30to avert the march into disaster.
15:52Finis, Germania.
15:54The end of Germany began a week too early.
15:57On the morning of the 26th of August,
16:00a German shock troop stormed the Jablunka Pass in southern Poland.
16:05The first shots in the Second World War, fired by Canaris' men, too early.
16:10The commando unit had no radio.
16:15Overnight, Hitler cancelled the order for all the German armed forces to attack.
16:19Only the shock troop at the Jablunka Pass was not told.
16:25Five days later, the dictator finally ordered his forces to attack.
16:33After the taking of Warsaw, Canaris flew to the still-burning city
16:37and was horrified by the destruction.
16:44The suffering.
16:46The first murders.
16:49Once again, he went through official channels
16:52and complained to his superiors in the Fuhrer's train.
16:55Once more, he was brushed aside.
17:00Canaris remained obedient, but as if to diminish his own guilt,
17:03he wanted to help.
17:05He protected persecuted Poles and sent them abroad,
17:08allegedly as agents.
17:13Canaris said, don't do anything for us in London.
17:18The only thing we ask you to do is to explain to the Allies
17:23that all the Germans are not brutes,
17:26that all the Germans are not Nazi,
17:29and that all the Germans, if only the Allies would understand
17:35and would help, there could be a real front against Hitler.
17:42But he never managed to create such a front against Hitler,
17:46nor among the generals.
17:48Canaris looked for co-conspirators
17:50to prevent the next war of aggression in the West,
17:53but these warriors were following Hitler.
17:59German soldiers embarking for Norway in the spring of 1940.
18:03Canaris tried to the end to prevent the attack,
18:06while at the same time meticulously preparing for it.
18:11What he didn't know was that the campaign
18:13had been betrayed to the Allies by his friend, Hans Oster.
18:17He wanted to act more decisively against Hitler.
18:38Oster hoped that Hitler would be deterred
18:40if the Allies showed strength
18:42and betrayed the date and the target of the attack to a Dutch friend.
18:47Some former comrades still cannot accept this form of resistance.
19:11May 1940, the attack on France.
19:14Once again, Oster had betrayed the date
19:16and once again the Allies did not believe him.
19:19His act of desperation had no effect.
19:23Instead, unexpectedly quick success.
19:26Initiated by commando troops under Canaris,
19:29the Brandenburg Division captured garrisons and bridges,
19:32letting tanks move up for the Blitzkrieg.
19:41The warlord in Verdun.
19:43Canaris celebrated, as yet unaware of the treason of his friend Oster,
19:48whom he would have to hunt himself.
19:50The secret service was also responsible
19:52for counterintelligence against high treason,
19:55hand in hand with the propaganda warriors.
20:11...that he did it on purpose,
20:13so the country is betrayed and there is no mercy.
20:18Words, keep your mouth shut.
20:21Enemy, listen up.
20:27But Oster's conversations had been tapped.
20:30His deed was on record.
20:32Canaris had to shield him, so as not to endanger himself.
20:40His rivals from the SS also heard about it
20:43and used their knowledge to attack the Abwehr chief.
21:10Hitler received a lot from Canaris
21:13and kept him covered for a long time.
21:41He missed meetings at work more and more frequently,
21:44wavering between injustice and morals, weary of office.
21:49Hemmed in on all sides.
22:11Then suddenly he was back.
22:13It was very sudden.
22:40Only this collection would be the conspirators' undoing.
22:45The Protestant Canaris fled to the semi-darkness of the Catholic Church,
22:50balm for the nerves.
23:06A trip to Spain was a distraction.
23:10Incognito and sent by Hitler to persuade Franco
23:13to seize Gibraltar with the help of the Wehrmacht.
23:29The naval base was the key to controlling the Mediterranean,
23:32but Hitler's messenger had no intention of following his orders
23:36and advised Franco to stay well clear.
23:40So Franco refused, politely,
23:42thus ensuring his own power for decades to come.
23:47June 9th, 1941,
23:49the funeral of former Kaiser Wilhelm II in his exile in Holland.
23:54Canaris was there to mourn the Germany he knew.
24:02Hitler's Germany was approaching its own downfall.
24:05The attack on Russia began two weeks later.
24:08Canaris warned against it.
24:11He knew there would be more and more bombers over German cities
24:14and that Germany could not keep up its supply of armaments.
24:21But the warlord looked on his Secret Service chief's predictions as pessimism.
24:27Well, it must have been desperate.
24:30You work hard, you find out good information
24:34and your superiors disregard it.
24:38You must go mad.
24:43June 22nd, 1941,
24:46the Wehrmacht attacks the Soviet Union.
24:50A tank driver's footage,
24:52which also shows that this is a war of annihilation.
25:03In winter, the attack bogged down.
25:05Losses were mounting, on the German side as well now.
25:08Canaris had been right.
25:12Nevertheless, the warlord was not alone.
25:15Nevertheless, he was the whipping boy.
25:17Hitler dismissed him, but the admiral wanted to keep on.
25:25He came to headquarters to ask his master to reinstate him
25:29and was successful.
25:45Why did Canaris want to continue to carry responsibility in this criminal war?
25:50His reply? To prevent things getting worse.
25:55Still worse?
25:59In the East, too, Secret Service work was murder.
26:03Agents were recruited from the Army of War
26:06and were trained to carry out their duties.
26:09In the East, too, Secret Service work was murder.
26:13Agents were recruited from the Army of War prisoners.
26:20Many didn't even survive the training.
26:39In the meantime, Secret Service agents didn't survive.
26:42Only we didn't kill them ourselves.
26:44Our men from the Defense Command didn't do it.
26:48They handed them over to the Secret Service.
26:51But we saw from the window how they had to dig their own grave.
27:10We did the same in the hinterland as the partisans.
27:14We saw that one thing had to be done.
27:17I once saw how a German transport was shot down by the partisans.
27:21I once saw how a German transport was shot down by the partisans.
27:25It didn't look very nice.
27:27I thought, there must be people who can defend themselves against it.
27:30I thought, there must be people who can defend themselves against it.
27:32And we could.
27:39Heinrich came under Canaris and was involved in the murders.
27:49The Secret Field Police, a unit of the Wehrmacht,
27:526,000 men, hand in glove with the SS.
27:58Canaris was not familiar with all their operations,
28:01but was jointly responsible for their actions.
28:04Heinrich wanted to integrate the Secret Field Police into the SS.
28:08But Canaris did not want to part with them.
28:10A paper war over a murder unit.
28:13Power triumphed over morals.
28:19Before the decision could be made, the riding partner died.
28:38He was officially appointed to the position.
28:41He said, Spitze, you come to me at 10 o'clock.
28:44I appeared at his place at 10 o'clock.
28:47He said, first of all, Heinrich was a human being too.
28:51De mortu is nil nisi bene, nothing bad about the dead.
28:56And secondly, it is not a tone to speak to an admiral.
29:08Heinrich was the organiser of the mass murders who was being buried.
29:17Canaris shed tears for an intimate rival.
29:21His Abwehr had problems.
29:23On the Atlantic, more and more submarines were being lost
29:26and the Navy didn't know why.
29:29Canaris and his Secret Service never found out
29:32that the Allies had cracked the Enigma code.
29:35A major setback.
29:42As was the capture of more and more agents.
29:45Canaris's men and women on a hopeless mission.
29:50They were all dead.
29:52They were all dead.
29:54It was a hopeless mission.
29:58They were all badly trained.
30:00They were all out of date in their information.
30:03And this particular man, arrived by submarine, I think,
30:08walked to the nearest railway station and sat there waiting for the train.
30:13I don't know whether he saw that the tracks were rusty,
30:16but he sat there for a couple of hours until two men came along and said,
30:20you know, there hasn't been a train here for 20 years.
30:23The Abwehr spread its operations further afield.
30:26Weapons and explosives for Palestinians in Jerusalem.
30:32Money for rebels in Iraq.
30:37Radio stations for Rommel in Egypt.
30:40This man was to set them up.
30:42The real English patient, Count Al-Mishi, was Canaris's agent.
30:46Hollywood stuff.
30:48His mission also failed.
30:54To America by U-boat.
30:56The Pastorius operation.
30:58German saboteurs were set down in Florida and outside New York.
31:02Their mission, bomb attacks.
31:05Spreading panic.
31:08But the FBI arrested them almost at once.
31:14The submarine saboteurs were in jail two weeks after they landed.
31:18Six of the eight were executed after a military trial.
31:24Hitler was furious.
31:26The agents were party comrades who had rendered outstanding service.
31:30He told Canaris, use Jews or criminals for that.
31:33He didn't have to be told twice.
31:36He discussed the details with Himmler
31:39and then sent German Jews appointed as agents to freedom.
31:54Not one of those saved did any spying for Hitler.
31:58While thousands were being sent to the extermination camps daily,
32:02Canaris could save only a few hundred.
32:05Most went to Spain and Switzerland.
32:10Those few are grateful to this day.
32:15I don't know what to do.
32:18I don't know what to do.
32:22I'm 100% sure
32:25that if we hadn't had the chance to get out in 1942,
32:30we wouldn't be alive today.
32:34Saviour and assistant to a murderer.
32:37Two faces which did not fit together.
32:40Canaris knew what was going on in the camps
32:43and that he himself was part of the system.
32:52He couldn't cope with the burden of this knowledge.
33:11After Stalingrad, Canaris became a conspirator again.
33:15He contacted the Allies to investigate the possibilities
33:18for a political solution.
33:22Stuart Menzies, the head of the British Secret Service,
33:25seemed willing to listen.
33:30That basis was a separate piece in the West
33:35to enable the German government to continue its war against Russia.
33:43That, of course, had been German policy at a much earlier date anyway.
33:49Hitler would have been very glad to have got England off his back.
33:56The Western statesmen broke off contact with Canaris.
34:00Until the German surrender, they needed their alliance with the Soviets.
34:07On all fronts and in the sky above Germany,
34:10the decision had been made long ago.
34:14March 13, 1943.
34:18The dictator visits an airfield near Smolensk,
34:23filmed by Hitler's pilot.
34:31Canaris was there too.
34:33In the luggage on Hitler's special plane was a bomb meant for Hitler.
34:39Behind the plot were Oster and Donani.
34:43How much did Canaris know about the plan?
35:00He didn't know the details, but he supported the conspiracy.
35:04But the bomb in Hitler's plane didn't go off
35:07because it was too cold for the detonator.
35:12Canaris had previously been undecided about whether murdering the tyrant was any answer,
35:17unlike his helpers.
35:38Canaris was worn down by doubt.
35:41He deteriorated physically as well.
35:45April 1943.
35:47Investigators from the Gestapo and the armed forces judiciary
35:51search the Abwehr offices.
35:53In their sights, Oster and Donani, the co-conspirators.
35:57Canaris can no longer protect them.
36:07They simply had to say,
36:09look out, you can't get in there,
36:11please wait in the next room over there.
36:14And then he could have contacted Keitel
36:17and perhaps could have made a statement to Himmler and Hitler.
36:27He didn't have the strength for that.
36:29Himmler soon took over the secret service.
36:32His terror apparatus was now complete.
36:36Canaris was dismissed without protest.
36:56It was sinister for the man out in the cold
36:59when reality caught up with his gloomy premonitions.
37:06Far from all that, at Lauenstein Castle in eastern Bavaria,
37:10Canaris was under house arrest.
37:15An admiral kept in minimum security.
37:18Nothing could be proved against him.
37:21But then a telegram arrived.
37:23His discharge from the navy.
37:25A bad sign.
37:27Once again, depression.
37:29He wrote to his housekeeper,
37:31I'm really longing for home.
37:38July the 20th, 1944.
37:44Back at home in Berlin,
37:46Canaris heard of Count Stauffenberg's assassination attempt.
37:49Although no longer involved,
37:51he had already been arrested.
37:55Although no longer involved,
37:57he was still caught up in the vortex of revenge.
38:01Canaris was arrested by the SS,
38:03maltreated and interrogated.
38:06Trying to save his skin, he denied everything.
38:09During interrogation in the Gestapo cellars, he said,
38:12I never doubted that any change in the government during the war
38:15would be viewed as a stab in the back.
38:19While above him, Berlin was collapsing into rubble.
38:22Canaris was hoping for the war to end.
38:25But then the prisoners were moved.
38:53The new address?
38:55Flossenburg concentration camp.
39:23Then in March 1945,
39:25deep in the bunker of the Army High Command,
39:28a chance find.
39:30Two soldiers opened a steel cupboard
39:32and found Canaris' diaries.
39:36When Hitler read them,
39:38he immediately ordered the executions of Canaris,
39:41Oster and Donani.
39:44The Admiral was hanged on April 9th in Flossenburg.
39:48Murdered on the orders of a man
39:50whose adversary, Ant Henschman, he was.
39:53How guilty did that make Canaris?
40:13You weren't supposed to be visible.
40:16So you had to be somewhere in this war machine,
40:19wherever you went.
40:24The Americans reached the camp in mid-April.
40:27They released the few remaining prisoners.
40:32Four days earlier, and Canaris would have survived too.
40:38How would the victors have treated him,
40:41as an enemy of Hitler?
40:43A former subordinate will not hear of it.
41:12Wilhelm Canaris,
41:15a German soldier who believed to the end
41:18that he was serving his country.
41:20When he realised that his warlord was a criminal,
41:23his resistance began.
41:25But he never dared take the final step.
41:30Hamlet, he felt that he had a duty
41:33to reverse this, to avenge this.
41:38But he couldn't make up his mind, to put it bluntly.
41:42He remained indecisive to the end,
41:45and got the worst of all worlds in the end.
41:48And in that sense, I think Canaris could be described
41:51as the Hamlet of conservative Germany.
42:07To be continued...
42:37To be continued...