Before World War II

Wilhelm Canaris

Before he took over the Abwehr on 1 January 1935, the soon-to-be Admiral Canaris was warned by Patzig of attempts by Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich to take over all German intelligence organizations.^[16] Heydrich, who headed the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) from 1931, had a negative attitude towards the Abwehr—shaped in part by his belief that Germany's defeat in the First World War was primarily attributable to failures of military intelligence,^{[lower-alpha 6]} and by his ambitions to control all political intelligence-gathering for Germany.^[18]

Canaris, a master of backroom dealings, thought he knew how to deal with Heydrich and Himmler. Though he tried to maintain a cordial relationship with them, the antagonism between the Abwehr and the SS did not stop when Canaris took over. Not only was competition with Heydrich and Himmler's intelligence operations a hindrance, so too were the redundant attempts by multiple organizations to control communications intelligence (COMINT) for the Reich. For instance, Canaris's Abwehr controlled the Armed Forces Deciphering operation, while the navy maintained its own listening service, known as the B-Dienst. Further complicating COMINT matters, the Foreign Office also had its own communications security branch, the Pers Z S.^[19]

Matters came to a head in 1937 when Hitler decided to help Joseph Stalin in the latter's purge of the Soviet military. Hitler ordered that the German Army staff should be kept in the dark about Stalin's intentions, for fear that they would warn their Soviet counterparts due to their long-standing relations. Accordingly, special SS teams, accompanied by burglary experts from the criminal police, broke into the secret files of the General Staff and the Abwehr and removed documents related to German-Soviet collaboration. To conceal the thefts, fires were started at the break-ins, which included Abwehr headquarters.^[20]

1938 reorganisation

Before the reorganization of the OKW in 1938, the Abwehr was merely a department within the Reichswehrministerium (Ministry of Armed Forces), and it was not until after Canaris was appointed chief that its numbers increased and it gained some independence.^[21] Experiencing an explosion in personnel of sorts, the Abwehr went from fewer than 150 employees to nearly one-thousand between 1935 and 1937.^[22] Canaris reorganized the agency in 1938, subdividing the Abwehr into three main sections:

• The Central Division (also called Department Z—"Abteilung Z" or "die Zentrale" in German): acted as the controlling brain for the other two sections, as well as handling personnel and financial matters, including the payment of agents. Throughout Canaris's tenure it was headed by Generalmajor Hans Oster.
• The Foreign Branch, ("Amtsgruppe Ausland" in German) (later known as Foreign Intelligence Group) was the second subdivision of the Abwehr and had several functions:
  1. liaison with the OKW and the general staffs of the services,
  2. coordination with the German Foreign Ministry on military matters, and
  3. evaluation of captured documents and evaluation of foreign press and radio broadcasts. This liaison with the OKW meant that the Foreign Branch was the appropriate channel to request Abwehr support for a particular mission.
• Abwehr constituted the third division and was labeled "counter-intelligence branches" but in reality focused on intelligence gathering. It was subdivided into the following areas and responsibilities:
  • I. Foreign Intelligence Collection (further subdivided by letter, e.g. Abwehr I-Ht)

    G: false documents, photos, inks, passports, chemicals

    H West: army west (Anglo-American Army intelligence)

    H Ost: army east (Soviet Army intelligence)

    Ht: technical army intelligence

    I: communications—design of wireless sets, wireless operators

    K: computer/cryptanalysis operations

    L: air intelligence

    M: naval intelligence

    T/lw: technical air intelligence

    Wi: economic intelligence

    Attached to Abwehr I. was Gruppe I-T for technical intelligence. Initially Abwehr I-K was a technical research unit, a small fraction the size of its British counterpart, Britain's Bletchley Park. Its importance later grew during the war to match its British counterpart in size and capability.

  • II. Sabotage: tasked with directing covert contact / exploitation of discontented minority groups in foreign countries for intelligence purposes.

    Attached to Abwehr II. was the Brandenburg Regiment, an offshoot of Gruppe II-T (Technical Intelligence), and unconnected to any other branch outside of Abwehr II. Gruppe II-T.^{[lower-alpha 7]}

  • III. Counter-intelligence division: responsible for counter-intelligence operations in German industry, planting false information, penetration of foreign intelligence services and investigating acts of sabotage on German soil. Attached to Abwehr III. were:
    • IIIC: Civilian Authority bureau
    • IIIC-2: Espionage cases bureau
    • IIID: Disinformation bureau
    • IIIF: Counter espionage agents bureau
    • IIIN: Postal bureau

Abwehr liaisons were also established with the army, navy and Luftwaffe High Commands, and these liaisons would pass on specific intelligence requests to the operational sections of the Abwehr.

Abwehr I was commanded by Colonel Hans Pieckenbrock,^[23] Abwehr II was commanded by Colonel Erwin von Lahousen and Abwehr III was commanded by Colonel Egbert Bentivegni. These three officers formed the core of the Abwehr.^[24]

Ast / Abwehrstelle

Under the structure outlined above, the Abwehr placed a local station in each military district in Germany, ("Wehrkreis"), called 'Abwehrstelle' or 'Ast'. Following the German Table of Organisation and Equipment^{[lower-alpha 8]} model of Abwehr headquarters, each Ast was usually subdivided into sections for

Typically each Ast would be commanded by a senior army or naval officer and would be answerable to Abwehr HQ. in Berlin. Operations carried out by each Ast would be in tandem with the overall strategic plan formulated by Admiral Canaris. Canaris in turn would receive instructions on what intelligence gathering should take priority from the OKW or, increasingly after 1941, Hitler directly. In practice, each Ast was given considerable latitude in mission planning and execution—a facet of the organisation which ultimately damaged its intelligence gathering capability.

Each local Ast could recruit potential agents for missions and the Abwehr also employed freelance recruiters to groom and vet potential agents. In most cases, the agents were recruited civilians, not officers/soldiers from the military. The recruitment emphasis seems to have been very much on "quantity" not "quality". The poor quality of recruits often led to the failure of Abwehr missions.^{[lower-alpha 9]}

Operational structure in neutral countries

In neutral countries the Abwehr frequently disguised its organisation by attaching personnel to the German Embassy or to trade missions. Such postings were referred to as "War Organisations" ("Kriegsorganisationen" or "KO's" in German).^[25] In neutral but friendly Spain for example, the Abwehr had both an Ast and a KO while Ireland had neither. In friendly countries of interest, occupied countries, or in Germany, the intelligence service would normally organise "Abwehr sub-stations" ("Abwehrleitstellen" or "Alsts" in German), or "Abwehr adjoining posts" ("Abwehrnebenstellen" in German). The "Alsts" would fall under the jurisdiction of the geographically appropriate Ast, which in turn would be supervised by the Central division in Berlin. For a while, the KOs were tolerated by the neutral countries and those who feared Germany too much to protest but as the Allied powers waged war against Germany, many of the KOs were simply expelled at the host countries request—due at least in part to pressure from the Allies.^[26]

Early successes

Under Canaris, the Abwehr expanded and proved to be efficient during the early years of the war. Its most notable success was Operation Nordpol, which was an operation against the Dutch underground network, which at the time was supported by the Special Operations Executive.^[39] Concomitant to the period known as the Phoney War, the Abwehr collected information on Denmark and Norway. Shipping in and out of Danish and Norwegian ports was placed under observation and over 150,000 tons of shipping was destroyed as a result. Agents in Norway and Denmark successfully penetrated their military thoroughly enough to determine the disposition and strength of land forces in both countries and deep-cover Abwehr operatives kept the German forces, particularly the Luftwaffe, intimately informed during the invasion of Norway. Against both of these nations, the Abwehr mounted what one would call a successful intelligence operation of some scale and proved itself critical to the success of German military endeavors there.^[40]

Fear over the drastically low levels of available petroleum at the beginning of 1940 prompted activity from the German Foreign Office and the Abwehr in an attempt to ameliorate the problem "by concluding an unprecedented arms-for-oil" deal, brokered so as to push back the "Anglo-French dominance in the Ploiești oilfield."^[41] Abwehr operatives also played on Romanian fears, making them more amenable to Hitler's offer to shield them from the Soviets—through which the Germans acquired cheap oil.^[42] In this regard, the Abwehr provided some semblance of economic utility for the Nazi regime.

In March 1941, the Germans forced a captured SOE radio operator to transmit messages to Britain in a code that the Germans had obtained. Even though the operator gave indications that he was compromised, the receiver in Britain did not notice. Thus the Germans were able to penetrate the Dutch operation and maintained this state of affairs for two years, capturing agents, and sending false intelligence and sabotage reports until the British caught on. In Bodyguard of Lies Anthony Brown suggests that the British were well aware that the radios were compromised and used this method to feed false information to the Germans regarding the site of the D-Day landings.^[43]

Hitler sent Canaris as a special envoy to Madrid during the early summer of 1940 to convince Spain to join in the coming fight against the Allies, for which Gibraltar could have strategic military value.^[44] The repeat visit, in December 1940, was a failure; Franco, for various political and military reasons, was not ready to join the German war effort.^[45] Canaris reported that Franco would not commit Spanish forces until England collapsed.^[46]

Underestimating the enemy and the Commissar Order

Initial estimates of the Soviet Red Army's will and capability were low, a line of thinking shared by the Nazi hierarchy. A great deal has been made by historians over this fact, but some of the German General Staff's optimism was the result of estimates provided by the Abwehr, whose assessments left the German General Staff believing that the Red Army only possessed 90 infantry divisions, 23 cavalry divisions, and a mere 28 mechanized brigades.^[47] By the time the reappraisal of the Red Army by German military intelligence occurred in mid-June 1941 (which was about 25 percent higher than previously reported), it was a foregone conclusion that Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union was going to take place.^[48]

Late assessments from the Abwehr contributed to military overconfidence and their reporting mechanism said nothing of the massive mobilization capability of the Soviet Union, an oversight that arguably contributed to the German defeat since time-tables were so important for German success. Many of the maps produced for Operation Barbarossa by the Abwehr were woefully inaccurate and portrayed dirt tracks as main roads, hampering the pace of logistical operations.^[49] The German Army's failure to reach its objectives in short order proved pivotal; once winter came, improperly outfitted German forces suffered when supplies did not reach them.^{[50][lower-alpha 10]} Overestimating their capabilities and trusting their own assessments too much, as well as underestimating their enemies (especially the Soviets and the Americans), atop long-standing traditions of unconditional obedience, comprised a historically central weakness in the German system, according to historian Klaus P. Fischer.^[51]

On 8 September 1941, under the auspices of the Commissar Order (Kommissarbefehl) the OKW issued a decree concerning the ruthless ideological imperatives of the Nazi state against all semblance of Bolshevism, a provision that included executing Soviet commissars and prisoners of war.^[52] Admiral Canaris, the head of the OKW Ausland/Abwehr, immediately expressed concern about the military and political ramifications of this order. Killing soldiers and even non-combatants in contravention of the Geneva Convention was not something the Abwehr leadership—namely Canaris—supported.^[53]

North Africa and the Middle East

The Abwehr was active in North Africa leading up to and during the Western Desert Campaign of 1941–42. North Africa, like other cases, proved disastrous for the Abwehr. The greatest failure occurred as a result of deception operations conducted by the British. An Italian of Jewish ancestry was recruited in France sometime in 1940 by the Abwehr. Unknown to the Germans, this individual was an agent codenamed "Cheese" who was already working for the British SIS before the war began. In February 1941, the Abwehr sent Cheese to Egypt to report on any British military operations; instead of providing his German handlers with accurate information, he passed strategic deception materials and hundreds of MI5 doctored messages to Nazi intelligence by way of a fictitious sub-agent named ‘Paul Nicosoff’, helping to ensure the success of Operation Torch.^[54] Confirmation of this fact came when one of Hitler's most trusted military advisers, Chief of the OKW Operations Staff, General Alfred Jodl, later informed his Allied interrogators that the Allied landings in North Africa came as a total surprise to the German general staff.^{[55][lower-alpha 11]}

The need for upwards of 500 more agents to supplement intelligence operations in North Africa prompted the Abwehr to get creative. Arab prisoners of war (POWs) languishing in French camps were offered a trip back to their homeland if they agreed to spy for the Germans in North Africa, as were Soviet POWs in the east.^[57] Other intelligence collection efforts included working closely with the Luftwaffe on aerial reconnaissance missions over North Africa. Previously, aerial reconnaissance was ordered by army intelligence officers of the Army Group HQ (part of the structure to which the Abwehr was assigned).^[58] Major Witilo von Griesheim was sent to Italian Libya in early 1941 to set up AST Tripoli (code name WIDO). He soon set up a network of agents and wireless stations gathering information in Libya and in the surrounding French territories. In mid-July 1941, Admiral Canaris ordered Luftwaffe Major Nikolaus Ritter of Abwehr I to form a unit to infiltrate Egypt through the desert to make contact with the Egyptian Army Chief of Staff, el Masri Pasha, but this effort repeatedly failed.^[59] Accompanying Ritter in Libya was the Hungarian desert explorer László Almásy with a mission to gather intelligence from British-held Egypt. After Ritter was injured and sent away, Almásy took over command, and organised the 1942 Operation Salam, which succeeded in transporting two German agents across the Libyan Desert behind enemy lines to Egypt. In July 1942, Almásy and his agents were captured by British counterintelligence operatives.^{[lower-alpha 12]}

Other operations in North Africa were occurring concomitantly with those of Almásy and Ritter. During late January 1942 for instance, the OKW authorized the creation of a special unit, Sonderkommando Dora, which was placed under the command of Abwehr officer, Oberstleutnant Walter Eichler (formerly a Panzer officer as well).^[59] The unit included geologists, cartographers, and mineralogists, who were sent into North Africa to study desert topography and assess the terrain for military use, but by November 1942—following the Axis retreat from El Alamein—Sonderkommando Dora along with the Brandenburgers operating in the area, were withdrawn from the Sahara altogether.^[61]

An Iranian national recruited in Hamburg by the Abwehr before the war was converted into a double agent by British and Russian intelligence officers (working together in one of the few joint intelligence efforts of the war), who code-named him "Kiss". From late 1944 until the end of the war, Kiss, who was based out of the intelligence center in Baghdad, provided false information on Soviet and British troop movements in Iraq and Iran to the Abwehr; as directed by his Allied controllers.^[62] On the Afghan border, the Abwehr sought to turn the Faqir of Ipi against British forces. They infiltrated the region using Manfred Oberdorffer, a physician, and Fred Hermann Brandt, an entomologist under the guise of a medical mission to conduct research on leprosy.^[63]

Questionable commitment and recruiting

Just how committed typical members of the Abwehr were to German victory is difficult to assess, but if its leadership tells a story, it is not one of conviction. For instance, during March 1942, when many Germans still had confidence in their Führer and their army, Canaris saw things differently, and told General Friedrich Fromm that there was no way Germany could win the war.^{[lower-alpha 13]}

Canaris had made the United States a primary target even before its entry into the conflict. By 1942, German agents were operating from within all of America's top armaments manufacturers. The Abwehr also suffered a very public debacle in Operation Pastorius, which resulted in the executions of six Abwehr agents sent to the United States to sabotage the American aluminum industry. The Abwehr attempted use of coercion as a means to infiltrate the United States when they 'recruited' a naturalized American citizen visiting Germany, William G. Sebold, by Gestapo threats and blackmail, code-naming him TRAMP, and assigning him the task of "serving as radio and microfilm channel for Major Nikolaus Ritter, head of the Abwehr Hamburg post's air intelligence section".^[65] Unfortunately for the Germans, who used Sebold successfully for a short period, he was discovered, and became a counterspy, and his communications to Germany were screened by the FBI.^[66] For more than a year and a half, the FBI was able to transmit misleading information via Sebold to German intelligence from a shortwave radio transmitter located on Long Island, NY.^[67] Meetings between Sebold and "bona fide German spies" were even filmed by FBI technicians.^[68] Not every spy the Abwehr sent was captured or converted in this manner, but the Americans, and especially the British, proved mostly successful in countering the efforts of the German Abwehr officers, and used them to their advantage.^[69]

The Abwehr was impaired by agents who aided the Allies in whatever covert means were necessary. Canaris personally gave false information that discouraged Hitler from invading Switzerland (Operation Tannenbaum). He also persuaded Francisco Franco not to allow German forces to pass through Spain to invade Gibraltar (Operation Felix), but it may have been just as much the imposition of the SD. The SD was allegedly spreading rumors about the partition of Spain. SD operatives also established a station at the central post office in Madrid to police mail going through Spain, and even attempted to assassinate one of Franco's pro-Allied generals, which strengthened Franco's intransigence to Hitler and the Nazi regime.^[70]

Repression and complicity

Images of the Abwehr as a veritable organ of resistance inside the heart of Nazi Germany are not an accurate reflection across the spectrum of its entire operations or its personnel. In a staff of some 13,000, perhaps 50 were fundamentally anti-Nazi.^{[75][lower-alpha 15]} Before the invasion of Poland for instance, the Abwehr and SiPo jointly drew up a list of over 60,000 names, people who were to be the targets of Operation Tannenberg, an effort designed to systematically identify and liquidate the Polish elite.^[77] For several months before the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Abwehr was key in deception operations set up to convince the British and the Soviets that Great Britain was under threat of imminent invasion, an undertaking which helped soften the eastern territories for Operation Barbarossa.^[78] Before the commencement of the attack on the Soviet Union, the Abwehr also spread rumours that the British talk of an impending German attack was nothing more than disinformation.^[79]

During January 1942, partisan fighters at the port city of Eupatoria in Crimea assisted a Red Army landing there and revolted against the German occupying forces. Reinforcements were sent in under General Erich von Manstein and the port city was retaken. Reprisals against the partisans were carried out under the direction of Major Hans-Wolf Riesen, an Abwehr officer on the Eleventh Army's staff, who oversaw the execution of 1200 civilians, the bulk of whom were Jews.^[80] Additional evidence over the duties assigned to operatives in theater are revealing. Out in the field, the army group commander of the G-2 was provided assistance for the army group Abwehr officer (Frontaufklaerungskommando III), with additional help coming available from the secret field police. Abwehr officers in this capacity were tasked with overseeing personnel in counterintelligence, the safeguarding of classified information, and preventive security. The Frontaufklaerungskommando III received instructions concerning the Abwehr from OKH/General z.b.V./Gruppe Abwehr, and "informed army group G-2 of all Abwehr matters in a monthly report or special reports."^[81] Security within army headquarters was another area of responsibility so detachments of the secret field police were placed at his disposal and he cooperated with particular departments of the SD, the SS, and the police in order to be well versed in all fields of counterintelligence and kept tabs on guards, checking their reliability against available personnel records. According to the United States War Dept. General Staff,

The Abwehr officer maintained close liaison with Frontaufklaerungskommando III in order to be well informed about counterintelligence conditions, especially as far as the non-German population was concerned. The net of agents produced a clear picture of the morale and attitude of the population within the sector of the army group and reported on all activities of the enemy intelligence service, on resistance movements and other illegal groups, and on guerrilla conditions.^[81]

According to Bauer, the Abwehr was more interested in perpetuating its own interests than it was in saving Jews.^[82] While there are accounts of the Abwehr assisting Jews to safety via clandestinely arranged emigration,^[83] there are also cases of Abwehr operatives enriching themselves in the process through bribes and other monetary payoffs.^{[84][lower-alpha 16]} Not only that, the Abwehr had its share of dedicated Nazis. For example, it is now known that Abwehr agent Hermann Giskes and Joseph Schreieder of the Gestapo cooperated in an operation known as Englandspiel, through which the Nazis gained "complete control" over all Dutch SOE agents between March 1942 and December 1943, whom they used as part of a successful deception scheme.^{[85][lower-alpha 17]}

CASSIA spy ring (Maier–Messner group)

A major Abwehr failure occurred when the existence of a resistance group and spy ring, which operated out of Austria and had been working with the Allies, was uncovered by the Gestapo; a failing for which the Abwehr was embarrassed. This resistance group provided the OSS with plans and information on Peenemünde, the V-1, V-2 rockets, Tiger tanks, aircraft (Messerschmitt Bf 109, Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, etc.), and supplied information on the existence of major concentration camps like Auschwitz.^[87][88] Despite the Gestapo's use of torture, they were unable to uncover the true extent of the group's success, particularly in providing information for Operation Crossbow and Operation Hydra, both preliminary missions for Operation Overlord.^[89][90] Some 20 members of the group—including its key figures, Franz Joseph Messner (codenamed CASSIA by the OSS) and the priest Heinrich Maier—were eventually executed due to the intelligence failures of the OSS, who hired Bedřich Laufer (OSS Code name: Iris), a double agent who had also been working for the SD.^[91]

Undermining the regime

Several examples demonstrate that some Abwehr members were opposed to the Nazi regime. In January 1944 for example, American statesman Allen Dulles revealed his knowledge of a coalescing resistance against the Nazis, an assemblage of intellectuals from military and government circles; his main contact was Abwehr officer Hans Bernd Gisevius, who was stationed in Zurich as the German Vice Consul.^[92] Dulles communicated with the Abwehr concerning their intrigue against Hitler and even attempted discussions about a separate peace, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt would have none of it, preferring instead a policy of unconditional surrender for the Nazi government.^[92] Machinations against the National Socialists by the Abwehr were considerable in terms of the chain of command. General Hans Oster of the Abwehr remained in regular contact with Dulles. Foreknowledge and penetration of the Abwehr was such that Dulles reported later in February 1944 that the Abwehr was going to be absorbed by the SD.^{[92][lower-alpha 18]}

The SS continually undermined the Abwehr by putting its officers under investigation, believing them to be involved in anti-Hitler plots. Heydrich ensured that the Abwehr and Canaris were closely monitored.^[93] The SS also accused Canaris of being defeatist in his intelligence assessments, especially on the Russian campaign and the Abwehr was under investigation for treason related to the earlier attack on Belgrade.^[94]

Eastern Front

Following the launch of Operation Barbarossa, an NKVD Soviet agent named Alexander Demyanov penetrated the Abwehr in late 1941 by posing as a member of a pro-German underground resistance with alleged access to the Soviet military leadership—this was a complete fabrication concocted by the GRU and NKVD, who used Demyanov as a double agent.^[95] During the autumn of 1942, Demyanov informed his German handlers that he was working as a communications officer at the Soviet headquarters in Moscow, which would give him access to important intelligence, a ruse that managed to fool the German intelligence commander on the Russian front at the time, Reinhard Gehlen of the Fremde Heere Ost (Foreign Armies East) intelligence section.^[96] Demyanov manipulated the military operations around Stalingrad, convincing Gehlen that Army Group Center would be unable to move west of Moscow to aide General Friedrich Paulus and the Sixth Army, which was ultimately encircled by the Red Army.^[97]

Likewise, a group of White Russians under General Anton Turkoul sought asylum in Germany and offered to provide radio intelligence for the Germans and worked with the Abwehr in getting the necessary communication links established. One of the primary radio links was code-named MAX, supposedly located near the Kremlin. MAX was not the intelligence mechanism the Abwehr believed it to be, instead, it was "a creature of the NKGB," through which information was regularly disseminated concerning Foreign Armies East and Foreign Air Forces East and troop movements. Careful message trafficking and deception operations by the Soviets allowed them to misdirect the Germans and aided in the strategic surprise they enjoyed against Army Group Center in June 1944.^[98] Even though the Abwehr no longer existed at this point, the heritage operations connected to MAX gave the Soviet armies an advantage they would not have otherwise possessed and further prove the extent of damage attributable to the Abwehr's incompetence, as Moscow's disinformation repeatedly fooled the German high command.^[99]

The Zossen documents

During the war, the Abwehr assembled a secret dossier detailing many of the crimes committed in Eastern Europe by the Nazis, known as the Zossen documents. These files were gathered together with the intention of exposing the regime's crimes at a future date.^[109] The documents were kept in a safe at the Zossen military headquarters not far from Berlin and remained under Abwehr control. Some of the papers were allegedly buried, but the individual responsible for this, Werner Schrader, ended up implicated in the 20 July plot against Hitler and committed suicide shortly thereafter. Later, the documents were discovered by the Gestapo, and under the personal supervision of then SD Chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner, they were taken to the castle Schloss Mittersill in the Tyrol and burned. Supposedly amongst the Zossen documents was the personal diary of Admiral Canaris, as well as the Vatican and Fritsch papers.^[110]

Notes

Citations