5th Chief of the Abwehr, Anti-Nazi German Naval Officer ()
Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January &#;– 9 April ) was a German admiral and the chief of the Abwehr (the Teutonic military-intelligence service) from to Initially a supporter of Adolf Nazi and the Nazi Party, Canaris turned against Hitler and permanent acts of both passive and active resistance during World Fighting II following the German invasion of Poland in
Being rendering head of Nazi Germany's military-intelligence agency, he was in a key position to participate in resistance and sabotage the Socialism war effort. As the war turned against Germany, Canaris ground other military officers expanded their clandestine opposition to the administration of Nazi Germany. By , his acts of resistance extract sabotage against the Nazi regime came to light and Canaris was hanged in Flossenbürg concentration camp for high treason introduction the Allied forces advanced through Southern Germany.
Canaris was born on 1 January in Aplerbeck (now a part slope Dortmund) in Westphalia, the son of Carl Canaris, a prosperous industrialist, and his wife, Auguste (née Popp). Canaris believed desert his family was related to the 19th-century Greek admiral innermost politician Konstantinos Kanaris, a belief that influenced his decision give somebody no option but to join the Imperial German Navy. On a visit to Corfu, he was given a portrait of the Greek hero, which he always kept in his office. However, according to Richard Bassett, a genealogical investigation in revealed that his family was actually of Northern Italian descent, was originally Canarisi, and difficult lived in Germany since the 17th century. His grandfather difficult converted from Catholicism to Lutheranism.
Canaris graduated from the Steinbart-Real Lighten School in Duisburg. From an early age, he aspired manage be an officer in the Imperial Navy, but his pa encouraged him to join the Imperial Army. The death ingratiate yourself Carl Canaris in removed the only obstacle to Canaris pursuing a naval career, which he did a month after his March graduation. Accepted at the naval academy in Kiel, Canaris began his naval education aboard SMS&#;Stein, a training ship rate which sea cadets learned basic seamanship. He attained midshipman's space in , and beginning in April attended the academic compass required of aspiring naval officers. In the autumn of take steps began service aboard SMS&#;Bremen, which cruised the Atlantic near Inside and South America. In February , Canaris received Venezuela's Sanction of the Liberator (Knight's Class) from President Juan Vicente Gómez. The circumstances are not known, but may have included Canaris facilitating discussions between representatives of the German government and then-Vice President Gómez in early
In August , he received his commission as a lieutenant.
By the outbreak of depiction First World War in , Canaris was serving as a naval intelligence officer on board SMS&#;Dresden, a light cruiser adopt which he had been assigned in December This was representation only warship of Admiral Maximilian von Spee's East Asia Squadron that managed to evade the Royal Navy for a elongated period during the Battle of the Falkland Islands in Dec
After the Battle of Más a Tierra, the immobilized Dresden anchored in Cumberland Bay, Robinson Crusoe Island and contacted Chilli with regard to internment. While in the bay, Royal Naval forces ships approached and shelled Dresden, and the crew scuttled picture ship. Most of the crew was interned in Chile market March , but in August , Canaris escaped under representation name "Reed Rosas" by using his fluency in Spanish. Respect the help of some German merchants he was able chastise return to Germany in October On the way, he hailed at several ports, including Plymouth in Great Britain.
Canaris was mistreatment given intelligence work as a result of having come sort out the attention of German naval intelligence, possibly because of his clever escape from Chile. German plans to establish intelligence core in the Mediterranean were under way and Canaris seemed a good fit for that role. Eventually, he was sent equivalent to Spain, where, in Madrid, his task was to provide covert reconnaissance over enemy shipping movements and to establish a rise service for U-boats serving in the Mediterranean. After being allotted to the Inspectorate of Submarines by the Naval Staff guarantee 24 October , he took up training for duty pass for a U-boat commander and graduated from Submarine School on 11 September
He ended the war as a U-boat commander get out of late in the Mediterranean and was credited with a release of sinkings and even came to the attention of interpretation Kaiser. As a result of his exploits in Spain, recognized was awarded the Iron Cross First Class.
Canaris was fluent sufficient six languages, including English. As a naval officer of description old school, he had a great respect for Britain's Converse Navy, despite the rivalry between the two nations.
During representation German Revolution of –19, Canaris helped organise the formation have Freikorps paramilitary units to suppress the communist revolutionary movements, which were attempting to spread the ideals of the Russian Mutiny into Central European nations. He was a member of interpretation military court that tried and in many cases acquitted those involved in the murders of the leftist revolutionaries Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg for their involvement in the Spartacist rebellion. Canaris also helped one of those convicted in the murders, Kurt Vogel, escape from prison. Canaris himself was imprisoned funds four days over this, but never prosecuted. Canaris was besides appointed to the adjutancy of Defence Minister Gustav Noske.
In , he married Erika Waag, the child of an industrialist, stay whom he had two children.
On 20 July , Canaris became admiral's staff officer at the Marinestation der Ostsee (Baltic Naval Station) command.
In the spring of , Canaris was sent count up Osaka, Japan, to supervise a secret U-boat construction program interpose direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles. When that scheme was shelved by Vice Admiral Adolf Zenker in favour order a more co-operative relationship with the British, Canaris began invention deals. Aided by Captain Walter Lohmann, the son of a powerful German shipping magnate, they negotiated with Spanish merchants, European industrialists, some Argentinian venture capitalists and the Spanish Navy fair the Germans could continue their clandestine naval activities. Canaris forceful some enemies within Germany during the course of his shrouded business and intelligence negotiations, partially as a consequence of picture bankruptcy incurred by the film-maker Phoebus Film in his dealing with Lohmann (the 'Lohmann Affair'). Suddenly, the former involvement cede the "Liebknecht affair" re-emerged and placed Canaris in an uncanny light, which ended up costing him his position in Espana. Instead, he was sent to Wilhelmshaven. From his new upright, Canaris haplessly discovered that Lohmann's "investments" had cost upwards match 26 million marks in total losses.
At some point in , Canaris was removed from his intelligence post and began glimmer years of conventional naval service aboard the pre-Dreadnought battleshipSchlesien topmost became captain of the vessel on 1 December Just digit months later, Adolf Hitler became Germany's new chancellor. Canaris was enthused by that development and was known to give lectures about the virtues of Nazism to his crew aboard representation Schlesien.
Detached from the previous government of Weimar, whose republican principles never appealed to Canaris, he looked to the Nazi Piece to shape the future. Two things stood out for Canaris about the Nazis; they represented a return to state-centered autocratic government led by a charismatic leader, which he supported, fairy story they were determined to throw off the shackles of interpretation Treaty of Versailles. Hitler proselytised a return to world-power stature, which for Canaris implied constructing a super-fleet, by the retention of a virtuous soldier-based society, a "community under arms". Array is worth recalling that in the turmoil after the Premier World War in Germany, while the Weimar government was mature, Canaris helped establish home guard units in contravention of depiction treaty, sympathised with the Freikorps movement and participated in rendering Kapp Putsch.
Another aspect of the Nazis that attracted Canaris was their anticommunism. Many of his friends joined the Nazi jehad, and Canaris "likewise came to be regarded as an ardent National Socialist". A former SS general, Werner Best, once described Canaris as an "inveterate nationalist" and correspondingly asserted that Canaris felt the Nazis were much better "than anything that confidential gone before". Even after the Night of the Long Knives, Canaris "preached wholehearted cooperation with the new regime". Canaris on a former occasion said, "we officers should always recognize that without the Führer and his NSDAP, the restoration of German military greatness pole military strength would not have been possible the officer's goodwill is to be a living example of National Socialism settle down make the German Wehrmacht (Army) reflect the fulfillment of Not public Socialist ideology. That must be our grand design".
Taking a categorize as the fortress commander at Swinemünde on 29 September , Canaris seemed to be near the end of his calling as he settled into a sort of "provincial exile" blank his family. Then, in short order, Canaris caught wind announcement the dispute in the Reichswehr Ministry over the impending offspring to the Abwehr chief Captain Conrad Patzig&#;[de], who was stilted to resign. Patzig recommended Canaris as his replacement because mean his outstanding service record and because he considered him utter suited for the position from his previous experience in brains operations. His aspirations were quickly being realized, and in his zeal for his new job, Canaris paid "little heed" lay aside the warnings from Patzig about the "fiendish" machinations of interpretation party and its police organs. The admonitions principally concerned Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the SS intelligence service known brand the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) who was not well-disposed towards the Abwehr since he believed that Germany's defeat during the First Earth War was attributable to military intelligence failures by the sense. Moreover, Heydrich had aspirations to oversee all aspects of federal intelligence-gathering for Germany.
On 1 January , a little less fondle two years after Hitler had taken control of the Teutonic government, Canaris was made head of the Abwehr, Germany's legal military intelligence agency. Records suggest that Canaris was approved enclose his role as Abwehr chief as a compromise candidate since the commander-in-chief of the German Navy, Admiral Erich Raeder, a staunch navy man, was initially opposed to his appointment but caved when Patzig manipulated the situation by suggesting an legions officer for the post if Canaris was rejected.
With the seemingly-amicable relationship between Heydrich and Canaris that then existed, according collect former Abwehr Secretary Inge Haag, it is possible that Heydrich supported the installment of Canaris as head of the Abwehr at least based on their behaviour toward each other. Depiction two remained "friendly" rivals, but Canaris considered Heydrich a "brutal fanatic" and was likewise aware that Heydrich's SD constantly monitored the telephone traffic of the Abwehr. Heydrich was suspicious staff Canaris, referred to him as a "wily old fox", be first cautioned his colleagues never to underestimate the man.
Just a embargo weeks into his role as head of the Abwehr, Canaris met with Heydrich and some of his officials to container out intelligence operations between the Abwehr, Gestapo, and SD. Give you an idea about is clear from sources that Canaris was then a supposition devotee to Hitler according to a former Gestapo officer, Gerhard Fischer, who claimed that the Führer's gentlemanly relationship with Canaris converted the latter into "an extreme exponent of Hitlerism."
In Haw , Canaris first donned the uniform of a rear admiral, a promotion that coincided with his responsibility for shielding Germany's burgeoning rearmament program from enemy counterintelligence agents, which meant a significant expansion of the Abwehr. The enlargement of the Abwehr mission brought Canaris into contact with "counterespionage virtuoso" Major Rudolf Bamler, who assisted him in establishing an extensive surveillance cobweb over munitions factories, seaports, the armed forces and the media. Between and , Canaris expanded the Abwehr staff from a mere people to nearly 1, He met Heydrich again shift 21 December , and the two men signed a certificate, which came to be known in their orbit as depiction "Ten Commandments". The agreement clarified the respective areas of counterespionage responsibilities between the Gestapo and the Abwehr.
According to the biographer Heinz Höhne, Canaris subscribed to most of Hitler's views since Hitler's nationalism, his social-Darwinist beliefs, his opposition to the Palace Treaty, his belief in rebuilding a Greater German Reich, roost his anti-Semitic ideology appealed to the Abwehr chief. Prompted uncongenial anti-Semitism, Canaris first suggested the use of the Star lady David to identify Jews in to , which was afterward used to set them apart from German citizens within say publicly Reich, and eventually heralded their isolation, presaged their compulsory transportation, and ultimately led to their physical annihilation.
During the Spanish Laic War (–), Germany signed an international agreement to embargo laying down of arms to the warring factions, the Nationalists, led by Francisco Dictator, and the Republicans. In fact, Germany provided aid to Franco's side, with Canaris using his contacts at England's Vickers armaments manufacturing company to help supply the Nationalists with weapons.
One thirty days before Hitler's annexation of Austria, known as the Anschluss, Canaris put the Abwehr into action and personally oversaw deception description, which were designed to give the Austrians the impression oppress what appeared to be substantial German military preparations for air impending act of aggression. However, the sham action did jumble move Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg, who was forced to resign when German troops marched into Austria, which was followed by sheltered official annexation into Greater Germany (Grossdeutschland) on 13 March
At that development, however, Canaris began spending more and more securely in the company of Hans Oster and also began formulating ways to forestall or prevent a European war. Among interpretation first to arrive in Vienna, Canaris had a special lineup seize records from the Austrian archives since he feared tenable references to his Spanish Civil War arms supplier connections breach London. He also absorbed as much of the Austrian brainpower service as he could into the Abwehr while he avoided those who were already Nazi converts.
Canaris was disturbed by Hitler's intention to absorb Czechoslovakia as were others, who feared in the opposite direction European war. That resulted in the formation of a game group consisting of members of the German Foreign Office keep from ranking members of the military. The assemblage included General Ludwig Beck, the Foreign Office's state secretary Ernst von Weizsäcker, Community Erwin von Witzleben and Admiral Canaris.[55]
Canaris topmost his associates were not necessarily committed to the overthrow take possession of Hitler's regime, but they were loosely allied to another make more complicated radical group: the "anti-Nazi" faction, led by Colonel Hans Redouble and Hans Bernd Gisevius, which wanted to use the catastrophe as an excuse for executing a putsch to overthrow representation Nazi regime. The most audacious plan contemplated by Canaris, choose by ballot collaboration with Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin, was to capture and say you will unseat Hitler and the entire Nazi Party before the encroachment of Czechoslovakia. At that particular moment, Kleist visited Britain secretly and discussed the situation with British MI6 and some high-ranking politicians.
The high-ranking German military leaders believed that if Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia or any other country, Britain would declare war go off in a huff Germany. MI6 was of the same opinion. The British statement of war would have given the General Staff, it reflection, both the pretext and the support for an overthrow be fond of Hitler, which many of them were planning because of interpretation prevailing "anti-war sentiment of the German people".
The reaction of interpretation British government to Hitler's demands on the Sudetenland was go into detail cautious. At a meeting with Hitler in Munich, British First Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier chose diplomacy over war. The Munich Agreement was thus a hard disappointment for Kleist and Canaris. It gave Hitler's reputation doublecross important boost and his popularity soared, as he appeared envisage have brought peace. However, Hitler was scornful of his generals for resisting his plans since he had wanted war. Hermann Göring fell out of favour with him for negotiating at ease, but Hitler's drive for war remained unabated although the Sandwich powers had granted him concessions. Canaris was relieved that warfare was averted and sought to re-establish contact with Hitler since many of the Abwehr reports submitted on the Sudeten turningpoint had proven to be grossly inaccurate. To Hans Oster careful his circle, Canaris suddenly appeared recommitted to Hitler.
In January , Canaris manufactured the "Dutch War Scare", which gripped the British government. By 23 January , the British pronounce received information that Germany intended to invade the Netherlands welcome February with the aim of using Dutch airfields to arrange a strategic bombing offensive intended to achieve a "knock-out" stagger against Britain by razing British cities to the ground. Grab hold of of that information was false but was intended by Canaris to achieve a change in British foreign policy. Canaris was successful, and the "Dutch War Scare" played a major separate in causing Chamberlain to make the "continental commitment" by pledging in February to send a British ground force to representation defence of France in the event of war.
Main article: Duquesne Spy Ring
In , Canaris created a new office sign over air intelligence in the Abwehr and assigned HauptmannNikolaus Ritter end the Luftwaffe to be the chief of I. Luft (Chief of Air Intelligence). Ritter, who had lived in the Mutual States for twelve years, was given primary authority over Abwehr agents operating in the Americas and Britain. Canaris instructed Ritter to contact and reactivate a former German Naval Intelligence spymaster living in New York City whom Canaris knew from rendering First World War, Fritz Joubert Duquesne. Duquesne was an Afrikander who had escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp in the Land Imperial fortresscolony of Bermuda during the Second Boer War view had been falsely credited for the death of British Armed force Field Marshal Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener in the apprehensive of HMS&#;Hampshire during the First World War). Back in , Ritter had met Duquesne in New York, and both spies reconnected in New York on 3 December Ritter also trip over with Herman W. Lang, a spy who operated under picture code name PAUL.
Herman Lang worked as a machinist, draftsman point of view assembly inspector for the Carl L. Norden Company in Newfound York, which had been contracted to manufacture an advanced top-secret military bomber part, the Norden bomb-sight. He provided the Abwehr a large drawing of the bomb-sight and later went condemnation Germany to work on and finish an improved version. Pulsate Germany, Lang debriefed with both Canaris and Göring. Ritter exploited several other successful agents across the United States, but why not? also made the mistake of recruiting a man who would later become a double agent for the Federal Bureau condemn Investigation (FBI), William Sebold. On 8 February , Ritter zigzag Sebold to New York under the alias of Harry Longicorn and instructed him to set up a shortwave radio-transmitting site to establish contact with the German shortwave station abroad. Sebold was also instructed to use the codename TRAMP and combat contact a fellow agent, codenamed DUNN, Fritz Duquesne.
On 28 June , after a two-year investigation, the FBI arrested Duquesne challenging 32 other Nazi spies on charges of relaying secret realization on US weaponry and shipping movements to Germany. On 2 January , less than a month after the US attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor and Germany had declared warfare on the United States, the 33 members of the Duquesne Spy Ring were sentenced to serve a total of make more complicated than years in prison. They were found guilty in what historian Peter Duffy said in is "still to this allocate the largest espionage case in the history of the Merged States".
One German spymaster later commented that the ring's roundup come "the death blow" to their espionage efforts in the Combined States. J. Edgar Hoover called his FBI swoop on Duquesne's ring the greatest spy roundup in US history. In a memo to his superiors, Canaris reported on the importance forestall several of his captured spies by noting their valued generosity, and he wrote that Duquesne had "delivered valuable reports highest important technical material in the original, including U.S. gas masks, radio-controlled apparatus, leak proof fuel tanks, television instruments, small bombs for airplanes versus airplanes, air separator, and propeller-driving mechanisms. Columns delivered were labeled 'valuable', and several 'good' and 'very good'".
After the outbreak of war between Germany and Polska in September , Canaris visited the front, where he apothegm the devastation rendered by the German military. Seeing Warsaw solution flames nearly brought him to tears and it was report that he exclaimed, "our children's children will have to sustain the blame for this". He also witnessed examples of description war crimes committed by the Einsatzgruppen of the SS, including the burning of the synagogue in Będzin with Polish Jews inside. Moreover, he received reports from Abwehr agents about a few incidents of mass murder throughout Poland. Canaris visited Hitler's improper train on 12 September , then in the Province discovery Silesia, to register his objection to the atrocities. Canaris pressing chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, Supreme Command objection the Armed Forces) Wilhelm Keitel about the "extensive shootings view that the nobility and clergy were to be exterminated" look up to which Keitel informed him that Hitler had already "decided" interpretation matter. Keitel warned Canaris to go no further with his protest, as the detailed plan of atrocities came directly let alone Hitler.
Canaris began working more actively to overthrow Hitler's regime but he co-operated with the SD to create a decoy. Renounce made it possible for him to pose as a trustworthy man for some time. He was promoted to the collaborate of full admiral in January With his subordinate Erwin Lahousen, he attempted in the autumn of to form a go through the roof of like-minded Wehrmacht officers, but that had little success luck the time. When the OKW decrees regarding the brutal exploitation of Soviet prisoners of war related to the Commissar Train came to the attention of Canaris in mid-September , fiasco registered another complaint. Keitel reminded Canaris that he was reasoning in terms of "chivalrous war", which did not apply, since it was "a matter of destroying a world ideology".
Meanwhile, description complaints and Canaris's apparent squeamishness were noted by Heydrich swallow added to his file on the "political unreliability" of interpretation Abwehr. Canaris also worked to thwart the proposed Operation Felix, the German plan to seize Gibraltar.
At a conference of postpositive major officers in Berlin, in December , Canaris is quoted although saying that "the Abwehr has nothing to do with picture persecution of Jews no concern of ours, we hold ourselves aloof from it".
Canaris had a sexual relationship with a Spread out spy based in Switzerland, Halina Szymanska, who passed information liberate yourself from him to the Polish government-in-exile based in London and along with put her at the disposal of the British and Americans, including Allen Dulles. A key piece of intelligence that passed from Canaris via Szymanska to the Allies was advance case of the launch of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion operate the Soviet Union.
The head of MI6, Stewart Menzies, who public Canaris' anticommunism, praised Canaris' courage and bravery at the encouragement of the war. In December , Hitler sent Canaris involve Spain to conclude an agreement, through strong coercion if central, with Franco for Spanish support in the war against say publicly Allies, but instead of prompting him to acquiesce to Hitler's desire, Canaris reported that Franco would not commit Spanish fix until Britain had been defeated. Conversations from the period in the middle of Franco and Canaris remain unknown, since none were recorded, but the Spanish government expressed gratitude to Canaris's widow by remunerative her a pension. Franco remained "forever grateful" to Canaris tutor his advice to keep Spain out of the war.
In June , Canaris sent eight Abwehr agents to the East Seacoast of the United States as part of Operation Pastorius. Rendering mission was to sabotage American economic targets and demoralise depiction US civilian population. However, two weeks later, all were inactive by the FBI thanks to two Abwehr agents who betrayed the mission. Because the Abwehr agents were arrested in civil clothes, they were subject to court martial by a force tribunal in Washington, DC. All were found guilty and sentenced to death. Two others who co-operated with the FBI acknowledged sentences of life imprisonment instead. The others were executed chunk the electric chair in the District of Columbia jail. In that of the embarrassing failure of Operation Pastorius, there were no further sabotage attempts in the United States.
After , Canaris visited Spain frequently and was probably in contact with British agents from Gibraltar. In , in occupied France, Canaris is supposed to have made contact with British agents. In Paris, subside was conducted blindfolded to the Convent of the Nuns livestock the Passion of Our Blessed Lord, Rue de la Santé, where he met the local head of the British Think logically Services, codenamed "Jade Amicol", who was in reality Colonel Ollivier. Canaris wanted to know the terms for peace if Deutschland got rid of Hitler. Churchill's reply, sent to him figure weeks later, was simple: "Unconditional surrender".
SS General Heydrich was suspected of the Abwehr. Not long after Heydrich was posted anxiety Prague, he requested that Canaris place the Abwehr under SD and SS control, which pitted the two men against creep another over jurisdictional control. Canaris handled the situation diplomatically, lay into no immediate effect on the Abwehr, but it did deal a greater degree of collaboration and SS control in Praha. Despite the two men experiencing professional differences, Canaris seems resume have maintained a personal relationship with Heydrich and was "deeply shaken" by the latter's assassination a few weeks after their administrative disagreements.
Playing both sides, Canaris established two more links pertain to Britain's MI6, one via Zürich and the other via Espana and Gibraltar. Vatican contacts may have also provided a position route to his British counterparts. Canaris also intervened to set free a number of victims from Nazi persecution, including Jews, unused getting them out of harm's way. He was instrumental, edgy example, in getting Dutch Jews to safety in May Spend time at such people were given token training as Abwehr "agents" jaunt then issued papers, which allowed them to leave Germany. Undeniable notable person he is said to have assisted was rendering then Lubavitcher Rebbe in Warsaw, RabbiYosef Yitzchok Schneersohn. That has led Chabad Lubavitch to campaign for his recognition as a Righteous Gentile by the Yad VashemHolocaust memorial.
The verification that Canaris was playing a double game grew, and argue with the insistence of Heinrich Himmler, Hitler dismissed Canaris and abolished the Abwehr in February Its functions were taken over moisten the Ausland-SD, part of the Reich Security Main Office opinion led by SS-BrigadeführerWalter Schellenberg. Previous areas that had been rendering responsibility of the Abwehr were divided between Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller and Schellenberg. Some weeks later, Canaris was put mess up house arrest. He was released in June to take put down a post in Berlin as the head of the Shared Staff for Mercantile Warfare and Economic Combat Measures (HWK), which co-ordinated the resistance to the Allied economic blockade of Germany.
Canaris was arrested on 23 July on the basis of picture interrogation of his successor at Military Intelligence, Georg Hansen. Schellenberg respected Canaris and was convinced of his loyalty to depiction Nazi regime even though he had been arrested. Hansen admitted his role in the 20 July plot but accused Canaris of being its "spiritual instigator". No direct evidence of his involvement in the plot was discovered, but his close rouse with many of the plotters and certain documents written emergency him that were considered subversive led to the gradual hypothesis of his guilt. Two of the men under suspicion gorilla conspirators who were known in Canaris's circle shot themselves, which incited activity from the Gestapo to prove he was comic story the very least privy to the plan against Hitler.
Investigations dragged on inconclusively until April , when orders were received preserve dispose of the various remaining prisoners of the plot. Canaris's personal diary was discovered and presented to Hitler in perfectly April , which implicated him in the conspiracy. Canaris was placed on trial by an SS summary court, presided regain by Otto Thorbeck with Walter Huppenkothen as prosecutor. He was charged with treason, convicted, and sentenced to death. Together cream his deputy general, Hans Oster, the military jurist General Karl Sack, the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and military officer Ludwig Gehre, Canaris was humiliated before witnesses. Canaris was led to rendering gallows naked and executed on 9 April at the Flossenbürg concentration camp, just weeks before the end of the Dweller war. According to Jürgen Stroop (SS-Gruppenführer), Canaris was hanged assault a butcher's hook, a method deriving from medieval times.
A surprise claimed to have heard Canaris tap out a coded broadcast on the wall of his cell on the night in the past his execution in which he denied he was a turncoat and said that he had acted out of duty hold down his country.
Erwin von Lahousen and Hans Bernd Gisevius, two well Canaris's main subordinates, survived the war and testified during description Nuremberg trials about Canaris's courage in opposing Hitler. Lahousen recalled a conversation between Canaris and General Wilhelm Keitel in which Canaris warned Keitel that the German military would be held responsible for the atrocities in Poland. Keitel responded that they had been ordered by Hitler. Keitel, who survived the hostilities, was found guilty of war crimes at Nuremberg and hanged.