Hitler's Brandenburgers Read online

  Histories of the First World War are understandably dominated by the landscapes of the Western Front and years of virtually static trench warfare that decimated the armies involved. The storied ‘sideshow’ of the Dardanelles campaign has also achieved a prominence in historical literature, nowhere more so than in my home country of New Zealand, for Gallipoli and the blooding of the ANZACs is seen as a defining moment in forging Australian and New Zealand national identity. Perhaps less well documented are the Allied campaigns fought on the African continent against Ottoman and German forces. Germany, having only recently achieved statehood, had joined the European scramble for African colonies during the 1880s, seizing Cameroon, Togoland (now Togo and part of Ghana), German East Africa (Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania) and German South-West Africa (Namibia). With the outbreak of war in 1914, Allied troops moved to occupy all the German African territories, despite a marked lack of enthusiasm in the colonial outposts themselves; an editorial in the Kenyan East African Standard on 22 August 1914 going as far as to advocate the collaboration of all white European colonists in Africa to continue the suppression of the numerically superior indigenous peoples.

  In German East Africa, Oberstleutnant Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck proceeded to wage a highly successful guerrilla war against British forces. Unusually in an era that had been dominated by extreme colonial brutality by European powers in Africa – particularly the savage suppression of the Herero rebellion in German South-West Africa and subsequent genocide committed by German forces – Lettow-Vorbeck was both trusted and respected by the black troops (Askaris) that he commanded and who comprised the bulk of his force. Lettow-Vorbeck spoke Swahili fluently and promoted black soldiers to at least non-commissioned officer rank, once proclaiming that he believed ‘we are all Africans here’. Of course, while this appears an admirable trait of this German officer, the four-year campaign that he and his men waged contributed to the devastation of the region and the malnutrition and starvation of the local population that ensued. Nonetheless, from a military standpoint Lettow-Vorbeck fought a remarkable campaign against superior enemy troop numbers that ended in 1918 with the surrender of his undefeated force; the survivors numbering thirty German officers, 125 German non-commissioned officers and enlisted men, 1,168 Askaris and approximately 3,500 porters.

  Amongst the non-commissioned officers that had served under Lettow-Vorbeck was Theodor von Hippel. The 24-year-old from Torun on the Vistula River volunteered for service with the Schutztruppe in German East Africa on 18 October 1914, earning the Iron Cross Second Class (EK II) that year. By August 1915 he had been promoted to Unteroffizier, designated an officer-aspirant on 17 February 1916 and promoted again to Feldwebel on the first day of April. However, just five days later he was wounded and taken prisoner during the fighting that followed an offensive launched by the South African General J.C. Smuts at the head of 45,000 men. Hippel remained a prisoner of war until December 1920 whereupon he returned to Germany, having been discharged from the military with the rank of Leutnant der Reserve.

  Following his return to civilian life, Hippel achieved a doctorate in Political Science (Doktor der Staatswissenschaft) before reenlisting in the Wehrmacht in 1935. He served as an Oberleutnant in the Pionier-Bataillon 43 stationed at Brandenburg an der Havel and was promoted to Hauptmann later that year. Hippel was later described by Erwin von Lahousen as ‘a somewhat confused, very atavistic adventurer. An old South-West African, [he was] no Nazi.’1 A powerfully built man of medium height with grey hair, he frequently resembled the very essence of a foreigner’s picture of a Prussian officer, complete with officer’s breeches, monocle and 1916 pattern steel helmet. On 1 November 1937, he joined the Abwehr – German military intelligence – reporting to a third-floor office marked with ‘II N/W’ on the door in Abwehr headquarters at 76–78 Tirpitzufer, Berlin. He had been subordinated to the sabotage section headed by Oberstleutnant Helmuth Groscurth.

  The Abwehr was only one of six different intelligence services in Hitler’s Third Reich, though its chief rival was the SS security service, the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführer-SS (SD – Security Service of the Reichsführer SS). The energetic head of the Abwehr, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, had been born in 1887 in Alperbeck, Westphalia. He joined the Imperial German Navy at the age of 17 in 1905 and served during the First World War aboard the cruiser SMS Dresden as Intelligence Officer. Canaris demonstrated a genius for his work as he guided the ship’s escape following the disastrous Battle of the Falkland Islands during which all but two of the German East Asia Squadron (six cruisers and some auxiliaries that comprised Germany’s only ‘blue water’ squadron of the war independent of German home ports) were sunk by the Royal Navy. Dresden was the sole cruiser to escape, evading the enemy for three months thanks to Canaris’ skilful intelligence work until cornered in Cumberland Bay on Chile’s Robinson Crusoe Island. Faced with destruction by gunfire or capture, Dresden was scuttled on 14 March 1915 and the crew interned in neutral Chile.

  With his captain’s permission Canaris escaped internment and travelled back to Germany, his fluency in six languages including English and Spanish no doubt aiding his convoluted journey. His path crossed the Andes to Buenos Aires from where he travelled aboard the Dutch Lloyd steamer Frisia to Plymouth, posing as Chilean widower Reed Rosas and sufficiently plausible in his disguise to go as far as assisting a group of Royal Navy officers that were making enquiries about fellow passengers. From there the ship sailed to Rotterdam from where Canaris was able to make the final leg of his journey over the German border.

  The young officer’s successful return made him something of a minor celebrity in naval circles and he quickly came to the attention of Oberst Walter Nicolai, head of the Imperial German Army’s ‘Abteilung IIIb’ that was concerned with military intelligence. Enlisted into Nicolai’s service, Kapitänleutnant Canaris was soon posted to Madrid, Spain, where he continued his previous cover as Señor Reed Rosas and took a small flat while he began reporting Allied shipping movements for the benefit of Germany’s U-boats. Codenamed ‘Kika’, Canaris was extremely successful, U-boat victories in the Mediterranean rising and covert refuelling facilities in neutral Spanish harbours established that allowed longer combat patrols. However, he requested a return to active service and on 21 February 1917 left Madrid to return overland to Germany, arrested by Italian troops in Genoa after a tip-off that Señor Rosas was in fact a German spy. The uncontainable Canaris was not incarcerated for long and after exploiting connections that potentially led as far as the Vatican, he was released, though strong protests by French and British officials saw him placed on a ship bound for Marseilles. Undeterred, Canaris convinced the ship’s Spanish captain to do otherwise and he was landed at Cartagena, arriving back in Madrid by 15 March. However, after a further six months of intelligence work and constant requests to transfer to active service, he was taken aboard U-35 to the Austrian base at Cattaro and thence to Germany.

  Awarded the Iron Cross First Class (EK I) for the ‘extraordinary skill with which he carried out his mission’, Canaris transferred to the U-boat arm and was given command of the minelayer UC-27 on 28 November 1917 before transferring to the post of First Officer aboard U-34, the larger Type B boat offering more aggressive action with its torpedo patrols. Serving in the Mediterranean, Canaris earned command of U-128 before Cattaro was evacuated in October 1918 and he returned to Kiel, bringing his boat into a harbour filled with ships flying the red flag of mutiny as revolution overwhelmed the Imperial German Navy and the country’s last vestiges of order disintegrated.

  Caught up in the revolutionary violence in Germany following the 1918 armistice, Canaris became involved in the Freikorps Noske of ex-officers who fought to resist the virulent strains of communism that had taken root within the navy. Gradually, some form of order was restored, though Canaris had developed a loathing of all things communist, despite his relatively liberal views on most matters. He helped restore military discipline to Kiel’s naval base, using his in
telligence experience to instigate numerous black market deals and obtain the money required to establish a reserve of trustworthy and reliable officers which would remain invisible to the Allied Naval Control Commission enforcing the severe terms of the Versailles Treaty.

  A dull posting to a junior post aboard the training ship Berlin followed, during which time he established a rapport and friendship with an arrogant, though intellectually gifted, naval cadet by the name of Reinhard Heydrich. Nonetheless, bored at his new post, Canaris considered resigning his commission, until the world of subterfuge beckoned once more and he was posted to Osaka to oversee the secret construction of a U-boat design in Japanese yards, circumventing the terms of the Versailles Treaty and paving the way for clandestine German rearmament. Though his mission was repudiated by the newly arrived naval chief Vizeadmiral Adolf Zenker under pressure from a suspicious Royal Navy, Canaris’ thirst for secretive work had been reawakened.

  He subsequently became involved with Kapitän zur See Walter Lohmann, son of a Bremen shipping magnate and fellow disciple of clandestinity and shadowy business deals. Despite Zenker, many naval officers were committed to a path of military rearmament hidden behind dummy civilian corporate fronts. Lohmann, Chief of the Reichsmarine’s Transportation Division and a man of experience in international business, was charged with administering whatever money was available through various ‘off the books’ dealings that Germany’s naval administration had made. The accumulated ‘black fund’ allowed armament development to be carried out in secret under the noses of the Allied Armistice Control Commission. In this he was assisted by Canaris and the officer who would go on to head Germany’s minesweeping service, Oberleutnant zur See Friedrich Ruge. Together they established, amongst other things, TRAYAG (Travemünder Yachthafen A.G.) in 1924 as a base and shipyard for the covert development and trial activities for fast motor torpedo boats (S-boats). The following year they created the ‘High Sea Sports Association’ (HANSA) for the training of personnel in basic seamanship, small motor and sailing boat usage as well as radio communication. The Neustädter Slip GmbH was formed as a repair and training plant for sport boats (and S-boats) in 1925 and the following year 60,000RM was given from the Reichsmarine’s ‘black fund’ to the Motor-Yacht Club of Germany for the testing of the motor boats developed by TRAYAG. The subterfuge proved successful – not only for S-boat development, but also U-boat and aircraft projects.

  Somewhat ironically, Lohmann was forced to resign in 1928 by pressure from within Germany after it became publicly known that he had also poured money into various non-military ventures – either to increase the dwindling amount available in the secret fund through the generation of profits or to gradually accumulate a network of trustworthy agents through foreign investment. Using Canaris’ Spanish connections, German investment broke the stranglehold exerted by the Bank of England over Spanish naval construction, earning the gratitude of the Spanish King and further laurels for Canaris. However, investment in foreign and diverse firms was where Lohmann finally came unstuck. His ventures ranged from the Berliner Bacon Company (attempting to wrest the lucrative British bacon market from Danish firms) to a firm attempting to raise sunken ships by encasing them in ice.

  His fatal weakness was involvement with the Phoebus Film Company which collapsed financially in August 1927. Lohmann’s stake in the company was revealed by the journalist Kurd Wenkel who had investigated the source of the film company’s hidden revenue that had allowed it to function for years despite dwindling sales. Paradoxically, it was not Lohmann’s real rearmament mission that caused the ensuing scandal, but rather the fact that German pacifists correctly claimed that he had been influencing the film company to make increasingly nationalistic features which could strengthen the burgeoning right-wing political parties.2 However, Lohmann’s subsequent exit forced only a brief delay in the establishment of new business fronts behind which the military could continue its secret work.

  Nonetheless, Lohmann’s fall resulted in Canaris’ return to Germany, posted by the new chief of the navy Admiral Erich Raeder to command of the obsolete battleship Schliesen. Two years showing the flag at sea followed, during which time Adolf Hitler had become the new Chancellor of Germany. Canaris was, at first, enthusiastic about the Nazis; their pathological hatred of communism, the return to a centralised authoritarian government after the ramshackle and confused Weimar Republic and their promise to abrogate the emasculating terms of the Versailles Treaty were all tenets that struck a strong chord with him. However, Canaris and his penchant for shady dealings and conspiracy had fallen out of favour with his immediate naval superiors, including the strictly conventional Raeder, and he was posted to command the fortress of Swinemünde in 1934, the equivalent of military exile.

  Events in Berlin that would shape the future of Canaris, the Abwehr and the Brandenburgers were meanwhile in motion. The head of the Abwehr, Oberst Ferdinand von Bredow, was promoted to a senior position in the Reichswehr and recommended that a naval officer take control of the Abwehr for the first time since its creation. Kapitän zur See Conrad Patzig was appointed head of the intelligence service, a capable officer who had earned the trust of his subordinates and established solid relationships with the Baltic states by exchanging information about the USSR. However, Patzig frequently clashed with the head of the SD, which was surreptitiously absorbing other police agencies in its drive to become the centralised state police and intelligence network. The SD’s young head was none other than Reinhard Heydrich who had joined the SS after being cashiered from the navy in 1931 for ‘dishonourable conduct’. Heydrich’s clinically precise application of brutality and cunning had extended his reach into all corners of German life. During 1934, he was a prime mover in the crushing of the Sturmabteilung (SA) that had fought in the streets during Hitler’s revolutionary rise to power but now threatened the stability of the Nazi state as their loyalty was divided between their own leadership and that of the party. The subsequent ‘Night of the Long Knives’ and the murder of Ernst Röhm and the SA leadership at the end of June deeply shocked Patzig and other members of the Abwehr. Amongst the victims was none other than Ferdinand von Bredow, opportunistically murdered during two days of bloodletting, due to his previous opposition to Adolf Hitler when he had served as deputy defence minister in Kurt von Schleicher’s Weimar Republic cabinet. Hitler had used the purge of the SA as an opportunity to rid himself of bitter enemies unconnected to the SA.

  Patzig was appalled, as was his deputy, cavalry Major Hans Oster, who decided at that moment to devote himself to unseating the Nazis from power. Patzig’s tenure as head of the Abwehr was curtailed, through both his own desire to seek the safer waters of an active service posting and the machinations of his unfettered rival Reinhard Heydrich. It was Canaris’ name that was subsequently put forward to replace him and on 1 January 1935 Canaris became the head of the Abwehr.

  Promoted to Konteradmiral, Canaris threw himself into the role he was destined for. Canaris enlarged the Abwehr staff from 150 to approximately 1,000 by 1937 and clarified the domains of the three main offices and two satellite posts as well as their respective spheres of employment. Abteilung I (‘Abwehr I’), initially commanded by Oberst Hans Piekenbrock, was responsible for espionage abroad, subdivided into Army, Navy and Air Force sections and other branches encompassing industrial and economic espionage. Abteilung II (‘Abwehr II’), commanded by Groscurth, was responsible for sabotage, fostering insurgency and, later, commando activity behind enemy lines. Abteilung III (‘Abwehr III’) under Major Rudolf Bamler was tasked with counter-espionage, this being the department that worked closest with Heydrich’s SD due to its domestic security remit. There also existed the ‘Foreign Section’ under Admiral Leopold Birkner that evaluated foreign military intelligence and dealt with military and naval attaches and ‘Section Z’ under Generalmajor Hans Oster that was responsible for Abwehr administration and organisation. This placed the committed anti-Nazi Oster in perhaps the most vital junct
ion point of all Abwehr activity and enabled him to place personnel sympathetic to his beliefs in key positions while removing those who could provide ideological obstacles and pose a danger to future conspiracies against the Führer.

  Canaris and Heydrich established defined areas of responsibility between the Abwehr and the SD, though they would continue to joust with one another throughout the years that followed. Their unusual bond of friendship endured until Heydrich’s death, tempered by Canaris’ knowledge that Heydrich was a ‘brutal fanatic’ and Heydrich distrusting his former superior as a ‘wily old fox’. Nonetheless, in the early stages of his Abwehr command, Canaris advocated ‘comradely cooperation with the Gestapo’ and remained an adherent to the Nazi regime’s path, benefitting from unfettered access to Hitler and frequent private meetings with the Führer in the Reich Chancellery. It is widely believed that it was Canaris that put forward the idea of identifying Jewish citizens by the attachment of a yellow star to their clothing, probably proffered in an air of simplistic intellectual solution to the ‘Jewish problem’ rather than rooted in inherent anti-Semitism. Canaris himself appears to have not been particularly anti-Semitic in his views, though he clearly had no major issue with the treatment of Jewish Germans as second-class citizens, at best.

  Canaris was fully involved in German operations that took place during the Spanish Civil War, negotiating the use of the Condor Legion with Franco by use of his already well-established connections that extended back to the previous world war. However, during June 1937, he became disillusioned with at least some aspects of the application of Nazi power outside of Germany’s borders. Canaris became aware of Stalin’s brutal purge of Soviet officers and the peripheral role that the SD had played in the violent murder of so many by the planting of false evidence against Soviet officers with whom a joint German–Soviet military training alliance had been agreed during 1926. This and other SD operations shocked and appalled Canaris, who was equally stunned by Heydrich’s ambivalence to complicity in the bloodbath Stalin had unleashed. By now fully aware that Hitler’s desire had been for the Soviet high command to decimate itself, Canaris began to understand that the path that Germany had embarked upon was unbound by any recognisable humanitarian principles and would almost certainly lead once again to war. His subordinate, Erwin von Lahousen, would later characterise Canaris during testimony at the Nuremberg Trials as ‘a pure intellect, an interesting, highly individual and complicated personality, who hated violence as such and therefore hated and abominated war, Hitler, his system and particularly his methods’.3