CANARIS - Hitler's Master Spy by Hohne, Heinz

Book Description: Doubleday, NY, 1979. US first edition, hard bound in dust jacket, 6 1/2 x 9 1/2, FINE/FINE CONDITION, ( dj price clipped), xv, 703 pages, illus., maps, appendices, glossary, notes, bibliog., index.-----------------------------------------------He was the most elusive, the most mysterious, the most paradoxical of all Hitler's lieutenants. Head of German intelligence during World War II, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris believed —ironically—that the war would ruin his country, and so he involved himself in at least two plots to overthrow the Nazi regime. He has been damned as Hitler's master spy and praised as the true hero of the German resistance. But the real nature of Wilhelm Canaris's role has never before been fully revealed.Now, Heinz Hohne has written a definitive biography of this strange man with divided loyalties—an incisive and detailed portrait that called for massive research and draws on previously unknown sources. Ham explodes the myth of Canaris's heroism as an anti-Hitler activist while tracing his complex and undeniable links with the resistance movement. What emerges is a picture of a man whose blind allegiance to an outworn code of military discipline repeatedly prevented him from being guided by his conscience and common sense.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What emerges, too, is a panoramic view of the rise and fall of Nazism as reflected in the personal destiny of one German who, like so many others, hoped to harness evil temporarily and for patriotic purposes, only to be destroyed by it.The author also unravels the countless schemes and intrigues of Canaris's career as a spy—beginning with his formation of a South American intelligence network during World War I and continuing through his postwar involvement in right-wing conspiracies, his major role in Germany's secret rearmament, and his direction of covert German activities in Spain. Finally, Hohne explores Canaris's spectacular rise to the top post in Hitler's wartime intelligence bureau —where his ultimate failure led to dismissal and, eventually, to death. Canaris was executed in Flossenburg concentration camp less than a month before the total collapse of the Third Reich.