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.'
