The the Madam and the Spymaster: The Secret History of the Most Famous Brothel in Wartime Berlin by Urs Brunner & Nigel Jones & Dr. Julia Schrammel

Author:Urs Brunner & Nigel Jones & Dr. Julia Schrammel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2023-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

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Canaris, the son of a wealthy industrialist from the Ruhr, born on New Year’s Day 1887, was of an older generation than Heydrich, and had a distinguished record in the First World War. Believing that he was descended from Constantin Kanaris, a naval hero of the Greek War of Independence, Canaris had joined the Kaiser’s navy, the Kaiserliche Marine, in 1905. Despite his small stature, and introspective nature, Canaris proved a natural sailor, skilled in navigation and devoted to the service. Highly intelligent, Canaris was a fluent linguist, speaking six languages, including English and Spanish. He had displayed a fascination for secrets and espionage from an early age, earning the nickname ‘the Peeper’ for his excessive curiosity. While still at school he had experimented with invisible inks and using false names, and once in the navy a specialisation in intelligence came naturally.

The outbreak of war in 1914 found Canaris serving as intelligence officer aboard the light cruiser Dresden. While the rest of the squadron was annihilated by the Royal Navy in the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December 1914, the Dresden survived, and Canaris’s navigational skills helped steer the ship to safety in neutral Chile, where he and the rest of the crew were interned after scuttling their ship. Eager to get back to the war, and using his fluency in Spanish, Canaris escaped with the help of German expatriates and made his way back to Europe.

Returned to Germany, Canaris was sent to neutral Spain on his first spying mission – organising the observation of enemy shipping and the supplying of U-boats in the Mediterranean. His espionage abilities attracted the unwelcome attention of British agents, and it became necessary for Canaris to make a hasty exit. His naval superiors now had a high regard for Canaris’s skills, and organised a special exfiltration by U-boat. Once safely back home, he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class.

Canaris’s U-boat voyage had so impressed him that he applied for a transfer to the submarine service. After two months’ training – during which he met his future wife Erika Waag – he was given command of three U-boats in swift succession in the Mediterranean. Once again, he proved a success, evading determined Allied pursuit, sinking several merchant ships, and taking their skippers prisoner.

Ordered home as Germany collapsed in November 1918, Canaris returned to Kiel to find the port engulfed by revolution. There was no question of where the loyalties of the deeply conservative and nationalist officer lay. Along with the rest of the navy’s officer caste, Canaris now devoted his considerable energies and his experience in espionage to reversing the revolution. He attached himself as naval adjutant to Gustav Noske, a right-wing Social Democrat and the strong man of the new and precarious Weimar regime. Noske was rapidly forming the Freikorps paramilitary forces to resist the subversion of the Spartacist Communists who were vying with the Social Democrat government in Berlin for control of a country dissolving into anarchy and chaos.

Canaris

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