Hitler's Spy Chief by Richard Bassett Read Free Book Online Page A

natural grasp of the equation of power and was determined to consolidate his position by exploiting his links with the military. This he could do only with the help of officers who knew how to handle the unruly ‘people’s naval units’, nominally under his command. Canaris, aware that order could only be restored by a strong personality, was impressed by Noske and, after a meeting, offered some support.
    Meanwhile, in early January, a Communist putsch led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg – revolutionaries known as Spartakists – had once again exploited mutinous sailors, this time to pave the way fora Soviet-style republic. The sailors from the so-called ‘People’s Naval Division’ had occupied the Wilhelmstrasse and broken into the Chancellery. In many streets Spartakists had set up barricades with machine guns. A few weeks earlier the first Soviet congress, perhaps inspired by its temporary refuge in the imperial stables, had demanded the abolition of Germany’s armed forces. This was a radical step and a challenge to the traditional elite of Germany; but it was not all the two agitators wanted. Liebknecht, in a pamphlet, had attacked the arms industry, placing all society’s ills at the feet of the merchants of death. He was in favour of entirely disbanding Germany’s arms trade which, he maintained, was part of an international arms trade ring dominated by a handful of powerful capitalist figures, whose only driving force was profit rather than patriotism. This rang alarm bells in many quarters, not least among the great German industrialists for whom the spectre of Communism taking over their factories had, a few months earlier, been a factor in ending the war.
    The army, however, was not going to comply with its extinction so easily. The terrified socialist chancellor, Friedrich Ebert, had turned to the army as the only credible force to support his administration. In return for this support, the civil administration would impose order and outlaw anarchy. The army now called for this agreement to be honoured. Ebert looked for a man the officer corps trusted and found a minister of national defence in the guise of Noske.
    To add to this combustible mix, a figure from Canaris’ past in Spain had chosen to arrive in Germany a few weeks earlier. This smartly dressed gentleman, wearing the buttonhole ribbon of the Légion d’honneur, was Basil Zaharoff. 4 Appalled at the apparent success of Communism in Germany, a country where he had maintained substantial armament interests, and no less concerned by the direction of Liebknecht’s agitation, he found Noske and Canaris in Berlin. No record of his conversation with Canaris has survived, but an aide-memoire, which Zaharoff addressed to a colleague of Canaris’, noted:
    â€˜The immediate problem is to counteract the Bolshevik propaganda, which deliberately seeks to make mischief so that all forms of arms trade are controlled or disbanded. Speak to Canaris about Liebknecht; the latter should be in no position to talk further by the end of the year.’ 5
    Zaharoff’s wishes appear to have been conveyed at a most opportune moment and his relationship with Canaris, begun in Spain a few years earlier, seems to have consolidated. Noske’s Freikorps (Free Corps) of officers and volunteers, supported by the army, dealt with the insurgents vigorously, storming the stables and arresting Liebknecht and Luxemburg on the night of 15 January. They were taken to the Eden Hotel, where the headquarters of the Guards Cavalry Division had been established under General von Hoffmann, and operations against the rebels were being directed by Captain Waldemar Pabst. Canaris was appointed liaison between the Guards Cavalry and the navy. Pabst and Canaris hit it off, the former later calling the latter ‘My best man’. Canaris returned the compliment, describing his time in the Frei Korps as ‘those wonderful