Hitler's Spy Chief by Richard Bassett Page B

decisive. He knew that Raeder, as a conservative naval officer, would choose the lesser of the two evils rather than surrender control of military intelligence and signals to the narrow-minded men in field grey.
    Whether Canaris was the classic compromise candidate acceptable to both sides and therefore supported by both the SS and the military is difficult to prove, but it seems likely. In any event, within a few weeks of his taking over the Abwehr, relations between the SD and Abwehr had been organized along less fractious lines and a period of calm entered into the relationship, something which is highly suggestive that Canaris was indeed Heydrich’s candidate. Certainly, if Inge Haag, Canaris’ sole surviving secretary, is to be believed, the two men had a very convivial relationship at this stage. 4 ‘Between Canaris and Heydrich there was a relationship which can best be described as intimate. Certain things were taken for granted in that naval tradition whereby they were comrades who had served together at sea and therefore enjoyed a bond denied to other officers around Canaris.’ 5
    Heydrich’s widow described Canaris’ relationship to Heydrich as ‘paternal’ and even Himmler had a superstitious respect for Canaris. No doubt the tales of espionage that had enabled the two navy men to bond when Heydrich was a cadet had, in their retelling to the former chicken farmer Himmler, lost none of their excitement or plausibility. If Canaris had introduced Heydrich into the world of intelligence concepts and ideas, over the dinners he had prepared more than ten years ago, it would hardly be surprising for Heydrich not to remember his mentor.
    Canaris certainly seems to have felt confident that he could work with Heydrich. Patzig had some words of advice to Canaris about how to managethe relationship with the SD, but Canaris shrugged these off, noting that he knew how to deal with ‘these young men’. At the same time, as Canaris noted in his diary, Heydrich was ‘a brutal fanatic with whom it will be difficult to have an open and friendly cooperation’. For his part, Heydrich never trusted Canaris, always correcting colleagues who underestimated Canaris by referring to him as that ‘wily old fox’.
    As Canaris well knew, all telephone lines out of the Abwehr offices were monitored by the SD. 6 This would not stop the two men later living near the Schlachtensee as close neighbours with adjoining gardens and reviving the chamber music evenings that had been part of their earlier naval days.
    Thus it was on 2 January 1935 that the grey granite five-storey building of the Tirpitzufer welcomed the small, rather understated, sallow-skinned man with grey, almost white hair for the first time as its chief. Two small lifts and a divided staircase lit from above beckoned him past the small concierge’s room occupied by a non-commissioned officer. One of the lifts took him to the top floor, where a tall-ceilinged room with twin doors was empty, save for a large desk and a couple of chairs. It was eight o’clock and the offices were largely deserted. Patzig, he noted, had with typical naval thoroughness taken all his furniture.
    Canaris’ appointment was a state secret and as has been pointed out, in a police state with draconian laws for treachery and the recent memory of summary execution of’traitors’ in the Röhm Putsch vivid in everyone’s minds, such secrets were not difficult to keep. The British Admiralty, which had tracked Canaris in Spain during the war, lost sight of him between 1935 and 1939. Its attachés and intelligence officers did not note the change of appointment from Swinemünde. Indeed, their senior naval attaché, Captain Troubridge, addicted to golf and sailing, despite meeting every senior naval officer Germany could offer, diligentiy recording every name in his diary, (and connected through his wife to the influential Rathenau