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The great enigma, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was the Director of the Abwehr from 1935 to 1944. Canaris undoubtedly worked secretly against the Nazis while trying to preserve and protect his country. He failed on both accounts but his efforts were heroic and admirable. Canaris was one of the few Germans who held power and rank in the Third Reich who plotted against its leaders from the beginning and almost certainly quietly co-operated with the British SIS and perhaps the OSS where and when it was possible to do so without becoming a traitor to his country.
On February 19, 1944, Hitler fired Canaris and replaced him with Walter Schellenburg. Made chief of the Dept of Economic Warfare in Potsdam, Canaris continued to be one of the key figures in the conspiracy of the Black Orchestra (underground) to overthrow Hitler in 1944. Before the military plotters attempted to assassinate Hitler on July 29, 1944, Canaris learned that Himmler suspected certain officers who were actually part of the plot. Canaris warned these men who nevertheless went ahead with the attempt that failed to kill Hitler. Thousands were rounded up and imprisoned as suspects in the abortive assassination including Canaris. The Admiral survived for some time in the Flossenberg concentration camp, however in March 1945, Hitler signed the death sentence. Canaris was horribly executed, dragged from his cell naked on April 9th ,1945, paraded before jeering SS guards and then hanged, his corpse left to rot, and ignoble end to one of the great spymasters of the century
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