Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Chapter 1: Trials, Jews and Nazis
Canaris was a German patriot or a British spy, a European statesman or a
cosmopolitan intriguer, a double agent, an opportunist, or a seer. It will not be
easy for them to make up their minds.”
It may be of some relevance that the man whom Colvin, in his 1951 book,
characterized as one of Canaris’ “close personal friends,” Otto John, the Abwehr
man in the all important neutral capital of Lisbon during World War II, later became
Chief of State Security for the Bonn Government and was subsequently exposed
(in 1956) as a Soviet agent. 50
The Canaris case is sometimes confused by grouping Canaris with the men
behind the abortive coup d’état of July 20, 1944. This is utterly erroneous since
Canaris used all his powers to betray Germany, whereas the men of July 20,
merely betrayed Hitler and would never have betrayed Germany. No Englishman,
after the war, could have truthfully said: “we had Erwin Rommel.” The most one
can say about Canaris’ involvement is that he was no doubt aware of the conspiracy
in its early states and naturally gave its members the impression that he was
with them. Canaris was a grand master at giving such impressions.
To return to Heydrich, great ambition had gotten the young SS General appointed
Deputy Protector of Bohemia-Moravia in late 1941; he was thus starting
to look bigger than his superior, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. It might also
be interesting to speculate that, at about this time, Heydrich may have started to
grasp Canaris’ game; as chief of the RSHA and as a former associate of Canaris,
no man was better situated and motivated to penetrate Canaris’ secret than Heydrich
was. When one considers the long burning antagonism of the Army, it appears
that Heydrich, by early 1942, had accumulated a very long list of powerful
enemies in Germany. It was thus remarkable that at this point in Heydrich’s career
the English, it is said, fortuitously removed him in May 1942 by dropping two assassins
from the sky. In accord with the all-too-common scenario for political assassinations
(e.g. the Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy assassinations), the
alleged assassins were said to have been killed before they got an opportunity to
talk.
In an appointment that caused general astonishment, Heydrich was succeeded
in early 1943 by the relatively obscure and much less ambitious Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
Evidently desirous of avoiding repetition of the situation that had developed
with Heydrich, Himmler retained a rather more direct control of the Gestapo
and the SD than he had held previously. However, both agencies continued to be
formally responsible to the head of the RSHA, now Kaltenbrunner. Himmler also
charged Kaltenbrunner with a special task: to build up the intelligence service of
the SD. This was a particularly timely decision on the part of Himmler, since Canaris
fell from power (without being fully exposed) in February 1944 and, by a
special Hitler decree, all military and political intelligence functions were taken
over by the RSHA, thus uniting all intelligence activity under SD chief Schellenberg.
Canaris was arrested after the July 20 coup and he was executed shortly before
50
Colvin, vii, 1-6; New York Times (Dec. 23, 1956), 1; (Jul. 6, 1969), 11. See Sturdza, 161-162, for
an episodic illustration of Canaris at work.
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