Abwehr

That was kind of murky.

And the subject to that is that the SS, as we're getting clear that the Abwehr was totally compromised, they took on... more and more of this sort of internal security role under auspices of counterintelligence to sort of suss out where the leaks were.

But of course, ironically, Hoddle in all probability himself was a double agent.

He was the other main source of this six million figure.

He was a man of many faces.

Admiral Canaris, the chief of the Abwehr, which was Germany's foreign intelligence service.

This is one of the Abwehr's greatest successes.

And there are some key successes of the Abwehr.

Despite the fact Canaris was not just a fifth columnist, he was an active traitor.

He was collaborating with the Allies.

So the Abwehr was totally compromised from the top down.

On some level, the SS always knew this, and this was one of the imperatives.

But literally at the intermission of this opera, Canaris approaches him, Admiral Canaris, who was a very conspiratorial individual and a turncoat.

I mean, it's been proven many times over, but he was chief of the Abwehr, the foreign intelligence service.

And Canaris was strange because in some ways he seemed to be acting at critical moments in the interest of the Third Reich.

Other times he was working just as actively to sabotage its strategic ambitions, arguably even its survival.

It was reinforced by the three tank companies were reinforced by an anti-tank section, you know, because they have eight anti-tank guns.

The early models, which again, this was another, this platform popped up in the Second World War some, but it was basically, you know, obsolescent because it didn't have the power to kill, you know, the main battle tanks like the T-34.

It was the Panzer Abwehrkanone.

And one of the things people today, unless they're kind of students of World War II or like prior service type guys, the advent of a main battle tank, you know, which is, you know, which can function, you know, somewhat like an assault gun, you know, has the power to kill enemy tanks, you know, like owing to its penetration capabilities and things, you know, like having that on one platform, like that's a post-World War II innovation.

It's, it's, uh...

In the years leading up to World War II, throughout World War II, and following World War II, there was a convergence of, of the Nazi, um, Abwehr Ende, who were sent all over the world to find mystical objects.

I mean, it was basically Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It...

By 1944, German Intelligence trusted him deeply.

In the months leading up to D-Day, Pujol fed the Wehrmacht's intelligence service, the Abwehr, controlled information, reinforcing the existence of the fictitious First US Army Group, and the claim that the main Allied invasion would strike the Pas-de-Calais.

Crucially, even after the Normandy landings began on the 6th of June, 1944, he continued to report that the assault in Normandy was only a diversion, and that the true blow was still coming further north.

His credibility helped persuade the German High Command to keep key Panzer divisions in the Pas-de-Calais region for weeks after D-Day, delaying their redeployment to Normandy at a critical moment.

Captured by the Germans in France in 1941 while running an intelligence network for the Allies, Roman Czerniawski agreed to work for the Abwehr.

But once sent to Britain, he immediately revealed himself to MI5, and was turned.

Code-named Brutus, all of his communications to Germany were carefully controlled by British Intelligence.

Because the Abwehr believed he had volunteered to spy for them, they regarded him as reliable and ideologically motivated.