Chief of Intelligence

London: Victor Gollancz, 1951. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. 223, [1] pages. Bibliography. Cover has some wear. Some page discoloration. The author looks at Admiral Canaris, Chief of the German Intelligence Service and leaves it to the reader to answer the question of whether Canaris was secretly a British agent or just an extremely loyal German patriot. Ian Colvin was a journalist and author. As a journalist he began his career on the News Chronicle in Berlin, from where he was expelled by the Nazis in 1939. Acknowledging Colvin’s role in establishing communications between anti-Nazi members of the German General Staff and the British Government during 1938-9, Winston Churchill wrote in The Gathering Storm, “Ian Colvin delved deeply into German affairs and maintained contacts of a secret nature with the German Generals." During the 1950’s and 60’s Colvin worked as a foreign correspondent in Africa and the Middle East for the Daily Telegraph. At the time of his death in 1975, he was The Telegraph's chief leader writer and roving foreign correspondent. His books include Chief of Intelligence, Vansittart in Office and The Chamberlain Cabinet. Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral and the chief of the Abwehr (the German military-intelligence service) from 1935 to 1944. Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Canaris turned against Hitler and committed acts of both passive and active resistance during the war. Canaris also intervened to save a number of victims from Nazi persecution by getting them out of harm's way. He was instrumental in getting 500 Dutch Jews to safety in May 1941. Derived from a Kirkus article: The knowns, and some of the conjectural unknowns, in the life of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, an enigmatic to elusive figure in espionage who served as Hitler's Chief of Intelligence for nine years, but who may have been a British agent as well. Charming, exacting, mistrustful, softspoken, Canaris became an Admiral during the first World War, but officially entered the Abwehr (Security Service) in 1935 of which he was later to become head. There are delicate to dubious military and diplomatic interchanges in which he figured; the occasions on which he may have sabotaged and betrayed German plans and proceedings, from the Munich pact to the proposed invasion of England and throughout the conduct of the war, until his removal by Hitler in 1944, and his execution in 1945. An investigation which relies on fact- which has been difficult to isolate- rather than sensational speculation, this is a deliberate, detailed account by a former correspondent of the London News Chronicle. Condition: Good / No dust jacket present.

Keywords: Wilhelm Canaris, Military Intelligence, Abwehr, Operation Kama, Hendaye, Reinhard Heydrich, Operation Valkyrie, Secret Service, Conspiracy, Espionage, Spies, Assassination

[Book #85297]

Price: $50.00

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