and, in a city dominated in those days by British commercial and political interests, they were discreet and subtle.
The identity of the dashing lieutenant Canaris was obliterated and inhis place there emerged the mournful Chilean widower, Reed Rosas, who would return to Europe to inherit property in the Netherlands. Setting sail on the Dutch Lloyd steamer Frisia , Canaris ingratiated himself with his fellow English passengers, boasting of an English mother and cannily using the long weeks to absorb English habits, customs and language. He was a popular travelling companion and able bridge player.
By the time the Frisia reached Plymouth, he was sufficiently plausible and confident to assist the English naval officers in their inquiries about fellow passengers. The ship, with Canaris still aboard, was allowed to proceed to Rotterdam from where, armed with a Chilean passport, Canaris found no difficulty slipping back into Germany. A few months later, in Germany, a silver medal would be struck commemorating the âhonourable sinkingâ of the Dresden â appropriately perhaps, given later events, the only known copy of the medal is in the possession of the Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
Thus ended the first wartime encounter between Hitlerâs future intelligence chief and the Royal Navy. Early accounts of Canaris dwell on the impact Captain Luce and his officers had on the clearly Anglophile German but, as is clear from this account, Canaris also left an impression; and those, including Churchill, Admiral Hall and âJackieâ Fisher who had followed the irritatingly elusive Dresden so closely, might have been forgiven the sigh of relief which no doubt greeted the news of her long awaited destruction and the internment (though not for long) of her formidable intelligence officer.
For Canaris, this incident made his name in the highest circles of the German Admiralty. Meanwhile, in London, for the first but by no means last time, the name of Canaris was to be passed across the desk of the Admiralty, perhaps to lodge in some deep elephantine recess of the sophisticated memory of Winston Churchill.
* These plans, recently published in Germany (see F.A.Z. Archive), cast some light on the growing awareness of potential rivalry between Europe and the United States at the start of the twentieth century.
* In von Speeâs case he went down with his two sons, both serving naval officers.
* This is, at least, the leading authority Bennettâs conclusion.
* Banfield notes that the signal did arrive in time, but was not distributed until after the ship had departed, a result of some financial douceur administered by Canaris from the Dresdenâs treasury.
* The archived photographs distinctly show a white flag, though the German naval ensign has not been lowered.
* The Admiralty version, which understandably did not wish to underline the contempt of the Senior Service for the Foreign Office, states that on hearing from Canaris that the Dresden had already been interned, Luce had required, in a phrase which would haunt Anglo-German relations in a later war, âunconditional surrenderâ. See the introduction to Ian Colvinâs Chief of Intelligence , London 1951.
CHAPTER THREE
A GILDED YOUTH
Talent ist nur ein Spielzeugfür Kinder. Erst Ernst macht den Man und Fleiss das Genie . [Talent is only a toy for children. First seriousness makes the man and diligence the genius.]
THEODOR FONTANE 1
At twelve oâclock promptly, the carriage drew up at the gates of the Duisburg Steinbart Gymnasium and a short, wiry youth with a mop of dark blonde hair, shot through with a hint of Titian red, carrying a parcel of books, climbed in, to be driven home at a brisk trot through the January snow. A new century had been born barely two weeks earlier and the sense of optimism and comfort that pervaded Germany was immense. Technological advances on every front, a sense of progress, and above all an ever