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Authors: Richard Bassett
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was how the military and naval arms could be reconstructed far from the prying eyes of Britain and France.
Under the guiding genius of Colonel-General Hans von Seeckt, the chairman of the preparatory committee of the Peace Army, the âpoisonâ of the disarmament articles of the Treaty of Versailles began to be neutralised. Moreover, thanks to the creation of Poland by the Allies, there was in the form of the Soviet Union a country eager to cooperate with these military aims. Poland was for Moscow as much as for Germany a negative factor in their security arrangements. Bismarckâs old Prussian policy to safeguard relations with Russia was back and, notwithstanding ideological differences between Moscow and Germany, the two military hierarchies found mutual benefit in the business of avoiding the demands and prying eyes of the West.
But while Moscow could offer the location for secret armies and embryonic air-forces to train and re-equip, her lack of warm water ports offered no such facilities for the German navy. Moreover, the navy was, after the traumatic experiences of the Kiel mutiny, among the officer class at least, highly anti-Communist. One country, however, that was geographically suitable for such activity and desperately in need of building-up its own naval arm was Japan.
In the spring of 1924, Canaris, dressed as a civilian, set off for Osaka to help supervise what was in many ways the most deadly of the breaches of the Treaty of Versailles: the secret U-boat construction programme in Japan. The U-boats had been denounced by the Allies as the most aggressive arm of the aggressive state. If it had been left to the Alliesâ Control Commissions, there would have been no submarine construction capacity left in Germany. However, Japan was keen to acquire submarines and the Germans desperate to retain their expertise. Together the two countries worked with growing efficiency, not least as the Japanese were convinced that only the Germans had the know-how to construct submarines suitable for the Pacific Ocean.
A blind cover firm was established in the Netherlands to deal with the Japanese and Canaris was sent to Osaka to ensure the Germansunderstood the needs of the Japanese and that there were no difficulties caused by the cultural differences involved. The mission lasted barely twelve days and the report Canaris made upgraded the relationship, allowing the two countries to lay the foundations of what would become an ever more intimate cooperation. Given the strong ties which linked Japanese and British navies in those years this was a formidable achievement.
Indeed, the Royal Navy may well have got wind of what was afoot and brought pressure to bear on the still weak German republic. In any event, a new chief of the navy, Vice Admiral Adolf Zenker, was appointed, with a very different brief: to end all secret rearmament activity and replace it with nothing less than cooperation with the Royal Navy. Zenker believed that, as the Royal Navy had imposed most of the restrictions on the German fleet, it would make sense to win over its goodwill and work for the more restrictive articles to be lifted. Moreover, Zenker was convinced that any clandestine rearmament would be picked up by the all-seeing eyes of British intelligence.
On 3 October 1924 Zenker announced that cooperation with the Japanese navy would no longer be a priority. Moreover, Zenker was keen to limit the activities of the industrial and commercial interests that were behind the sinews of the secret armament programme. âNaval policy,â he wrote, âcannot be led by commercial interests.â Canaris was given a desk job which, although he discharged it capably, was not his natural environment, a fact not lost on his superiors. Captain Arno Spindler, who saw a lot of him at this time wrote: âHis troubled soul is appeased only by the most difficult and unusual of tasks.â
The Zenker policy, however well-intentioned,
Under the guiding genius of Colonel-General Hans von Seeckt, the chairman of the preparatory committee of the Peace Army, the âpoisonâ of the disarmament articles of the Treaty of Versailles began to be neutralised. Moreover, thanks to the creation of Poland by the Allies, there was in the form of the Soviet Union a country eager to cooperate with these military aims. Poland was for Moscow as much as for Germany a negative factor in their security arrangements. Bismarckâs old Prussian policy to safeguard relations with Russia was back and, notwithstanding ideological differences between Moscow and Germany, the two military hierarchies found mutual benefit in the business of avoiding the demands and prying eyes of the West.
But while Moscow could offer the location for secret armies and embryonic air-forces to train and re-equip, her lack of warm water ports offered no such facilities for the German navy. Moreover, the navy was, after the traumatic experiences of the Kiel mutiny, among the officer class at least, highly anti-Communist. One country, however, that was geographically suitable for such activity and desperately in need of building-up its own naval arm was Japan.
In the spring of 1924, Canaris, dressed as a civilian, set off for Osaka to help supervise what was in many ways the most deadly of the breaches of the Treaty of Versailles: the secret U-boat construction programme in Japan. The U-boats had been denounced by the Allies as the most aggressive arm of the aggressive state. If it had been left to the Alliesâ Control Commissions, there would have been no submarine construction capacity left in Germany. However, Japan was keen to acquire submarines and the Germans desperate to retain their expertise. Together the two countries worked with growing efficiency, not least as the Japanese were convinced that only the Germans had the know-how to construct submarines suitable for the Pacific Ocean.
A blind cover firm was established in the Netherlands to deal with the Japanese and Canaris was sent to Osaka to ensure the Germansunderstood the needs of the Japanese and that there were no difficulties caused by the cultural differences involved. The mission lasted barely twelve days and the report Canaris made upgraded the relationship, allowing the two countries to lay the foundations of what would become an ever more intimate cooperation. Given the strong ties which linked Japanese and British navies in those years this was a formidable achievement.
Indeed, the Royal Navy may well have got wind of what was afoot and brought pressure to bear on the still weak German republic. In any event, a new chief of the navy, Vice Admiral Adolf Zenker, was appointed, with a very different brief: to end all secret rearmament activity and replace it with nothing less than cooperation with the Royal Navy. Zenker believed that, as the Royal Navy had imposed most of the restrictions on the German fleet, it would make sense to win over its goodwill and work for the more restrictive articles to be lifted. Moreover, Zenker was convinced that any clandestine rearmament would be picked up by the all-seeing eyes of British intelligence.
On 3 October 1924 Zenker announced that cooperation with the Japanese navy would no longer be a priority. Moreover, Zenker was keen to limit the activities of the industrial and commercial interests that were behind the sinews of the secret armament programme. âNaval policy,â he wrote, âcannot be led by commercial interests.â Canaris was given a desk job which, although he discharged it capably, was not his natural environment, a fact not lost on his superiors. Captain Arno Spindler, who saw a lot of him at this time wrote: âHis troubled soul is appeased only by the most difficult and unusual of tasks.â
The Zenker policy, however well-intentioned,
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