Wilhelm Canaris

Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral and chief of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, from 1935 to 1944. During the Second World War, he was among the military officers involved in the clandestine opposition to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. He was executed in Flossenbürg concentration camp for the act of high treason.

Early life and First World War

Canaris was born in Aplerbeck (now a part of Dortmund) in Westphalia, the son of Carl Canaris, a rich industrialist, and his wife Auguste Popp. Canaris himself believed that his family was related to the 19th-century Greek admiral, freedom fighter, and politician Constantine Kanaris, a belief that influenced his decision to join the Imperial German Navy. While on a visit to Corfu, he was given a portrait of the Greek hero that he always kept in his office. However, according to Richard Bassett, a genealogical investigation in 1938 revealed that his family was actually of Northern Italian descent, originally called Canarisi, and had lived in Germany since the 17th century. His grandfather had converted from Roman Catholicism to Lutheranism.