Painful execution of Wilhelm Canaris - Hitler's Nazi admiral barbarically hanged with piano wire

Wilhelm Canaris was born on the 1st of January 1887 in German Aplerbeck, today a borough of the city of Dortmund. Wilhelm was the youngest of four children of a wealthy industrialist family and together with his siblings he grew up in a villa with a park, nursery and tennis court. Young Wilhelm had housemaids from England and was taken to school in a carriage. In school he was described as a quiet, shy, reserved and introverted student.
From an early age, Canaris aspired to be an officer in the Imperial Navy, but his father encouraged him to join the Imperial Army. However, after his father died of stroke in September 1904 Canaris applied for a place in the Imperial navy and by the outbreak of the First World War, which began on 28 July 1914, he held a position as a naval intelligence officer on board the light cruiser Dresden.

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[ColinH]

Canaris fed the Allies accurate information for years, but it was never trusted. Had it been so, it could have saved countless lives and probably shortened the war. He actually supplied the date of Operation Barbarossa, together with troop dispositions and objectives. Stalin was told by British Intelligence and decided that it was a British trick. Canaris deserves some sort of medal or greater recognition for what he tried to do. I have been to Plötzensee prison and seen the meat hooks. A truly horrifying and sobering place.

[davidgaine]

Canaris was from a bygone age when senior military intelligence saw no merit in dictatorships and considered genocide as ungentlemanly. As far as he was concerned Hitler had no honor and recognized him as a megalomaniac driven by a heady concoction of power and drugs. Canaris’ bravery at the end is a sad irony that he didn’t see out the war and retire into old age as a veteran and perhaps elder statesman.

[lilacsandroses]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pastor/theologian, was executed at the same time as Canaris. There were many tears shed for the Pastor.

[KohalaLover]

Thank you World History for another enlightening episode. There may have been tears for Wilhelm Canaris, rightfully so. What a terrible way to be murdered: naked and on a meat hook writhing. Humans are barbaric.
I appreciate your narrator, unique and distinctive voice.
👋 from California.

[michaelmorrison]

What a tragic, hidious, and cruel time. I bow my head in prayer for those who were victims of Nazi barbarism. May they never be forgotten.

[fiachramaccana]

I don't think its fair to call him "Nazi Admiral" when he spent so much of his life fighting against the Nazis. Especially in capital letters. And died for that anti Nazi cause.

[jfournerat]

Wilhelm Canaris was a complicated individual. For example although he was a perpetrator of the Holocaust due to him being partially responsible for the use of the Star of David to identify Jews which later resulted in them being easily identified and then subsequently killed in the Holocaust he later turned against Hitler and was genuinely horrified at the acts of violence and mass murder that the Einsgruptin committed against Jewish people and other civilians and protested and objected against it and he even saved the life’s of hundreds of Jewish people by helping them get out of harms way. He of course wasn’t a complete hero like Oskar Schindler as although Schindler himself was also a complicated man unlike Wilhelm Oskar Schindler was not anti semtic and he also did not take part in the Holocaust.

[vuho]

Executed a few weeks before end of the war. Poor man

[oskarrmason]

I would love you WH, to tell the story of Heinz Siegfried Heydrich (1905 - 1944) the anti-nazi younger brother of the man with the iron heart, Reinhard Heydrich.

[chrisnesbitt]

Three lousy weeks before Hitler's suicide...

[malic_zarith]

Wow, you made me despise Hitler even more than I already did. I didn't even think that was possible.

[welshpete]

He met the head of MI6 in Paris two weeks before the invasion in 1944. What was discussed has never been made public.

[johnking]

Thought I knew everything about WW2 including canaris and his espionage but was unaware he was also a victim of nazis. Thx. 🙏 RIP sir.

[galenwest]

Once again, he leaves it up to you to determine if “tears were shed” or not.

[davewilson]

A complex emotional issue, Canaris was the Jekyl and Hyde of Nazi Germany.

I applaud your option to say nothing at the end, as I feel we will all reach that same conclusion.

[nickilewis]

I honestly wondered if this video would end with "There were many tears shed"...

[DavidISHERWOOD-iuxn]

Canaris was a prisoner in Flossenb🎉urg Concentration Camp. They would not have had piano wire like Berlin. A wooden beam with nooses was put up for hanging. Canaris was likely hanged with a simple noose, together with others by upending a bench. The camp had a crematory oven

[shannonsullivan]

Definitely two sides to this man. While he initially took Heydrich under his wing he recognized his ruthless persona and did distance himself from him. He also recognized Hitler’s megalomania and did what he could to undermine him. He was most definitely antisemitic (as were a lot of Germans) and may or may not have endorsed their slaughter. I can certainly understand his honest belief that he only acted in what he viewed as the best interests of his country. Very interesting look into a very complicated man.

[johnhenderson]

I have always respected Admiral Canaris. His exploits in South America during WW I made for interesting reading. He was a very intelligent, capable man highly skilled in intelligence work and analysis. He was one of the few people to manipulate Hitler regarding his handling of Franco during Hitler’s plans for Gibraltar. He ensured Hitler would be deny access through Spain.
That was a cruel, evil death for a man like Canaris but I understand he never lost his dignity at the end. 19:02

[peterschutzek]

Do you also have a video about Erwin Lahousen? He was the prosecution's key witness in the Nuremberg war crimes trial and also a member of the group around Canaris and Oster. Without his statements, convicting the defendants would have been more difficult.