Canaris

Wilhelm Canaris was head of military intelligence in Nazi Germany. His department worked well and Hitler gave it the resources it asked for. Even so the upper ranks of the regime were uneasy about him. The reason was this: he was not as unscrupulous as they wanted, and he was known to criticise their ideology. The film puts his rivalry with Heydrich at the centre. The account also shows the internal struggle among German institutions. Canaris was executed in 1945 for his part in the attempt on Hitler’s life. The work draws him sympathetically, and that view is the film’s own. O.E. Hasse takes the lead in Alfred Weidenmann’s West German film of 1954.