ABSTRACT
A bw ehr (German Military Intelligence) The Abwehr was the German high command’s unified, all-services branch for strategic espionage, sabotage, and counterespionage. The individual services retained their own intelligence sections for operational and tactical intelligence. The Abwehr was created in the late 1920s but had predecessors going back to Frederick the Great. In the Third Reich, the Abwehr was initially led by Navy Cap tain Conrad Patzig. When Navy Captain (later Admiral) Wilhelm Canaris (q.v.) became head of the Abwehr in 1935, the agency was “in shambles.” By 1941, however, Canaris had revitalized it. Ac cording to Michael Geyer, the Abwehr “com manded its own sprawling apparatus, its own field organization in Germany and abroad, and also a small police force . . ., several intelligence field units, and . . . specialized combat units for sabo tage and commando operations.”
