THE ABWEHR - 1939-1945: German Secret Services in France

The first comprehensive synthesis of the role played by German military intelligence in France under the Occupation.

While many organisations of the Third Reich are well known — the all-powerful state militia (SS), the Nazi party's secret police (Gestapo), or its security arm (SD) — the Abwehr is less celebrated. Yet it played a crucial role during the Second World War, gathering the Reich's military intelligence services under one roof.

Indispensable on German soil, these secret services were even more so in France — a country first hostile, then conquered, which had to be watched day and night. The primary responsibility of Abwehr agents in occupied France? To quietly infiltrate and completely dismantle as many resistance networks as possible.

But what were its methods, its organisation, and its workings? Who were the key figures (turned agents, convinced Germanophiles, etc.) who drove it? How was its headquarters at the Lutétia — Paris's iconic hotel — structured? And what were its successes, but also its failures (the Normandy landings were not prevented)?

Drawing on numerous previously untapped archival collections (SHD at Vincennes, etc.), Gérard Chauvy presents the first comprehensive account of the Abwehr's crucial role: from its creation in the 1930s by the emblematic yet profoundly enigmatic Admiral Canaris (was he truly the figurehead of German resistance to the Führer, as many have claimed?), through its penetration of occupied France, and finally its dissolution at the war's end.