Early Life and World War I
Canaris was born in Aplerbeck (now a part of Dortmund) in Westphalia, the son of wealthy industrialist Carl Canaris and his wife Auguste (née Popp). Until 1938 Canaris believed that his family was related to the Greek admiral, freedom fighter and politician Constantine Kanaris, which influenced his decision to join the navy. While on a visit to Corfu he was given a portrait of the Greek hero, which he always kept in his office. In 1938, however, research showed that his family was of Northern Italian descent, originally called Canarisi, and had lived in Germany since the 17th century. His grandfather had converted from Catholicism to Lutheranism.
In 1905, aged seventeen, Canaris joined the German Imperial Navy and by the outbreak of World War I was serving on board the SMS Dresden as an intelligence officer. This cruiser was the only ship that managed to evade the British Fleet for a prolonged period during the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December 1914, largely due to his excellent deception tactics. Whilst anchored in Cumberland Bay, Robinson Crusoe Island, the Dresden was trapped and forced to scuttle after fighting a battle there with the British. Most of the crew became prisoners in Chile in March 1915, but Canaris escaped in August 1915, using his fluency in Spanish; with the aid of some German merchants he returned to Germany in October 1917 via, among other countries, Great Britain.
He was then given intelligence work and sent to Spain, where he survived a British assassination attempt. Returning to active service, he ended the war as a celebrated U-boat commander from late 1917 in the Mediterranean, credited with eighteen sinkings. He spoke English fluently (as well as four other foreign languages) and as a naval officer of the old school, he respected Great Britain's Royal Navy despite the rivalry between the two nations.
During the German Revolution of 1918–1919, Canaris helped organise the formation of vigilante forces in order to suppress the revolutionary movements. He was also a member of the military court that tried (and mostly acquitted) those involved in the assassination of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. He was appointed to the adjutancy of defence minister Gustav Noske.
In 1919, Canaris married Erika Waag, also the child of an industrialist. They had two daughters, Eva and Brigitte.
Read more about this topic: Wilhelm Canaris
Famous quotes containing the words war i, early life, early, life, world and/or war:
“As a war in years of peace
Or in war an armistice
Or a father’s death, just so
Our parting was not visualized....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Today’s pressures on middle-class children to grow up fast begin in early childhood. Chief among them is the pressure for early intellectual attainment, deriving from a changed perception of precocity. Several decades ago precocity was looked upon with great suspicion. The child prodigy, it was thought, turned out to be a neurotic adult; thus the phrase “early ripe, early rot!””
—David Elkind (20th century)
“... all my life I’ve been terrible at remembering people’s names. I once introduced a friend of mine as Martini. Her name was actually Olive.”
—Tallulah Bankhead (1903–1968)
“I have made a short excursion into the new world which the Indian dwells in, or is. He begins where we leave off.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We are constantly thinking of the great war ... which saved the Union ... but it was a war that did a great deal more than that. It created in this country what had never existed before—a national consciousness. It was not the salvation of the Union, it was the rebirth of the Union.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)