I thought there may be some interest in organizational data on the Abwehr, up to June 1st when the whole Abwehr was absorbed by the SD.
The Abwehr was an integral part of the German High Command and all its affiliations were with the Wehrmacht, not with the Party or Party formations. It’s head Admiral Canaris, though himself an old Party member and a notorious right-wing intriguer was politically associated with naval and military circles, from which the majority of Abwehr officers were recruited.
The headquarters of the Abwehr Amt were in the OKW building at Tripitzufer 72, but the main operational sections moved out to Zossen with other sections of the OKW in early summer 1943, when the Allied bombing of Berlin began to assume dangerous proportions. After heavy bombing at the end of 1943 there was a further large scale evacuation of Abwehr offices from Berlin to Potsdam. The remaining departments were scattered in different parts of Germany, while small holding sections remained at various addresses in Berlin.
Functionally the Abwehr was divided into three main operational sections (Abteilungen) and an administrative section. Abt I dealt with the collection of operational intelligence, Abt II with sabotage and subversion, Abt III with counter-espionage and to a limited extent with security. The heads of these Abteilungen were called Chef I, Chef II, and Chef III, and were, at the time, of the reorganization (June 1st 1944) of the Abwehr, Oberst d.G. Hansen, Oberst d.G. Freytag von Loringhoven, and Oberst d.G. Heinrich respectively. The fourth section, dealing with administration, was called Abt Z or Zentralabteilung, and headed by Oberst Jacobsen.
The workings of the individual Abt and Gruppen-
Abteilung I was the most important section; it was subdivided into several departments (Gruppen):
- IH (Heer) espionage against foreign armies. This included a subsection IH T (Heer-Technik) dealing with technical matters.
- IM (Marine) espionage against foreign navies. This included a sub-section IM T (Marine-Technik) dealing with technical matters.
- IL (Luft) espionage against foreign air forces.
- I T/W (Technik-Luftwaffe) espionage in the aircraft industry
- I Wi (Wirtschaft) economic espionage
- IG (Geheimsachen) providing forged documents, secret inks, photographic apparatus, and other technical appliances of espionage.
- Ii secret communications, including pigeon post, land-lines wireless telephones (W/I)
The heads of these Gruppen at headquarters were called Chef or Leiter IH ect. And were responsible to Chef I.
Abteilung II was the active arm of the Abwehr concerned with material and moral sabotage. It was divided into eastern and Western departments after the manner of the whole Amt and these departments were further subdivided geographically, e.g. West-Sud, Ost-Nord, and OR (Orient). Within these, there was a division of work as follows:
S- work (Sabotage) material sabotage, e.g. the use of agents to destroy aircraft on the ground, to sink ships in harbors, or to blow up communications, ammunition dumps, factories ect., in accordance with the operational requirements of the moment.
J- work (Insurgierung) moral sabotage, e.g. the use of agents and propaganda to foster revolt among dissident minorities in enemy territory or to organize fifth columns in territory though which the Wehrmacht marched.
It is important to emphasize J work, because its importance diminished when the military forces of Germany began to retreat, and thus a mistaken belief had grown up by the Allies that Abt II was concerned with sabotage in the narrower sense only.
Further Abt II included a special department, II/T (Technik), which supplied high-explosives and other material for sabotage. These explosives were often made up in cartons or tins purporting to contain food products. Thus saboteurs sent to the UK were issued with dynamite in cartons labeled in English “Starch” and in tins labeled “French Beans” or “Green Peas”. Detonators were issued in thin blocks of wood which contained recesses into which they were inserted; while fuses were sewn into leather belts. Further, saboteurs were instructed in the manufacturing of “home made” bombs from simple ingredients, e.g. chlorate and sugar in the proportion of 4 to 1, or saltpeter, flour and sulphur in the proportion of 100 to 30 to 15.
II DO – Finally, Abt II took over from Abt III in early 1944 a section known as DO (the first two letters of Donau) which had been part of Abt II and designated III Wi DO. Its headquarters were at Vienna under Kapitan Weiss, and its duties are believed to have been the protection of Danubian traffic from the counter-sabotage and counter-espionage points of view. Its powers seem, however, to have been wider than this definition would suggest, and when, on one occasion, some sailors deserted their ships for fear of Allied bombing, it was able to make prompt arrangements for placing them under martial law. It formerly had outstations at Belgrade and Bucharest and it maintained close contact with the DDSG ( Donau Dampfschiffarhrtsgesellschaft), one of the directors of which was among its most important agents. Whether it was absorbed into the Militarisches Amt (what the Abwehr became upon absorption into the SD) is unclear.
Abteilung III was the counter-espionage and security section, responsible for the security of the Abwehr and the Armed Forces. For the latter purpose it worked in close connection with the Geheime Feldpolizei (GFP), the security police of the Wehrmacht. The following are the principal departments of Abt III:
-III A administration
-III H security in the German Army
-III M security in the German Navy
-III Luft security in the German Air Force
III H, III M and III Luft were grouped under the symbol III W (Wehrmacht) forming the section responsible for coordinating general security and counter-espionage work in the armed forces.
-III Wi (Wirtschaft) protection of German industries
-III C (Civil) security of civilian establishments connected with the Wehrmacht; often in liaison with the security service.
-III F (Feind) penetration of enemy intelligence services; the largest and most important section.
-III D deception of Allied intelligence services for strategic purposes
-III KGF (Kriegsgefangen) security in P.W. camps
-III U (Unterricht) compilation of statistics for instruction in security matters
-III N (Nachrichten) supervision of public communications (censorship)
As in Abt I, most of the departments of Abt III were subdivided into numbered divisions e.g. III F1 and III F 2, ect.
Abteilung Z was the administrative section. Its most considerable departments were the following:
- ZO (Organization) general organization and planning of the whole Abwehr. It was also known as Kriegsabwehr, and its head was automatically the Chef Z. ZO was also responsible for keeping the central card index, ZK.
- ZK (Zentralkartei) the central card index and ZKV (zentralkartei Vau-Manner), the central register of agents.
- ZA (Abjutantur) the adjutant’s department for the whole Abwehr, and responsible for all questions of personnel, such as postings, transfers, leave, decorations, ect.
- ZF (Finanzen) the paymasters department. Apart from day-to-day matters of pay and expenses, purchasing material, and auditing accounts, it was also responsible for securing foreign exchange for the Abwehr.
- ZR (Recht) the legal department, which dealt with contracts, court cases of treason, ect.
In every Abwehr station there was an officer responsible for Z matters.
In addition to the above functional divisions, there was a geographical division which applied thought the Abwehr, viz into East and West, i.e. roughly of a line drawn North to South through Berlin. But while the various sections of Abt I, with the possible exception of I Wi, were all subdivided in this manner as IH/West, I Luft/Ost, Abt II was subdivided as a single unit into II West and II Ost. Again only certain of the Abt III sections are known with certainty to have been subdivided, and in one of these, III F, the subsection was into III F 1 which covered the West and III F 3 which covered the East. But in the case of Abt I, and IH officer in (e.g.) Madrid would send his reports to Abt IH/West and his opposite number in (e.g.) Sofia to Abt IH/Ost.
…next post will cover the regional and geographic military divisions of the Abwehr (Abwherstellen / Wehrkreis)