agreement with Canaris—the so-called Ten Commandments—even
though Heydrich hardly relented in his desire for his own comprehen-
sive system of policing and control. A unity of sorts was achieved in
1939 with the formation of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Se-
curity Main Office), but this umbrella organization could barely mask
the festering antagonisms among the various security organs. Also
worthy of mention is the Forschungsamt (Research Office), located in
Göring’s Air Ministry and probably the most objective source of col-
lected information.
What, one may ask, was the relationship of Adolf Hitler to this
tangled web of competing jurisdictions? Hitler never concealed the
immense faith that he placed in his own intuitive powers—what he
phrased his “sleepwalker’s assurance”—as demonstrated in the success-
ful reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936. Then, too, as was the case
throughout the political structure of the Third Reich, subordinates were
often given overlapping areas of authority to encourage tensions along
horizontal lines and help ensure the primacy of the Führer. But it would
be a mistake to conclude that the staggering amount of intelligence ag-
gressively collected and analyzed played no part in the decision-making
process. A regular reader of the daily digests of the foreign press and
excerpts of the wire service cables, Hitler could appear quite informed
on world affairs, just as he made occasional tactical adjustments based
on new evidence. The salient point is that his informants changed con-
stantly, and no person or agency had guaranteed access to his office.
As a result, he was prone to select mostly information that comported
with his own views and served to legitimize his decisions. Those wish-
ing to gain Hitler’s ear—and be heard from again in the future—knew
better than to present any intelligence of a contrarian nature and thus
purposely tailored what they had to offer. While this phenomenon can
hardly be called a unique one in modern governments, it clearly attained
exaggerated proportions during the Third Reich.
The opening phase of World War II witnessed some stunning victo-
ries by German forces, especially in France through the Ardennes of-
fensive developed by the Fremde Heere West (Foreign Armies West).
But the Soviet Union soon came to represent the greatest challenge to
German intelligence operatives. During the 1920s, under the cloak of
strictest secrecy, the Reichswehr and the Red Army had developed a
mutually supportive arrangement, whereby military leaders on both
xxx • INTRODUCTION