Carnaris survives the war

WI Admiral Carnaris, hearing about the bomb at Hitler's HQ, manages to get his family and himself to Switzerland?

He will be silenced until the Cold War kicks off. The allies didn't want the image of am organized German resistance because it went against the idea of collective guild. The Germans emediatley after war still either considered them traitors or denied their existence due to political reasons.

No when the Cold War kicks off he could be involved in the organization Gehlen which later became the BND and could be used for political reasons.
 
Head of the BND would be more up his alley.
Although there is Gehlen. Maybe the WAllies would prefer Canaris to Gehlen due to his clandestine services to the Allies during the war?
 
Nah, Gehlen is perfectly suited to the role of head of the BND IMO, if only because of his previous intelligence operation in the USSR. The BfV isn't any lower remember, it simply deals with stuff inside Germany. It's effectively the difference between MI5 and MI6 or the FBI and CIA.
 
If somehow Canaris is proven to have aided the Brits or Allies in a solid way then he would be rehabilitated & have deeper participation in 1950s German politics, or military matters. This is probablly not going to happen, but there is a small possibility, so I bring it up anyway.

Canaris did have a sucessfull navy career. Including sea command. Until the Abwehr chieftanship came along intel had been a sideline for him. There is a possibility he would have a twilight career rebuilding the German navy in the 1950s.
 
If somehow Canaris is proven to have aided the Brits or Allies in a solid way then he would be rehabilitated & have deeper participation in 1950s German politics, or military matters. This is probablly not going to happen, but there is a small possibility, so I bring it up anyway.

Canaris did have a sucessfull navy career. Including sea command. Until the Abwehr chieftanship came along intel had been a sideline for him. There is a possibility he would have a twilight career rebuilding the German navy in the 1950s.

No jobs for him if that kind of outright treason comes out publicly. People in West Germany who tried to kill Hitler were barely tolerated in the 50s those who undermined the war effort.. well that was considered much more unacceptable at the time given the German people signed up for the war.

With the July Plotters they were viewed as traitors, but a lesser form of treason in the view of the public at the time given they wanted to come out with a better deal for Germany.
 
I'm sorry, but, what?! For starters the head of an intelligence agency is a government granted appointment, not a publicly elected one, and by this point there were few nazi supporters in government, so that wouldn't matter, and finally former nazis aren't allowed to hold such positions, so there's a comparatively short list of people to pick from anyway.
 
I'm sorry, but, what?! For starters the head of an intelligence agency is a government granted appointment, not a publicly elected one, and by this point there were few nazi supporters in government, so that wouldn't matter, and finally former nazis aren't allowed to hold such positions, so there's a comparatively short list of people to pick from anyway.

1. Him helping the British during the war would not have been released if he survived the war if they wanted him in the post war West German government in any form.

2. It's not about Nazi support, the public signed up for the war and the 1950s German population would go apeshit if they knew someone who undermined their chances at a better outcome from early on was now in the government.

Hence they would not be told.

The thinking of 50s West Germans was not the Nazis were at war with the British, it was Germany was at war, just as Britian was at war with Germany and all Germans suffered the consequences for losing the war utterly and being conquered.

Giving information to the enemy in a time of Total War might be viewed by us today as perfectly fine given the Nazis actions during the war, but ones vanage point is suffering what Germans did for losing totally, well let's just say Germans of the 50s weren't going to be nice to any current German citizen who they believed undermined their chances ending the war on better terms or any terms.
 
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Canaris would have a favorable reputation outside Germany, but a bad or at least controversial reputation within West Germany - his actions would have been considered treasonable. When Marlene Dietrich visited West Germany in 1960, she was greeted with hostility by a lot of Germans (although by no means all) who felt she had been a traitor. There's a difference between someone who was just an anti-Nazi, and someone who aided the enemy during the war. It wouldn't be until post-1968 that the younger generation born after the war would appraise him higher.
 
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