Canaris knew there would be more attempts--more brave Germans willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to rid Germany of Hitler--but he also knew time was running out. The Anglo-American invasion of Europe was a certainty. Roosevelt had made it clear he would accept nothing short of unconditional surrender. Germany would be destroyed, just as Canaris feared back in 1933 when Hitler's messianic ambitions became clear to him. He also realized his tenuous grip on the Abwehr was growing weaker by the day. Several members of Canaris's executive staff at Abwehr headquarters in Berlin had been arrested by the Gestapo and charged with treason. His enemies were plotting to seize control of the spy agency and put his neck in a noose of piano wire. He understood his days were numbered--that his long and dangerous high-wire act was nearing an end.
The staff car passed through a myriad of gates and checkpoints, then turned into the compound at Hitler's Wolfschanze--the Wolf's Lair. The dachshunds awakened, whimpering nervously, and jumped onto his lap. The conference was to be held in the frigid, airless map room in the underground bunker. Canaris climbed out of the car and walked morosely across the compound. At the bottom of the stairs a burly SS bodyguard stood with hand out to relieve Canaris of any weapons he might he carrying. Canaris, who shunned firearms and detested violence, shook his head and brushed past.
"In November, I issued Fuhrer Directive Number Fifty-one," Hitler began without preamble, pacing the room violently, hands clasped behind his back. He wore a dove-gray tunic, black trousers, and resplendent knee-length jackboots. On his left breast pocket he wore the Iron Cross he earned at Ypres while serving as an infantryman in the List Regiment in the First War. "Directive Number Fifty-one stated my belief that the Anglo-Saxons will attempt to invade northwest France no later than the spring, perhaps earlier. During the last two months, I have seen nothing to change my opinion."
Canaris, seated at the conference table, watched the Fuhrer prancing around the room. Hitler's pronounced stoop, caused by a kyphotic spine, seemed to have worsened. Canaris wondered if he was finally feeling the pressure. He should be. What was it Frederick the Great had said? He who defends everything defends nothing. Hitler should have heeded the advice of his spiritual guide, for Germany was in the same position she had been in during the Great War. She had conquered far more territory than she could possibly defend.
It was Hitler's own fault, the damned fool! Canaris glanced up at the map. In the East, German troops were fighting along a 2,000-kilometer front. Any hope of a military victory over the Russians had been crushed the previous July at Kursk, where the Red Army had decimated a Wehrmacht offensive and inflicted staggering casualties. Now the German army was attempting to hold a line stretching from Leningrad to the Black Sea. Along the Mediterranean, Germany was defending 3,000 kilometers of coastline. And in the West--My God! Canaris thought--6,000 kilometers of territory stretching from the Netherlands to the southern tip of the Bay of Biscay. Hitler's Festung Europa--Fortress Europe--was far-flung and vulnerable on all sides.
Canaris looked around the table at the men seated with him: Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, commander in chief of all German forces in the West; Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of Army Group B in northwest France; Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and chief of the German police. A half dozen of Himmler's most loyal and ruthless men stood watch, just in case any of the top brass of the Third Reich decided to make an attempt on the Fuhrer's life.
Hitler stopped pacing. "Directive Fifty-one also stated my belief that we can no longer justify reducing our troop levels in the West in order to support our forces battling the Bolsheviks. In the East, the vastness of space will, as a last resort, permit us to give up vast amounts of territory before the enemy threatens the German homeland. Not so in the West. If the Anglo-Saxon invasion succeeds, the consequences will be disastrous. So it is here, in northwest France, where the most decisive battle of the war will be fought."
Hitler paused, allowing his words to sink in. "The invasion will be met with the full fury of our might and destroyed at the high-water mark. If that is not possible, and if the Anglo-Saxons succeed in securing a temporary beachhead, we must be prepared to rapidly redeploy our forces, stage a massive counterattack, and hurl the invaders back into the sea." Hitler crossed his arms. "But to achieve that goal, we must know the enemy's order of battle. We must know when he intends to strike. And, more important, where. Herr Generalfeldmarshal?"