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The Labyrinth: Memoirs Of Walter Schellenberg, Hitler's Chief Of Counterintelligence

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Walter Schellenberg is one of those enigmatic figures that emerged from the ruins of the Third Reich. Like the memiors of Hitler's armaments minister, Albert Speer, Schellenberg's account gives us a penetrating look into the inner workings of the Nazi regime. Unlike Speer's account however, Schellenberg sticks to his own field, intelligence, and completly ignores the larger, darker questions of the men he served so faithfully. That aside, 'The Labyrinth' is a remarkable glimpse into the world of German intelligence during World War Two. Schellenberg gives us the same kind of intimate portrait of Heinrich Himmler that Albert Speer gave of Adolf Hitler in 'Inside the Third Reich.' Schellenberg also gives us a memorable look at men like Reinhard Heydrich, Whilhelm Canaris, Heinrich Mueller, and Ernst Kaltenbrunner. But the heart of this work is Schellenberg's own experiences as head of foreign intelligence and counter intelligence. Included are Schellenberg's scheme to kidnap the Duke of Windsor in Portugal in 1940, his 'turning' of Russian POW's to the Nazi cause, and his capture of two British secret service officers on the Dutch-German border in 1939. The narrative ends with Schellenberg's attempts to secure the surrender of the western armies to the allies on behalf of Himmler. For anyone interested in the Nazi intelligence system of the Second World War or of true spy stories in general this is a work that will not disappoint. If you enjoyed this work you might want to check out Gerald Reitlinger's 'SS: Alibi of a nation, 1922-45,' for a larger picture of the German SS.

Walter Schellenberg's memoirs are an acute, objective and non passionate account of the facts and people at the top of the Third Reich, as almost as impartially as a journalist could have written them, curious for a man who was Reinhard Heydrich's deputy chief of counterespionage, and more curious because Schellenberg just related the events without questioning the ethic or the political values of this or that. He just narrates the events, of course, giving his own personal feelings and opinions of many situations, but without moral points of view nor any kind of remorse or regrets. The memoirs are centred on the espionage and sabotage affairs he planned or executed, always under Heydrich's command, from the beginning of the SD through the unification of all the intelligence services within the RSHA in 1939, the assassination of Heydrich in Prague in 1942, till the end of WWII. The affairs are very juicy, like the Venlo incident, the Anschluss, the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia, the plans for the invasion of Poland, the plans to kidnap the Duke of Windsor, the "Cicero" and "Zeppelin" operations, the attemts to push Spain forward to war beside Germany,the intoxicating operation about the GRU in the Soviet Union, etc, as well as the very lucid portraits of Nazi hierarchs: Hitler is seen as an emotionally unstable man and a paranoid; Heydrich, Schellenberg's former chief, as extremely intelligent and cultivated but also as a wild beast, a psychotic personality, very cruel and ambitious; Himmler, as an ordinary man, grey, a mediocrity; Von Ribbentrop, as pretentious and rather blunt; Kaltenbrunner, his latter chief, as an alcoholic, incompetent and envious. It's also very interesting to follow, through these human portraits, the tensions, envy, ambition and hidden wounds these rulers caused each other, which proves that the Third Reich wasn't the monolithic granite some historians try us to believe. Schellenberg's memoirs show the nature of intelligence services as the hidden powers of the Third Reich, but, as a paradox, these powers are full of incompetent bureaucrats. The only two people who still remain remarkable for their qualities are Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the RSHA(Reichsicherheitshauptamt- Reich Main Security Office) and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris,chief of the Military Intelligence (Abwehr), apart, of course, from Walter Schellenberg. These three are actually the grey eminences of Nazi Intelligence services.

This book, first published fifty years ago is an account of the working life of Walter Schellenberg, Hitlers chief of counter intelligence. Schellenberg was one of the many young intelligentsia who flocked to join the SS in the ealy 1930's, due to the lack of opportunities in other fields. Trained as a lawyer Schellenberg was assigned to work for Reinhard Heydrich chief of the SD, the security divisiion of the SS. This book has several facets: a super paced spy story reminiscent of a Len Deighton spy thriller, an account of counter intelligence in the Third Reich and finally character portraits of Nazi Germany's ruling clique. We have excellant thumb nail sketches of the frightening Reinhard Heydrich head of SS security, the indecisive Heinrich Himmler head of the SS, the drunken Ernest Kaltenbrunner Heydrich's successor and finally the universally despised ex champaigne salesman Joachim von Ribbentrop the Nazi foreign minister. Schellenberg has real talent on portraying what it must have been like to work in a terror directed society where every move could be one's last. This was intensified by the rivalry between three organiations doing essentially the same job, namely the Abwehr(Army intelligence),the SS and the Gestapo. In this nightmare the only individual who gains any of my sympathy is Admiral Canaris, Heydrich's old boss and head of the Abwher.He was trying to negotiate an ending to the war but was found out and murdered by Hitler. Although the personification of evil Heydrich at least maintains our interest as he impresses with his competance and intelligence. The rest of the Nazi hierarchy from Hitler downwards appear as a brainless collection of incompetents and one wonders how they could have kept the world at bay for twelve years. THe answer is of course that the Nazi Party had in its possession the 1940 Wehrmacht which in Generalship and fighting qualities had no equal this century. It was if the Mafia had contol of the Pentagon to fight it's battles. There are some memorable scenes such as the time Heydrich questions Schellenberg about his relationship with Frau Heydrich , pointing out that the drink just taken was laced with poison and could only be deactivated if he, Schellenberg were telling the truth. On another Heydrich entrusts Schellenberg with the establishment of a brothel for security purposes."Salon Kitty" was never short of high society recruits from Berlin society though Schellenberg's involvement with its establishment shows him as somewhat of a prude. Embellished in the narative are some interesting historical observations that have been forgotten over the years namely: Richard Sorge the great Rusdsian spoy was a double agent also working for the Germans. Heydrich privately thought that the killing of Jews was stupid and would lead to Germany's destruction. Up to 1943 Japan was continually trying to broker a peace between Russia and Germany. Marshall Tukhachevsky Stalins best General who was shot in the purges was in fact plotting against Stalin though he was set up by the Germans. This muust have been one of the few authentic accusations in the Moscow show trials. Schellenberh was given the task of organizing the occupation of Great Britain when operation Sea Lion materialized. His main contribution to this was the preparation of a comprehensive list of the ruling elite of British society. Schellenberg mentions very little about his personal life. He appears to be somewhat of an Anglophile and his wife had Polish blood. He mentions very little about the Holocaust which is strange sinc his superiors Heydrich and Himler were the architects of this policy. He always hints that he wanted the war ended yet mentions nothing about the 1944 July plot to kill Hitler. One gets the feeling that he had become so corrupted by the regime that he was immune to the difference of right and wrong. This is highlighted that his main regrets appear to be the loss of power and especially the loss of his office with its concealed microphones and machine guns. He never expresses any remorse for any of the crimes committed by the regime of which he was one of the main custodians. Schellenberg died in 19562 of an undisclosed ailment. If he had lived what a catch he would have been for the CIA with his superb knowledge of Russian intelligence methods.

I read this book in a matter of a few days and found it to be thrilling not so much on account of the different events that SCHELLENBERG became involved in, but how SCHELLENBERG relishes telling his exploits with no apologies. It almost seems as if he longs and deeply misses the cloak and dagger type of work that he obviously excelled in. His accounts and recollections of HEYDRICH's character and personality are very accurate and quite chilling. I found of particular interest the "Venlo Incident" in which SCHELLENBERG comes in contact with two British Secret Service agents in Holland who are subsequently apprehended and imprisoned. HITLER's direct involvement concerning the interrogations of the agents and SCHELLENBERG's dinner conversation with HITLER in the presence of his bosses, HIMMLER and HEYDRICH, truly show how he (HITLER) actually believed he would come to peace terms with Britain. The book read quickly like a first-rate spy thriller and on top of that it is factual through and through from one of the top agents in the nazi hierarchy. I recommend this book first to anyone who has an interest in the history of nazi foreign intelligence.

As a fan of intrigue fiction, this is a good read with some interesting details on the ins and outs of setting up and running a counterespionage organization. If this were the sum total of this book, I would still recommend it, however, it's the "book within a book" that makes it a really worthwhile read. For this is also a fascinating character study of someone placed very high in one the most despised organizations of the Third Reich, yet seemly totally unaffected by the evil. He writes very matter-of-factly of events and makes casual mentions of working and being friends with people with Jewish backgrounds, yet he had direct access to the architects of the Holocaust (Heydrich, Himmler and even, at times, Hitler) and was never touched by or even aware of the horror? He writes with admiration of Heydrich's skills, even though the man (known for good reason as Der Henker - the Hangman) was thought to be one of the chief planners of the Holocaust. Himmler, the leader of the medusa-like SS and Gestapo comes off as a mild-mannered civil servant. Schellenberg's detached narrative style gives the readers an illuminating look at just how easily an apparently intelligent and perceptive human mind can compartmentalize. One can almost imagine Schellenberg's thoughts, "yes, the SS was imprisoning and exterminating fellow humans, and yes I am a member of the SS, but all that has nothing to do with the job I'm doing." It makes one wonder what Schellenberg chose to leave out of this memoir and why. Did his SS loyalty oath make complete candor impossible for him or could he really just have detached himself that thoroughly? Truly a chilling thought, not just for the past, but for the present and future.

Schellenberg did not always agree with his bosses. Like everyone else in the Nazi apparatus, he had to watch his back or look over his shoulder at every turn, since blackmail was common throughout the Nazi organization.

Despite this, Schellenberg was a patriot, and thrust into a mutating Germany on the brink of world war, he worked diligently from a patriotic side to assist in bringing victory to his country, or later, when defeat seemed inevitable, in sending out feelers for peace.

The recruitment of agents, the development of the secret service branches, the search for new efficiencies, and the discovered betrayal of old friends fill the book. Schellenberg compares foreign secret service agencies and highlights their accuracy and methods, showing where Germany was able to dupe the English and where the Russians were getting too pertinent information. Most revealing perhaps in this book are the personalities of the Nazi leadership, specifically Heydrich and Himmler, but sometimes Hitler. He worked with these men daily, and sometimes against their direct intervention, sometimes with their lukewarm approval, Schellenberg managed to maintain his office as efficiently as the circumstances allowed.

An intriguing look at life behind the scenes of military intelligence and secret service work.

This is an amazing testimonial about life within the NAZI German rogue state. Schellenberg's confessional documents the attempts by one man to put together an intricate secret service on the behalf of his totalitarian benefactors. His tales are rather bewildering and one is grateful that he had the time with which to memorialize his deeds in print before he died. Ultimately his organization became extensive but paled in comparison to that of the Soviets.

Indeed, The Labyrinth also tells us much about the Soviet Union as their espionage links were so established that Schellenberg, in a country where he could randomly assasinate nearly anyone that he wished, was unable to completely disable the transmitters of the Rote Kapelle (Red Chapel).

To me, the most valuable thing about the book is the historical primary source information it provides. These prose portraits of Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, Canaris, Ribbentropp and Kaltenbrunner are quite thorough and illuminating. Schellenberg has many useful insights about human nature that he shares as well.

The only reservation I had is that the narrator seems to be putting forth a sugar coated version of himself in its pages. This appeared to me to be a final bit of misinformation before death. His self-description is highly non-ideological and one feels as if they are being played while reading it. He really portrays himself as a highly humane individual who is an outsider within this criminal regime. His SS ranking of Brigadefueher belied such a conclusion.

I've been studying the American, British and German archives and testimonies about Walter Schellenberg for the last ten years. His memoirs are a masterpiece... in deception. The book aims at focusing attention on spy stories and personal stories concerning Hitler, Himmler and Heydrich (most of the times totally twisted but never totally factually false). Yet he would not have become the youngest SS general just on the accounts of his failed spying attempts that he very subtely describes in his book (omitting he had a heart attack at the only successful one). Readers should know that he was one of the originators of the Einsatzgruppen who shot millions of men, women and children behind the Eastern European front. He did play a part in the organization of the emigration of rich Jewish persons after they had been so heavily ransomed that they were basically left with their lives. He basically was the recognized idea man behind Heydrich (the worst of the worst) and Himmler. A letter signed by him demonstrates that he was working on the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem before May 20th 1941 (the Wannsee conference -where Heydrich announced it- would only come on January 1942) He favored the massacre of Jews (namely in Hungaria) to have something to exchange with the allies for peace negotiations allgedly preparing an alliance against the Soviet Union. He managed to go through Nurenberg by dealing with the American juges and the British Secret services and lying to them about the were-wolfes and the Alpine Reduit, which never existed. He was helped by charging some other major criminal when other evidences were inconclusive (Kaltenbrunner). He sprinkles his book with reference to a few Jewish persons (Portugal) or to Kersten (Himmler's chyropractor) who occasonally helped Jewish families to be saved. He used his negotiation attempts as if they were political and humanitarian (for historical practical reasons, the allies acted as if they believed it). To crown everything, he may have been [the young] "Werther", the soviet spymaster who had access to Hitler's most secret military plans and transmitted them, unpunished, daily from Berlin (he supported and save several times his adjutant Stirlitz really a Soviet agent, Colonel Maksim Maksimovich Isaev, who had infiltrated the SD): after all he was the head of the counter-intelligence. Naturally he did put historians on a false track inducing that H. Mueller (head of Gestapo) had turned into a communist. This book is very dangerous for historians as many massively quoted it, taking it at face value: these memoirs are one of the first real successful attempts at what is now called desinformation. It is done intelligently, with charm, making it all the more ambiguous. The other reviews here demonstrate how successful Schellenberg was, but he was one of the most cynical murderers of the time: he invented the solutions to Heydrich, Hitler and Himmler's problems and had others doing the dirty work to keep his hands clean and collecting the rewards of his murderous masters. Don't forget that this book was written after Nurenberg to clean his past preparing his future career. Fortunately there is a form of justice and he died from a liver cancer convinced that he was being poisoned by the British. Readers should remember that Bin Laden's September 11th is a (macabre) joke compared to what this guy invented.

Its a well written easy to follow book about Walter Schellenberg the head of counter intelligence in the SS, he gives good details about a number of operations he took part in but their is limited details on a number of things such as concentration camps, death squads and July 20 plot.

Since Mr. Schellenberg was a high ranking nazi you have to be aware that he has to have been covering his own tracks. Lets be honest he had to walk a fine line between the complete truth and perhaps a noose. We can assume he stretches the truth a bit here and there and surely omits things he'd rather not have known. But it is fasinating to learn what it was like being as close as he was to Himmler, Hitler and the rest of the nazi leadership. We learn that even someone as high up as Shellenberg was spied on by his fellow nazis. Even someone at his level had to watch his back.