Erwin Von Lahousen - World War II

World War II

The men took well to each other, as both shared anti-Nazi feelings. Lahousen became a member of a circle of hand-picked officers opposed to Hitler who ran the intelligence agency. Canaris appointed him chief of Abwehr section II, which dealt primarily with sabotage.

Lahousen handled the successful sabotage aspects of the invasion of Poland in September 1939. But because Canaris did not give as much a priority to sabotage as to espionage, Lahousen ordered that agents destined for Britain be trained primarily for spying, with disastrous results. Saboteurs who landed in the United States during Operation Pastorius in June 1942 were betrayed to the FBI by one of their number, arrested, tried by military tribunal, and executed.

In 1943, Lahousen was sent to the Eastern Front and thus escaped the final days of the Abwehr, which, along with Canaris, had fallen into disfavor. Lahousen later claimed that he was the one who supplied the bomb used on the Smolensk plot (Operation Spark, March 13, 1943). The assassination attempt carried out by Fabian von Schlabrendorff failed.

After the failure of the assassination attempt and putsch (20 July plot), Claus von Stauffenberg and thousands of other accused plotters, including Canaris, were executed. Due to his service at the front, Lahousen escaped notice.

On July 19, 1944 Lahousen was heavily wounded by an artillery hit.