LAHOUSEN: Within the Amt Ausland-Abwehr there were two groups which in their aims and actions were closely connected, but which, nevertheless, must somehow be kept apart.
COL. AMEN: And what were those two groups?
LAHOUSEN: Before I answer this question, I must briefly picture the personality of Canaris, who was the spiritual leader and focus of this group.
COL. AMEN: Please make it as brief as you can.
LAHOUSEN: Canaris was a pure intellect, an interesting, highly individual, and complicated personality, who hated violence as such and therefore hated and abominated war, Hitler, his system, and particularly his methods. In whatever way one may look on him, Canaris was a human being.
COL. AMEN: Now, will you refer back to the two groups of which you spoke and tell me about each of those two groups and their respective memberships?
LAHOUSEN: One might characterize the first of the groups as Canaris’ circle. It included the heads of the Amt Ausland-Abwehr:
Canaris himself as its spiritual leader; General Oster, Chief of the Central Division (the head of the Abwehr); my predecessor, Lieutenant Colonel Grosscurth, who had introduced me into the circle of Canaris in Vienna in 1938; the Chief of Abwehr Division I, Colonel Pieckenbrock, who was a close friend of Canaris; Pieckenbrock’s successor, Colonel Hansen, who was executed after July; my successor, Colonel Von Freytag Loringhoven, who committed suicide on 26 July 1944, before arrest; also, in a somewhat different way, what applies to all these persons, the Chief of Abwehr Division III, Colonel Von Bentivegni, and then various people in all these divisions, most of whom were executed or imprisoned in connection with the events of July 20, 1944.
I must also name here a man who did not belong to this group but who knew of the actions designed to prevent the execution or issuing of orders for murder and other atrocities, namely, Admiral Bürckner who was Chief of the Ausland Division at that time. Those, in the main, are the leaders of the first group called the Canaris circle.
The second and much smaller group was centered around General Oster as its spiritual leader. This group included members of the Ausland-Abwehr who, as early as 1938—I recognized this clearly by 1939-40 and later on—were actively concerned with schemes and plans designed to remove the originator of this catastrophe, Hitler, by force.