It took three minutes out of a busy day: on June 22, 1941, the first full day of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Reinhard Heydrich appointed Walter Schellenberg Acting Head of Office VI of the Reich Security Main Office. Schellenberg was 31 years old and while his ascent had been spectacular thus far, he was surely convinced that the best was yet to come. A career in foreign intelligence had been one of his dream jobs, and it is likely he eagerly anticipated the challenges ahead. Schellenberg took over a foreign intelligence service in disarray, but soon established himself firmly at the helm of Office VI and created a semblance of efficiency, activism, and a sharpened vision for his new domain. The latter set Office VI on a collision course with other German intelligence and security entities, but this was not unintended.

The most obvious rivalry existed between Office VI and the military intelligence service Abwehr, headed since 1935 by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris; it is the focus of this chapter. Much has been written about this conflict, which ended with Office VI's incorporation of the better part of the Abwehr in February 1944 and Canaris' arrest in July of the same year, but often to a curious historiographical effect. These postwar writings remade Office VI into just another ordinary foreign intelligence service while bestowing the nimbus of a victim of Nazism on the Abwehr. Yet, as Reinhard Doerries notes, both entities were “Nazi intelligence services” and both competition and cooperation defined their relationship.

An investigation of the rivalry between Office VI and the Abwehr is important still. Tarnished by real and talked-up intelligence failures and suspected of defeatism, if not treason, the Abwehr became comparatively easy prey for its rival. Intermittent cooperation and the friendly relationship between Schellenberg and Canaris notwithstanding, Office VI sharpened its profile as the standard-bearer of a new, radical approach to foreign intelligence in the realm of military intelligence and in its rivalry with the Abwehr. Much of the eventual success of Office VI was prepared on the ground, for example in the Soviet Union, where the office established predominance by bringing a radical, ideological approach to Germany's intelligence efforts. It did not yield better results but captured the imagination of the decision makers.