Documentary film about Wilhelm Canaris, an admiral and head of the intelligence service in Hitler's army. The film describes Canaris's personality of many contradictions, his job in the German intelligence establishment, his ambivalent relations to Hitler and Nazism, his classified spying activities and his acts of rescue tied to them and his place in the conspiracy of 20 July 1944. Includes interviews and testimonies by former soldiers and close associates, archival films and a dramatic reconstruction.