On 8 September 1941, under the auspices of the Commissar Order (Kommissarbefehl) the OKW issued a decree concerning the ruthless ideological imperatives of the Nazi state against all semblance of Bolshevism, a provision that included executing Soviet commissars and prisoners of war.[52] Admiral Canaris, the head of the OKW Ausland/Abwehr, immediately expressed concern about the military and political ramifications of this order. Killing soldiers and even non-combatants in contravention of the Geneva Convention was not something the Abwehr leadership—namely Canaris—supported.[53]