Here “group” means additive abelian group. A compact group G contains δ–subgroups, that is, compact totally disconnected subgroups Δ such that G/Δ is a torus. The canonical subgroup Δ(G) of G that is the sum of all δ–subgroups of G turns out to have striking properties. Lewis, Loth and Mader obtained a comprehensive description of Δ(G) when considering only finite dimensional connected groups, but even for these, new and improved results are obtained here. For a compact group G, we prove the following: Δ(G) contains tor(G), is a dense, zero-dimensional subgroup of G containing every closed totally disconnected subgroup of G, and G/Δ(G) is torsion-free and divisible; Δ(G) is a functorial subgroup of G, it determines G up to topological isomorphism, and it leads to a “canonical” resolution theorem for G. The subgroup Δ(G) appeared before in the literature as td(G) motivated by completely different considerations. We survey and extend earlier results. It is shown that td, as a functor, preserves proper exactness of short sequences of compact groups.