Germany is shaken by an espionage and treason scandal

If the allegations are confirmed, it would be an espionage case of historic proportions for Germany: August Hanning, former head of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), has been arrested, with the federal prosecutor accusing him of espionage, treason, and attempted treason.

August Hanning, now 80, headed the BND from 1998 to 2005. But even before then, he had enjoyed a meteoric rise within the security apparatus. After leaving the BND, he served as state secretary in the Federal Interior Ministry, then moved into the private sector and worked as a security consultant.

According to the federal prosecutor's office, his informant was his former chief-of-staff, named in the statement only as Manfred D.*, who went on to hold this position under Hanning's successors from March 2012 to March this year. D. thus had access to a great deal of classified information.

Manfred D. is alleged to have passed on nearly 2,000 BND documents — some of them highly sensitive — to Hanning over the course of several years in exchange for money. Hanning is then said to have used the information in his private consultancy business.

The most serious allegation is that Hanning is said to have maintained close contact with an employee of a foreign intelligence service for years and to have leaked classified information to him. It is not known which country was involved, but reports say it is not Russia.

Investigators also mention an analysis that Hanning is said to have prepared for an employee of another foreign intelligence service. However, it is not certain whether the analysis ever reached that person.

The classified information also concerned the routine meetings of the heads of German security agencies at the chancellery. Topics included, among other things, the Iranian nuclear program and analyses of the Russian armed forces.

Since intelligence from foreign partner agencies is also said to have been shared in this context, this could also undermine their trust in the German BND and lead to difficulties in future intelligence cooperation with Germany.

"A good agent is one who doesn't draw attention to himself," Hanning was once quoted as saying. When he finally drew attention to himself, it was in an entirely different context.

In September 2025, the Hamburg state police searched Hanning's home and offices in connection with the famous case of the kidnapping involving Christina Block, heiress to the Steak-House restaurant chain. State prosecutors in Hamburg accused her of having ordered the kidnapping of her two youngest children in late 2023 due to a custody dispute.

A little over a year before the operation to bring the children back, there is said to have already been a failed kidnapping attempt. At the time, there were suspicions that Hanning was involved, which he denies.

But during a search in 2025, investigators found an electronic storage device containing top-secret BND documents. The police handed the documents over to the federal prosecutor's office, which launched a covert investigation against Hanning and Manfred D. in May 2026. The most recent documents found so far are said to date from June 2022.

Throughout its history, the BND has seen a number of espionage cases, some of them spectacular. In the 1960s, Heinz Felfe headed the "Counterintelligence: Soviet Union" division while simultaneously working for the Soviet secret service, the KGB.

In 2014, a BND employee was exposed as a spy for the US CIA. There is also an ongoing trial against a BND agent accused of betraying secrets to Russia's FSB in September and October 2022 — that is, after the start of the war in Ukraine. Yet never before has a former official of August Hanning's stature been at the center of suspicion of espionage.

"The BND launched extensive internal investigations early on and without delay, which corroborated the suspicions," said current BND President Martin Jäger. "For the BND and for me, there can be no compromises when it comes to internal security."

However, there was some fierce criticism from the political sphere. Günter Krings of the conservative governing party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told the Rheinische Post newspaper: "The mere suspicion that a former BND chief is selling secrets is damaging to trust in our security agencies."

Konstantin von Notz of the environmentalist Green Party and deputy chair of the parliamentary committee that oversees the intelligence services said: "These are serious and grave allegations that have been leveled against August Hanning." Speaking on behalf of his party, he called for greater scrutiny of lobbying activities by former top officials and those with the highest security clearances. "These are clearly also a gateway for hostile intelligence services," von Notz said. The federal government must put an immediate stop to these "illegitimate practices."

Clara Bünger, domestic policy spokesperson for the socialist Left Party group in the Bundestag, went even further: "The investigations against former BND chief Hanning show once again: The intelligence services themselves are a security risk."