The arrest of the former head of the German intelligence services is the biggest scandal since the end of the Cold War

Berlin. It is not every day that news about the secret services makes the front pages of newspapers for two days running. Nor, in theory, is Germany an exception. On the contrary, the whole of Europe listened with apprehension to the statements made on Monday in the Bundestag by Martin Jäger, President of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND, the foreign intelligence service), according to whom the Federal Republic of Germany “risks being drawn into a violent conflict with Russia”. This warning was echoed by Sinan Selen, head of the domestic intelligence service (the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV), who stated that Russia is demonstrating its willingness to engage in acts of sabotage and murder. These warnings were overshadowed yesterday morning when news agencies reported the arrest of the former head of the BND, August Hanning, on espionage charges. Hanning, who turned 80 in February, led the foreign intelligence service from 1998 to 2005. 

The former senior official was arrested at his home in Nordwalde, near Münster, in the Rhineland. The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office has confirmed that Hanning is under investigation for attempted treason and for acting as an agent for a foreign intelligence service. For ARD, Germany’s leading public broadcaster, this is “a sensational case”, whilst for the Süddeutsche Zeitung “it is one of the biggest espionage cases in the history of the Federal Republic”. Along with Hanning, his former chief of staff at the BND, identified as Manfred D., was also arrested. He is alleged to have continued passing on confidential information to Hanning after the BND president had left the service – that is, between 2005 and 2009, when Hanning concluded his career as a senior civil servant with his promotion to State Secretary at the Ministry of the Interior.

Thus, whilst the former head of intelligence was serving in Merkel’s first cabinet, his trusted former right-hand man, who had moved to work for the new head of the BND, continued to have access to a wide range of classified documents. “The findings of the investigation suggest that, over the years, Manfred D. provided Hanning with around 2,000 documents, many of which contained confidential information intended exclusively for use by the BND,” the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office further explained. Manfred D. is accused of having provided Hanning with information at least until mid-2022, enabling him to use it in his private consultancy work. Hanning, for his part, is accused of having remained “in close contact with a representative of another foreign intelligence service, to whom he passed on political information – partly based on material provided by Manfred D. – for several years”.

The scandal, explains Die Welt, was uncovered somewhat by chance. “In fact, the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office was investigating a completely different case.” In September 2025, the authorities raided Hanning’s offices after his name had emerged in the case of the businesswoman Christina Block, who was accused of child abduction. As heir to the Block House restaurant chain, Frau Block is under investigation for having her children – whom her husband had taken to live in Denmark – abducted and brought back to Germany. According to the prosecution, this abduction was facilitated by the former head of the intelligence services. At Hanning’s home, however, investigators came across material that had nothing to do with their investigation, “but which was nonetheless sensitive”.

For observers of the intelligence world, however, the arrest did not come out of the blue, as Die Welt further notes. Other allegations against Hanning have also been circulating for years. A former agent, for example, accuses him of having been recruited as early as the 1980s, first by the Soviet secret services and later by the Russian ones. At the time, Hanning was working as head of security at the Permanent Representation of the Federal Republic in East Berlin. These allegations have never been confirmed in court. On the contrary, there had also been speculation that these were rumours spread by the former agent out of a desire for revenge following a personal conflict between the two.

Hanning had recently also made the headlines due to his involvement in a legal dispute lasting several years, relating to failed property and investment deals in Latvia. So much so that part of his pension is said to have been garnished. As for the new case, according to a joint investigation by NDR/WDR/Süddeutsche Zeitung, the documents ‘passed on’ to third parties are said to concern Iran’s nuclear programme and the movements of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. This would rule out the possibility that Hanning passed them on to the Kremlin. Yesterday, Der Spiegel reported that investigators are looking into an alleged contact between Hanning and an Azerbaijani agent. “None of my objectives, none of my priorities are called into question by this affair,” said BND chief Martin Jäger yesterday.