The former head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service built a lucrative second career trading on his security expertise. Now prosecutors accuse him of profiting from secrets belonging to the state. Photo-Illustration by Natália Delgado/POLITICO August Hanning spent seven years at the top of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, with access to some of the country’s most closely guarded secrets.
Then came a second act: private consulting, corporate intelligence and business stretching across Europe, into Russia and Asia. Now, the 80-year-old former spymaster is himself at the center of an espionage investigation, after German federal prosecutors arrested him Tuesday on suspicion of treasonous espionage, attempted treason and other espionage offenses. They allege he obtained a stream of secret intelligence from his former chief of staff and used the material to benefit his private consulting business.
The scale of it is enormous, especially at a moment like this,” said one EU intelligence official, who — like others in this report — was granted anonymity to discuss a clandestine arena. Just last week, German parliamentarians began debating a new law proposed by Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government to grant the agency sweeping new authority, as part of an effort to return Berlin’s foreign intelligence service to the top ranks of global espionage. The timing is equally awkward for European intelligence more broadly.
With Russian hybrid attacks continuously targeting Europe, governments across the bloc are rewriting decades-old security laws to give their spy agencies greater powers and be taken more seriously. Prosecutors say Hanning’s former chief of staff, identified under German privacy rules as Manfred D., supplied him with roughly 2,000 BND documents between 2010 and June 2022. Many contained classified information intended exclusively for internal intelligence work, including material used to brief senior German officials.
In comments to German newspaper WELT, a lawyer representing Hanning said some of the allegations against the ex-spymaster were true but that he did not harm Germany. Incorrect, however, is the accusation that he had passed on information contained therein to the detriment of the Federal Republic of Germany — let alone [for] payment. Further investigations will show that,” he said.
In one case, prosecutors suspect Hanning used classified material to prepare an analysis for an employee of foreign intelligence service. They also allege he maintained a relationship with a representative of another foreign intelligence service for several years, passing along political information that was partly based on material obtained from Manfred D. Prosecutors have not publicly identified either foreign service but German media has named Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
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