Germany’s spy scandal: a shocking episode

Populist parties of the far-right and radical-left are on the rise; Germany’s once booming economy, built on an industrial base that was the envy of Europe, is flatlining; and its government – previously deemed a “grand coalition” – is weakened, said Ulf Poschardt in The Telegraph. Now, in yet another blow to national self-esteem, the ex-head of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND, has been arrested on charges of exploiting state secrets.

Over 12 years from 2010, August Hanning, 80, is alleged to have paid his ex-chief of staff to pass him some 2,000 documents, many classified, and to have sold on the secrets they contained. Germany’s leaky, bureaucratic secret services have long had a credibility problem; what makes this case especially damaging is that the alleged crimes were uncovered only by accident. The evidence was found during a raid on Hanning’s house by police looking into an unrelated matter – his suspected role in the abduction of the children of a German steakhouse heiress from their father.

Warning signs

The intelligence world is full of “scandals and scandalettes”, said Der Spiegel, but this one is in a different class. The papers are said to have contained highly sensitive information, some likely supplied by Germany’s intelligence partners – so the affair could have serious international ramifications at a time when Europe is facing grave security threats.

And the charges include treason. Having set himself up as a security consultant, to boost his €11,000-a-month state pension, Hanning (who denies wrongdoing) took on a host of “dubious” private clients, including Putin-aligned oligarchs; but he is also accused of selling secrets to a foreign intelligence agency. Reports suggest that it was Azerbaijan’s.

With hindsight, there were warning signs, said Constanze Stelzenmüller in the Financial Times. It was well known in Berlin, for instance, that Hanning had lost two-thirds of his pension as a result of his directorship of a Latvian bank that went bankrupt in 2019. Yet his alleged crimes went unnoticed for years. Where was the oversight? This scandal comes as an appalling blow to the BND, and Germany as a whole, at a time of great danger. People love spy stories, but there is nothing amusing, or romantic, about this one.

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