Not a day goes by without fresh warnings of foreign spies targeting Germany, whether it’s cyber-warfare, or attacks by Wegwerfagenten (literally “throwaway agents”) on minimum wage.
Turns out: the threat is homegrown, too. At least one retired bigwig may have found a way to top up his already generous pension. The presumption of innocence applies, naturally, yet the allegations against August Hanning, former head of the Bundesnach-richtendienst (BND), which is Germany’s MI6, have sent shockwaves through the country. It has been felt particularly in Berlin, where the 80-year-old was a charming and unmistakably well-informed fixture at lunches and dinner parties. And then last week he was arrested by policemen in balaclavas.
The charges include suspicion of treasonous espionage, attempted treason and intelligence-agent activity. Hanning, adviser to no fewer than four chancellors, is in pre-trial detention. His former office manager, Manfred D, is also being held. Another familiar face in the capital, he is accused of aiding treason.
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They are the men who knew too much – and allegedly billed for it. Hanning’s lawyer admits that his client possessed confidential documents. However, he insists that the suggestion that he passed on their contents to the detriment of the Bundesrepublik, let alone in return for money, is “untrue”. “My client is being wrongly prosecuted.”
Well. What has emerged so far resembles Tinker, Tailor, Consultant, Spy. Hanning apparently received classified material from Mr D on a regular basis. D had served as his bureau chief. He then followed Hanning to the interior ministry, but when Hanning moved into the private sector in 2009, D returned to work for two further BND chiefs for 14 years.
According to Der Spiegel, D had a BND permit for a paid side job. What sort of gig he had inside the service remains classified, but it’s safe to assume that handing secrets to his former boss wasn’t part of the job description.
Yet from around 2010, that is what he was doing. What Hanning did with the paperwork is disputed. Bedtime reading? More likely, he exploited it as a private consultant. In at least one case, he used secret intelligence to write an analysis for an employee of a foreign intelligence service. Did he pass it on? Unclear.
Double-0 Hanning is also alleged to have supplied another intelligence service with political information over several years. But which service? There are rumours about Azerbaijan (notorious for bribing CDU/CSU politicians) and Saudi Arabia. But prosecutors are guarding their secrets rather better than the BND. One detail, however, was circulated early: Russia was not involved.
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Hanning’s fall from espionage grace has been a long time coming. First, a Riga court seized two-thirds of his pension and placed a charging order on his house. The reason? His failure to do his (two-year) job on the supervisory board of the now-bankrupt Latvian PNB Bank. The insolvency administrator wants millions.
Then came Germany’s most gripping current legal thriller, when Hanning was accused of having “consulted” on an attempted child abduction. His home was searched – bingo: investigators stumbled across unrelated but incriminating BND material.
Hanning’s sketchy activities came to light by chance. Which fits the narrative that the German MI6 is nowhere near other agencies when it comes to actual spying. A big overhaul of the German secret services is in the making – more powers, more scope, more teeth.
But so far, the black humour is that any intelligence Hanning may have given to foreign powers is as trivial as what the BND is said to give the chancellery.
