The top German spy who was arrested this week on suspicion of espionage and treason may have passed information to Communist China, in a case that continues to harm Germany’s already much-traduced reputation for security.
The former President of the Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND) — the German CIA or MI6 equivalent — Dr August Hanning was brought before a court and placed into pre-trial detention this week after being arrested on suspicion of stealing thousands of intelligence documents from the German government to sell overseas. Berlin’s Der Spiegel called Hanning “one of the most powerful men in Germany’s security apparatus” with wide-reaching influence in government that continued long after he retired as the head of the BND in 2005.
It is this influence and the respect accorded to him for a lifetime of service to the German state, which also included serving as the de facto ambassador to Eastern Germany during the Cold War and supervisory roles over German intelligence post-2005 under Angela Merkel, that allowed him and his alleged co-conspirator to get their secondary employment signed off by the federal government, as is commonly required for retired spies.
While early information about the case implied links to Russia and Israel, it is now reported that Hanning is accused of having sold intelligence in the form of ‘analysis’ as a security consultant to Azerbaijan and potentially to China. Azerbaijan is not a Chinese puppet as such, but Peking (Beijing) does have strategic interests in the country through the debt-trap-diplomacy Belt and Road programme, and in energy exports. Azerbaijan has lodged a diplomatic protest with Berlin over being named in the scandal.
Britain’s The Times reported that Hanning is said to have had a long-term friendship with Chinese army major general Wang Jianzheng, who lived in Europe as a diplomat for 23 years, including a stint in East Germany during the Cold War. Hanning is alleged to have passed intelligence to Wang, and The Times report notes Wang thanked Hanning for his “insights and explanations” in a 2017 book.
Hanning, for his part, denies the allegations. Der Spiegel reported his lawyer said in a statement: “My client is being unjustly persecuted… the accusation that he passed on information contained therein to the detriment of the Federal Republic of Germany – let alone for payment – is unfounded”. German newspaper Bild says that as recently as August, Hanning had written to his successor at the head of the BND to complain of being named as a potential Russian agent.
The arrest of a long serving and influential former foreign intelligence service chief has further damaged Germany’s already shaky reputation for security, with allied nations calling the development worrying. The BND already took a major reputational hit in 2021 after it advised the German government it found the prospect of a Tabliban takeover of Afghanistan “rather unlikely”, and said it had assessed the Islamist group had “no intertest” in raiding Kabul.
The following year, the BND assessed that there was no risk of Russia imminently invading Ukraine, a conclusion it reached despite British intelligence accurately predicting its beginning and warning allies. Indeed, German intelligence was so confident of this belief, that it’s own President of the BND, Hanning’s successor, was caught up by surprise in Kyiv on the morning of the invasion by Russian troops advancing to the capital, and had to be extracted from Ukraine with the assistance of Polish intelligence.
But most damaging to Germany’s relations with its overseas partners before now was it arresting the BND’s own former head of internal security, Carsten Linke in 2023. Linke was accused of leaking secrets to the Russian Federation in return for cash and was only taken in after another Western intelligence agency tipped off Berlin about the alleged presence of a double agent in their midst.
As noted at the time, the arrest led other NATO nations to freeze Germany out of intelligence sharing, for fear of further betrayals.