BERLIN — Germany has arrested a man who once ran its foreign intelligence service, accusing him of spying.
Federal police detained August Hanning, 80, who led the Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, from December 1998 to November 2005, on Tuesday on suspicion of treasonous espionage, spying out state secrets, attempted treason and espionage, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe said. Officers also arrested a second German man, identified only as Manfred D. under German privacy rules, who is accused of aiding and abetting. The arrests were reported by the Associated Press and Germany’s public broadcaster ARD.
What prosecutors allege
According to the prosecutor’s statement, Manfred D. was Hanning’s chief of staff at the BND and later his parliamentary assistant when Hanning was a state secretary in the Interior Ministry from 2005 to 2009. From March 2012 until March of this year, Manfred D. again served as chief of staff to several later BND presidents, giving him access to confidential material.
Prosecutors allege the two agreed in spring 2010 that Manfred D. would keep passing valuable BND intelligence to Hanning in exchange for payment, so Hanning could use it in the private consulting business he had started. Over the years, they say, Manfred D. handed over about 2,000 documents, many of them classified and meant only for internal BND use — particularly for intelligence briefings given to senior officials at the Federal Chancellery.
On one occasion, prosecutors say, Hanning used that material to draft an analysis for an officer of a foreign intelligence service; it is not yet known whether it reached the intended recipient. They also allege Hanning was in close contact for several years with a representative of another foreign intelligence service, passing on political information partly based on the leaked documents. The statement did not name either foreign country; ARD, citing its joint reporting with NDR, WDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung, said the analysis case did not involve Russia.
According to that reporting, the documents included highly sensitive briefings, such as reports on Iran’s nuclear program and the Russian military, and some material from allied intelligence services. The most recent documents found date from June 2022, ARD reported.
How the case surfaced
The investigation began after prosecutors in Hamburg searched Hanning’s premises in September 2025 as part of a separate case involving businesswoman Christina Block, the statement said. ARD reported that investigators allege Hanning was involved in an earlier attempt to abduct Block’s children amid a custody dispute, which he denies, and that material seized in that search turned up the BND documents. Federal prosecutors took over in May and have worked with the BND and the Federal Criminal Police Office. Properties were searched Tuesday in Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Berlin.
Both men are to be brought before an investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice, who will formally inform them of the allegations and decide whether to hold them in pre-trial detention. ARD reported that Hanning’s lawyers had not responded to a request for comment. An arrest is not a finding of guilt.
A rare case at the very top
Germany has prosecuted a string of espionage cases in recent years, many involving alleged spying for Russia or China. But accusations against a former head of the intelligence service itself are extraordinary. Hanning led the BND through the Sept. 11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and later became one of the Interior Ministry’s top officials.
The case is also a blow to the BND, whose own long-serving staff member is accused of quietly feeding secrets out of the agency for more than a decade.
Photo: Andreas Praefcke via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0). The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, where an investigating judge will hear the case; 2012 file photo.
Sources: Federal Prosecutor’s Office (GBA) statement; Associated Press (via The Washington Post); tagesschau (ARD).
This article was produced with AI assistance and is based on reporting from Federal Prosecutor’s Office (GBA) statement, Associated Press (via The Washington Post) and tagesschau (ARD).