Germany's former spy chief was arrested on Tuesday and sent before a judge on treason charges. August Hanning, 80, ran the country's foreign intelligence service for seven years. Prosecutors say he spent the next decade and a half buying back its secrets.
Hanning led the Bundesnachrichtendienst, the BND, from December 1998 to November 2005. On October 6, the Federal Prosecutor General's Office announced his arrest in Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen in Bavaria. He is "strongly suspected of treasonous espionage, spying out state secrets, attempted treason, and espionage," prosecutors said. It is the first time a former head of Germany's foreign intelligence service has ever been arrested, and German media are calling it potentially one of the largest spy scandals in the history of the Federal Republic.
The case turns on his former aide, identified only as Manfred D. under German privacy rules. Manfred D. served as Hanning's chief of staff, then kept the same job under several of Hanning's successors from March 2012 until March 2026 — two decades of access to confidential material. Prosecutors allege the two men agreed in spring 2010 that Manfred D. would continuously feed Hanning BND intelligence in exchange for payment. The arrangement ran until June 2022. Over those years, Manfred D. allegedly passed Hanning roughly 2,000 documents, many of them classified and meant strictly for internal BND use, including executive intelligence briefings prepared for Germany's leadership. Hanning allegedly paid for the material to use it in his private consulting work.
On at least one occasion, prosecutors say, Hanning used classified intelligence to draft an analysis for an officer of a foreign intelligence service. Investigators have not established whether the analysis ever reached its intended recipient, and the foreign service has not been publicly named. German broadcasters report it is not Russia.
Manfred D. was arrested the same morning in Steinfurt in western Germany, charged with aiding and abetting attempted treason and treasonous espionage. Properties linked to both men, including sites in Berlin, are being searched. Both were brought before an investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice, which decides on pretrial detention. A senior security lawmaker warned the arrest could damage Germany's intelligence relationships with allied nations.
Watch DW's report on the arrest:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PrZi4qSbVDQ