The writer directs the Center on the US and Europe at the Brookings Institution
Call me a romantic, but I prefer my spy scandals served with glamour or at least a whiff of loucheness; the kind that feature a charismatic stranger called Sergeï with a cashmere turtleneck and bare feet in suede loafers.
But this being Germany, the country’s latest example of the genre involves a retired 80-year-old spy chief and a mole in its foreign intelligence agency. The latter applied for, and received, official permission from the agency to undertake paid outside activities, whereupon he allegedly sold classified documents to the ex-spy chief for more than a decade.
August Hanning, who was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of treason, was the chief of the German foreign intelligence service, or BND, from 1998 to 2005. Subsequently, he was state secretary in the interior ministry until 2009, a position that involved oversight of the domestic intelligence service.
Police also arrested his former chief of staff, identified as Manfred D. According to prosecutors, he is alleged to have passed on “approximately 2,000 documents” including classified executive intelligence briefings for the chancellor and cabinet-level officials to Hanning “in exchange for remuneration” between 2010 and 2022. All this while working as BND chief of staff.
With hindsight, there appear to have been signs of outsized self-regard, lax judgment and unusual financial needs that ought to have given German authorities pause. The energetic Hanning had been highly visible in office. After leaving it, he became a fixture on the media and conference circuit. He opined on a broad range of topics from Islamist terror, migrants, the US intelligence services and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the urgency of providing the BND with more powers.
At the same time, and despite a generous state pension (over €10,000 a month), Hanning set up shop as a security consultant. He also joined the board of a Latvian bank owned by a Russian oligarch. In 2019, the bank failed, Hanning was sued for damages, and two-thirds of his pension garnished. One newspaper noted drily that “all this was known in Berlin political circles, and it was occasionally discussed”.
Yet the alleged leaks came to light only in September 2025 when police raided Hanning’s house and found the government documents. The raid was in connection with the investigation of a steakhouse heiress on trial in Hamburg for allegedly orchestrating the abduction of her children in a custody battle with the father. Hanning is accused by local prosecutors of introducing her to an Israeli security firm that arranged the kidnapping of the children on New Year’s Eve 2023.
On the question of what exactly Hanning did with the stolen material, the prosecutors’ statement is tight-lipped. It alleges only that he was in contact with or passed on information to employees of two unidentified foreign intelligence services. (Unnamed officials are cited as saying Russia was not one of them.) Hanning’s lawyer admits his client had the documents but denies he passed them on or received payment in exchange.
The magazine Der Spiegel speculates that the paper trail might lead to Azerbaijan or China; the authoritarian regimes of both countries have assiduously cultivated, and spied on, German political influencers for decades, resulting in harsh sentences for some of those involved. Authorities in Baku have expressed their disgust at this “malicious disinformation”.
Both suspects remain in pre-trial detention, which is subject to strict legal conditions. That strongly suggests there may be more revelations to come.
Meanwhile, this spectacular intelligence breach — the worst since the arrest of the East German spy Günter Guillaume in 1974 forced the resignation of then Chancellor Willy Brandt — could hardly have come at a worse time for the BND and for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s beleaguered coalition.
The BND’s reputation has already taken some knocks in recent years. The trial of its head of technical reconnaissance, Carsten L, who was arrested in 2022 on suspicion of selling secrets to Moscow, is ongoing; he faces a potential life sentence. But that Hanning and his chief of staff were allegedly able to steal and sell classified documents for more than a decade indicates an appalling failure in oversight that will require an exacting investigation and clean-up.
Information exchanges with partner agencies are crucial for the BND and will probably have been included in briefing materials for the chancellery. MI6, the CIA and others now face the realisation that their assessments and sources may have been compromised for years.
The BND’s current head Martin Jäger wants to turn it from an agency mainly restricted to intelligence collection and analysis into one capable of offensive operations such as cyber “hackbacks” against adversaries. This is an urgent necessity as Russia ups its reckless shadow war in Europe. But the latest controversy risks blowing up the draft law that paves the way for the reform.
Hanning, it appears, has betrayed his career, his colleagues, his peers and his country at a time of great danger. And that is neither romantic nor funny.