Former German spy chief August Hanning arrested on treason and espionage allegations
August Hanning, who led Germany's BND foreign intelligence service from 1998 to 2005, was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of passing state secrets to a foreign intelligence service; a former aide is accused of funnelling him about 2,000 classified documents since 2010.
Germany has arrested a former head of its foreign intelligence service on suspicion of treasonous espionage, the federal prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday.
August Hanning, 80, who led the Federal Intelligence Service, known as the BND, from 1998 to 2005, is “strongly suspected of treasonous espionage, spying out state secrets, attempted treason, and espionage,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. He was arrested in Bad Toelz-Wolfratshausen in southern Germany.
A former aide, identified as Manfred D., was also arrested on Tuesday in Steinfurt in western Germany and charged with aiding and abetting attempted treason and treasonous espionage. Manfred D. served as Hanning’s chief of staff and later as chief of staff for several subsequent BND presidents from 2012 until 2026.
Prosecutors say the two men agreed in 2010 that Manfred D. would continuously transmit valuable BND intelligence to Hanning in exchange for payment. Over the years, Manfred D. allegedly supplied about 2,000 documents, many classified and reserved for internal executive intelligence briefings. Hanning used the material in private consulting work and on one occasion drafted an analysis for an officer of a foreign intelligence service, prosecutors said. The statement did not reveal which country the men were suspected of spying for, and said it was “yet to be determined if the material reached the intended recipient.”
The case grew out of a separate investigation into the abduction of Hamburg businesswoman Christina Block’s children from her ex-husband in Denmark in January 2024; evidence found during a search of Hanning’s residence in that case led to Tuesday’s arrests.
Opposition lawmaker Konstantin von Notz, a Greens member of the German parliament’s intelligence oversight committee, called the allegations “a hard-hitting and deeply troubling story” and demanded a swift and thorough investigation, urging a ban on former top officials with security clearances from private consulting work.
More on this topic: all World stories