Germany arrests ex‑BND chief August Hanning on espionage suspicion
August Hanning was head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service under Gerhard Schröder during the period in which Berlin got hooked on Russian energy, with Hanning backing Nord Stream 1. Short 🧵.
Frode #Fella25– He has today been arrested on suspicion of espionage, attempted treason and obtaining state secrets. So many pro-russians end up being exposed as actual bona fide traitors. Remember that.
Kristian Kiehling18The Moscow connection is slowly being dismantled,and it is hard to say whether legal prosecution will eventually include the many political leaders of the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats who played a key role in establishing and maintaining these connections long after the russian invasion.
denkraumverzerrung12Wird das noch mal eng für den Gerd? Das wird nicht eng für den Gerd, oder?
Torsten Grieger9Was Du schon immer über #Hanning wissen solltest ...
Claudio de Sat5August Hanning with his untouchable accomplice in high treason.
Edward Walker4Looking like this will turn into a huge intel scandal. AFAIK still very few details
saepurusass.bsky.social3Paistab, et Schröderi (just) kass on leitud?
RigaShiba 🇱🇻🇺🇦🇪🇺3Read till end for a treat! 😉
Henrik Brors2Fängslade fd tyske spionchefens koppling till Gerhard Schröder.
Julian2Short thread, you will be very positively surprised at the end of it.
#BREAKING August Hanning, the former head of Germany's BND foreign intelligence service, has been arrested on suspicion of espionage, sources tell dpa
Bony H2Well, that doesn't seem ideal.
Any links to AfD members?
Drew Grimaldi1Even the spies can't pass a background check anymore.
👻 Jack Djinn Wail 🧞112Served from 1998 to 2005. Now to have a big sip of coffee and see who was Chancellor during this period. It must be great if you're a former social democratic Prime Minister because no matter how much you fucked up, there's no way you are having a more humiliating retirement than Gerhard Schröder.
Matthew Willis (Naval Air History)19A bit of light research this morning indicates that this guy is fash adjacent, was allegedly complicit in a violent kidnapping plot involving a Mossad agent, and was accused of sanctioning dodgy transactions at a Latvian bank that went bust owing tens of millions of Euro. Real upstanding citizen...
Scornflake Ghhhoul15What? The head of a spy agency turns out to be a spy? Even John Le Carré couldn’t have dreamed that up
Slurms MacKrueger15Smh arrested simply for doing your job 😔
Disappointed Optimist15Periodic reminder that there persists a belief that British security services was also infiltrated from about the Cameron PM era.
Greencray7Dieser Block Prozess wurde doch geskripted…
cpuk (trampoline park connoisseur and occasional comic printer)5I don’t know much about spies or intelligence agencies in general, but I think I’m probably right to guess that’s not *good*
Robert Wilson4Since some of us have been using Slough House for current event comparisons, seems like the BND has a Charles Partner situation.
Santini4Hear this but in Brokaw or for a deep deep hit, a good Cronkite.
Georg Weizsäcker4Good future novels, bad present security
Incredible scandal. First the ex-BvS chief turns out to be a far-rightist and now the ex-BND chief turns out to be a traitor (we already knew that he also was a nativist). Germany is rotting from the top.
Benjamin McKean4"News of Hanning’s arrest comes as the government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz is trying to pass landmark reforms for Germany’s intelligence agencies, intended to give them sweeping new powers."
Christian Bettges4"Germany is rotting from the top" trifft es ganz gut. Dumm nur, dass die AfD mit ihrer "Elitenkritik" ähnliche Töne anschlägt. Müssen wir irgendwie anders formulieren.
Jürgen Braatz2Nach meiner Erinnerung sind die BND-Chefs der letzten Jahrzehnte immer von der CSU/CDU ausgesucht worden.
The accusations are pretty crazy. According to media reports, the former spy chief paid his former chief of staff (who stayed at the BND until this year) to receive classified information after he left the agency. That's already a big problem, but it gets worse. www.tagesschau.de/investigativ...
Wine Goddess41Der Block-Prozess gibt und gibt und gibt😬
Fen d'Air Défense.net18L'Express va pouvoir mettre son classement à jour.
Orynick14Ça doit surprendre qui que ça arrive dans un pays qui fut dirigé, de nombreuses années, par un agent de Moscou ? Mais ne rions pas : la majorité de l'Assemblée nationale française est pro-Moscou hein.
likeradio.bsky.social7Mit am meisten beunruhigt mich dabei das es laut Artikel aufgrund dieser absurden Block-Geschichte aufgeflogen ist. 🙃
🚨 BREAKING: August Hanning, German spy chief of the BND from 1998 to 2005 arrested for espionage. He made 7 quick trips to Moscow in 2015-2019. Hanning was Putin mafioso Oleg Deripaska's expert witness in a 2012 UK lawsuit. Hanning was a "Russia expert" at G3 Consulting.
Igor Sushko76Europe is corrupt, stupid, and incompetent. Over the decades, Russia has successfully recruited heads of state, heads of spy agencies, and entire political parties. And this is still the case today, 12 years after the 2014 Crimea invasion and 4.5 years after 2022. theins.press/en/news/297947
craiginthe6.bsky.social6“He made 7 quick trips to Moscow in 2015-2019. Hanning was Putin mafioso Oleg Deripaska's expert witness in a 2012” It seems like it was incredibly fucking obvious YEARS ago!
pene.hu2“Europe is corrupt, stupid, and incompetent” Haha, now let’s hear your opinion about your daddy, Trump, and the US ;) The EU is slow, and we still don’t give enough to Ukraine, but we are way better than the US admin. Anyway, don't stop!I do enjoy your butthurt rants every time. Like a crybaby ;)
bibliophile696.bsky.social2Da hat Putin ja wieder ganze Arbeit geleistet.
This is a big deal. Hanning led German foreign intelligence ("C" in UK system) 1998-2005 and was state secretary in the interior ministry. The key question --> how secure are the intelligence services of a country (🇩🇪) that is becoming Europe's preeminent military power? www.ft.com/content/4c56...
Agnostic Pessimist3IIRC both a GSG9 unit as well as another police/military unit has previously been restructured/disbanded because of neonazi sympathies, so the calls are coming from insode as well as outside the house. European security, in the long term, is very much up in the air.
Moody Starbuck3AfD seems destined to take over this country in a couple of years anyway. The question of how secure will be irrelevant then because they openly are in bed with the enemy.
Raimo Kangasniemi2West German intelligence agency was famously full of former Nazis and moles. So...
Lady Jek2And the current authorities only found out because of a random unconnected search!
digitaldesert.bsky.social1Not totally surprised by this. Back in the 1980s it was commonly believed that West Germany’s BND was a leaky sieve infested with KGB and Stasi plants.
Jørn Tychsen1Its a good question but... a counterquestion is: what are the alternatives? And thinking of the UK, what if allies in some ways turns hostile like it happened in the Brexit process with the EU? Who to trust? And did Putin already win by sowing distrust in Europe?
Absolutely insane story about the arrest of August Hanning, former head of German intelligence agency BND Added gimmick is that investigators only found out because Hanning is accused of involvement in another absolutely insane story of a German millionaire trying to abduct her own children
Marcel Dirsus33I've long been saying it's a huge advantage for us that barely anyone abroad speaks German. If even half of Deutschland's insanity escaped German/Swiss/Austrian containment, all our remaining soft power would vanish in an instant
Paul Guinnessy4If you wrote a film script about this, it would be classed as too fantastical.
Germany’s former foreign intelligence chief August Hanning has been arrested on suspicion of treason in what prosecutors believe could be the biggest national security breach since the Cold War. 16 years of it together with a serving BND officer, “Manfred D” www.ft.com/content/4c56...
Lysander1Amazing how everyone has forgotten Jan Marsalek and the Austrian FPÖ / BVT scandal just a few years ago which was arguably much worse than this, and still unresolved.
kdw1maybe not the moment to give German intelligence services sweeping new powers?
Fionna O’Leary1Thread on it here, but the FT report says 16 years of leaks…not just “at least” since 2022 Yes he did leak intelligence provided by other “friendly” intelligence agencies to foreign powers. Which ones? Apparently not Russia. bsky.app/profile/marc...
