BERLIN -- German police on Tuesday detained the country's former head of its foreign-intelligence service on suspicion of espionage and attempted treason in one of the biggest scandals to engulf the spy agency since its creation in the mid-1950s.
August Hanning, who led the Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, from 1998 to 2005, was arrested under suspicion of illegally obtaining classified information for years and, in at least one case, passing it on to a foreign intelligence agent, Germany's General Federal Prosecutor said.
A lawyer for Hanning couldn't be immediately contacted for comment.
Police also arrested Hanning's former bureau chief, only identified as Manfred D., who allegedly passed on classified information to Hanning for more than a decade in his function as bureau chief between 2012 and 2026 for subsequent BND presidents.
Manfred D. passed almost 2,000 documents, many of them classified, to Hanning up to June 2022, the prosecutors said.
These documents were intended for the preparation of a regular meeting of senior German intelligence and security officials in the chancellery -- one of the country's highest-ranking and most closely guarded intelligence and security gatherings.
The arrest of Hanning marks the first time a former BND chief has been detained.
The agency has faced criticism for failing to predict Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The agency's then president, Bruno Kahl, now Germany's ambassador to the Vatican, was in Kyiv on the day of the invasion in 2022 and had to be exfiltrated by road.
Several BND workers, including some senior ones, were detained in recent years on suspicion of passing classified information to foreign powers, including Russia.
The arrest of Hanning is a significant setback for Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who appointed Martin Jäger, the agency's current head, with a mandate to restore its reputation. Jäger is overseeing the BND's transformation from a pure information-gathering and analysis outfit into a harder-hitting secret service with expanded powers, including the ability to strike back following cyberattacks.
The bill beefing up the powers of the BND and the BfV domestic intelligence agency is currently making its way through parliament. News of the arrest comes just one day after Jäger and the domestic and military intelligence heads faced parliament for a regular question-and-answer session.
A spokesman for the German government declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation. The prosecutor's office didn't immediately return a request for comment.
"The BND initiated extensive internal investigations at an early stage and without delay, which substantiated the suspicions," Jäger wrote in response to an email requesting comment. "For the BND and for me, there can be no compromises regarding internal security. None of my goals or priorities are being called into question by this incident."
Hanning faces possible charges of treasonous espionage, illegally obtaining state secrets, attempted treason and espionage, the prosecutor's office said. Manfred D. is suspected of aiding and abetting attempted treason and treasonous espionage.
In early 2010, after Hanning retired from public service and created his own consulting firm together with his wife, the two men agreed that Manfred D. would seek to obtain BND information and pass it on to Hanning in exchange for payment, the prosecutors said.
In one case, Hanning used classified information to prepare an analysis for a foreign intelligence worker, the prosecutors said, adding that it wasn't known whether Hanning's paper eventually reached its intended recipient.
Hanning was also in regular contact with an employee of another intelligence organization whom he provided with political information over several years that was in part compiled with the help of the documents gathered by Manfred D., the prosecutors said.
After leaving the BND, the former spy chief returned to the interior ministry, where he had worked in the 1970s. From 2005 to 2009 he worked as deputy minister under the late Wolfgang Schäuble in Chancellor Angela Merkel's first government.
After retiring from public service, Hanning remained an oft-quoted public figure, writing essays and giving numerous interviews on security issues and geopolitics.
The suspicions around his alleged spying first arose last year when Hamburg prosecutors discovered documents during a search of Hanning's office in the course of an unrelated criminal investigation and passed them on to the general prosecutor's office, which is responsible for espionage, terrorism and politically motivated crimes.
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