August Hanning is accused of illegally receiving classified information during his time in office and after vacating his post, which were improperly used for his personal consultancy work.
A former head of Germany ‘s foreign intelligence service was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion that he had passed state secrets to a foreign intelligence service, the federal prosecutor’s office said.
August Hanning, who led the Federal Intelligence Service, known by its German acronym BND, from 1998 to 2005, is “strongly suspected of treasonous espionage, spying out state secrets, attempted treason, and espionage,” the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Hanning, 80, 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 has been charged with aiding and abetting attempted treason and treasonous espionage.
“In one instance, there is suspicion that Mr. Hanning used classified information to prepare an analysis for an employee of a foreign intelligence service,” Ines Peterson, a spokesperson for the federal prosecutor’s office, told German media outlets.
“In another instance, he is alleged to have passed on information following an extensive exchange — also with an employee of another intelligence service.”
Neither Peterson nor the earlier statement by the prosecutor’s office revealed who exactly the two men were suspected of spying for or which foreign intelligence services they provided with classified information. Premises belonging to both men were searched late on Tuesday.
The prosecutor’s office said Manfred D. worked as Hanning’s chief of staff and later served as chief of staff for several subsequent BND presidents from 2012 until 2026. “In his role, he had access to confidential information,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Both suspects are believed to have agreed in 2010 to have Manfred D. continuously transmit valuable intelligence from the BND to Hanning in exchange for payment, the statement said.
“The current findings suggest that, over the years, Manfred D. provided Hanning with approximately 2,000 documents, many of which contained classified information to be used exclusively by the federal intelligence service for internal purposes, particularly for executive intelligence briefings,” the statement said.
Hanning used the information in private consulting work and Manfred D., who in line with German privacy rules cannot be identified by his full name, provided Hanning with classified information until June 2022, Peterson said.
Hanning came under scrutiny in a separate investigation into the abduction of Hamburg businesswoman Christina Block’s children from her ex-husband in Denmark in January 2024 in a lengthy custody battle. The investigation into that case led to Tuesday’s arrests.
The current proceedings stem from evidence found during a search of Hanning’s residence in connection with that case, the federal prosecutor’s office stated.
Hanning and a retired official from the Hamburg State Criminal Police Office are suspected of having accepted a contract from the businesswoman in 2022 to abduct her children while serving as executives of a security firm, the public prosecutor’s office announced in the fall of 2025
The Blocks are a prominent Hamburg family best known for their popular national steakhouse chain ‘Block House’. The custody trial has received a lot of attention in the country, with German tabloids offering heavy coverage from the court.
German opposition lawmaker Konstantin von Notz expressed shock about the allegations against Hanning and called for a quick investigation.
“This is a hard-hitting and deeply troubling story,” said von Notz, a member of the Greens party and also the German parliament committee overseeing the intelligence services.
“We expect a swift and thorough investigation into the egregious allegations levelled against former BND chief Hanning,” he said.
Van Notz also called on the German state to bar former top executives and those with top level security clearances from engaging in private consultancy work after vacating office, a matter he classified of national security interest.
Source: www.euronews.com
