Germany's federal prosecutor arrested the former head of the BND foreign intelligence service on Tuesday on suspicion of espionage and attempted treason.
The big picture: Federal prosecutors said they detained August Hanning, who led the BND from December 1998 to the end of November 2005, along with a former aide identified as Manfred D.
- Hanning was arrested in the Bad Toelz-Wolfratshausen district of Bavaria and Manfred D. in the Steinfurt district of North Rhine-Westphalia, with searches also beginning in Berlin.
The backstory: Manfred D. ran Hanning's office at the BND, followed him to the interior ministry, then served as office manager for several later BND presidents from March 2012 until March 2026, which gave him access to classified material.
By the numbers: From around spring 2010 to June 2022, Manfred D. supplied Hanning with close to 2,000 documents for payment, many of them classified, according to the arrest warrants.
- The files were meant for internal BND use, including briefings for the intelligence situation meeting of senior federal officials at the chancellery.
Zoom in: Prosecutors say Hanning monetized the material through his private consulting business, once drafting an analysis for an employee of a foreign intelligence apparatus, and supplied political information to a member of another state intelligence service for years.
Between the lines: The case grew out of a September 2025 search of Hanning by Hamburg prosecutors in a separate investigation involving Christina Block. It reached the federal prosecutor in early May 2026.
Why it matters: Hanning faces charges of espionage, obtaining state secrets and attempted treason, among the gravest in German law, and both men were being brought before an investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice to decide on custody.
