German police have arrested August Hanning, the 80-year-old former head of Germany's foreign intelligence service, on suspicion that he passed classified information to Chinese intelligence, according to reports by the news magazine Der Spiegel and other German media. Hanning was detained at his home on Tuesday. He is suspected of espionage, obtaining state secrets and treason. A former colleague at the service was arrested the same day.
Hanning led the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency, from 1998 to 2005 and afterwards worked as a private consultant. According to the reports, investigators are examining the contacts he kept after retirement with Chinese intelligence services. Those contacts reportedly include a Chinese general and businessman, Wang Jianzheng, who is regarded in China as an expert on Germany and worked in East Berlin from 1987 to 1990. Hanning reportedly met him in China in 2017, and the two men have since been seen together and are said to have friendly and business ties.
The case allegedly came to light by chance. Authorities searched Hanning's home in connection with a separate kidnapping case, in which he may have been involved, although he denies this. During the search, officers reportedly found highly sensitive and recent BND documents that he should never have possessed.
Investigators suspect that around five years after leaving office, Hanning made an arrangement with his former chief of staff, identified only as Manfred D., who was still working for the BND in a senior post. In return for money, Manfred D. is said to have kept supplying confidential documents over several years, including after Hanning's retirement. Hanning is then suspected of having passed the information, in 2022, to a foreign intelligence service, which reports identify as Chinese. Manfred D. retired from the BND this year and has also been arrested.
Der Spiegel adds that the BND had formally approved the official's side work for Hanning. The magazine calls it unlikely, however, that handing over secrets could be legally covered by such a secondary job, pointing to the German federal civil service law, which imposes a duty of confidentiality on public servants.
The case matters because it concerns possible leaks from the very top of a Western intelligence service, and because it involves China, whose intelligence activities in Europe have drawn growing concern. The reports are based on investigators' findings as relayed by media; the suspects have not been convicted, and Hanning denies involvement in the kidnapping case.