For twelve years, according to Germany’s federal prosecutors, the papers written to prepare the leadership of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) for the regular intelligence meeting at the Chancellery had an extra reader. He had run the agency himself, from December 1998 to November 2005.
On Tuesday, Oct. 6, officers of the Federal Criminal Police Office arrested August Hanning, 80, the former BND president, on warrants issued by an investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice. They also arrested Manfred D., his office manager at the BND, whom the Federal Prosecutor General identifies only by first name and initial. Searches began the same day at the two men’s premises in North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria and Berlin, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Prosecutors say there is strong suspicion that Hanning committed treasonous espionage, spying out state secrets, attempted treason and working as a foreign intelligence agent. Manfred D. is accused of aiding the attempted treason and the treasonous espionage. Both are presumed innocent. Hanning’s lawyers had not responded to requests for comment from taz and ORF, and ORF said Manfred D. could not be reached.
The German news agency dpa called the case unprecedented in the BND’s history.
Nearly 2,000 documents from the president’s office
The prosecutors’ account, as set out in the arrest warrants, runs like this. Manfred D. ran Hanning’s office during his years as BND president. When Hanning moved to the Interior Ministry as state secretary in December 2005, Manfred D. went with him as a seconded assistant and stayed until Hanning left in November 2009. Hanning then went into private work as a security consultant.
Probably in spring 2010, prosecutors say, the two men agreed that Manfred D. would keep supplying Hanning with valuable BND intelligence in exchange for payment, so that Hanning could put it to profitable use in his consulting business. From March 2012 to March 2026, Manfred D. was back at the BND as office manager to several of Hanning’s successors, a post with access to large amounts of classified material.
Over the years, according to the investigation so far, he passed Hanning nearly 2,000 documents, many of them classified. The material was meant only for the BND’s internal use. Prosecutors say it served to brief and prepare the agency’s leadership, especially for the intelligence situation meeting, a regular gathering of senior officials from federal ministries and security agencies at the Chancellery. So far, prosecutors date the last handoffs to June 2022. Manfred D. stayed in the post for almost four more years.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the documents included sensitive assessments, classified material from foreign partner services and apparently papers on Iran’s nuclear program and the Russian military, according to ORF and EUobserver, which cited the paper’s reporting with broadcasters WDR and NDR. The prosecutor’s statement does not describe the documents’ subjects.
An analysis for a foreign service, and a contact at another
The prosecutors’ statement makes two further allegations. In one case, they say, Hanning used classified information from Manfred D. to write an analysis for an employee of a foreign intelligence and security apparatus. Investigators have not yet been able to establish whether it reached its intended reader.
Separately, Hanning was in what prosecutors call an intensive exchange with a member of another country’s intelligence service, supplying that person with political information over several years. Some of it was based on material from Manfred D., prosecutors say.
The prosecutor’s office has not said which countries’ services were involved. A spokeswoman declined to say even when asked directly, dpa reported, and taz said the office left the question open. According to WDR, NDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung, as reported by dpa and ORF, the case does not involve Russia. Taz, citing its own information, also said the service was not Russian but one regarded as hostile to Germany. Dpa reported that the people involved probably included business partners from Hanning’s consulting work, for example in Central Asia. No named official has confirmed that.
Found in a search for something else
The BND learned of a possible leak by way of a search in an unrelated criminal case, dpa reported, paraphrasing the agency’s president.
In September 2025, Hamburg prosecutors searched Hanning’s home and offices as part of their investigation of Christina Block, a Hamburg businesswoman and heir to a steakhouse fortune. Block is on trial in Hamburg, accused of hiring an Israeli security firm to abduct her two youngest children, then 13 and 10, from their father’s home in southern Denmark on New Year’s Eve 2023. She denies it. Hamburg prosecutors said in autumn 2025 that they were investigating Hanning and a retired officer of Hamburg’s state criminal police over a failed attempt to take the children in 2022, dpa and ORF reported. Through his lawyer, Hanning rejected those allegations as false. He is not a defendant in Block’s trial. Called as a witness, he invoked his right to refuse to testify, according to dpa and the legal news site LTO.
The federal prosecutors’ statement says the espionage case grew out of material found in that September 2025 search, and that the case was referred to the federal prosecutors in Karlsruhe in early May 2026. Der Spiegel reported that the BND material turned up in Hanning’s private and office premises, according to ORF.
BND President Martin Jäger, who took over the agency in September 2025, said the service had opened extensive internal investigations early and without delay once it learned of a possible leak, and that those investigations had hardened the suspicion. “For the BND and me, there are no compromises on internal security,” he said, as quoted by dpa and taz (our translation). A federal government spokesman declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation, dpa reported.
A former chief turned consultant
Hanning, a lawyer by training, coordinated the federal intelligence services from the Chancellery before Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s government named him BND president in 1998. His tenure included the “Curveball” affair, in which an Iraqi BND source’s false claims about mobile biological weapons labs became part of the U.S. case for the 2003 Iraq war. He later served as state secretary under Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.
After leaving government he took board and advisory posts, including at a Swiss consulting firm, according to dpa. His business dealings had already drawn scrutiny. The Tagesspiegel, citing Der Spiegel, and ORF, citing Bild, reported that much of his pension was garnished after he was held liable as a supervisory board member of Latvia’s bankrupt PNB Banka. Bild also reported that he had been in serious financial difficulty.
The penalties prosecutors are pointing to
Treason under Section 94 of the German criminal code carries at least one year in prison, and in especially serious cases five years to life. The statute’s examples of an especially serious case include abusing a position of responsibility that carries a special duty to protect state secrets. Prosecutors cite that clause in the charge against Manfred D. Attempted treason is punishable as well. Acquiring a state secret in order to betray it, the treasonous espionage count, carries one to ten years.
Reaction in Berlin
Marc Henrichmann (CDU), who chairs the Bundestag committee that oversees the intelligence services, told reporters the case “hits like a bomb,” dpa reported. He told taz that handling secret information is a matter of national security and “not a trivial offense.” Konstantin von Notz, a Green member of the same committee, called the allegations monstrous and said he had long pushed to restrict the private business of former intelligence chiefs once they leave office, according to dpa and ORF.
The BND has been here before, though never at this level. In 2014 a BND employee, Markus R., was exposed as a CIA source and was later sentenced to eight years. A former BND unit head, Carsten L., was arrested in late 2022 on suspicion of passing internal documents to Russia’s FSB, and his trial is still under way, dpa and taz reported.
What’s next: Prosecutors said both men would be brought before the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice on Tuesday and Wednesday, who would read them the arrest warrants and decide on pretrial detention. Dpa reported Tuesday afternoon, citing the federal prosecutors, that the judge had ordered Manfred D. held. Hanning was due before the judge on Wednesday, ORF reported. The Block trial resumes in Hamburg on Oct. 13.
Primary source: Federal Prosecutor General, press release of Oct. 6, 2026 (German).
Germany Arrests Ex-Spy Chief Hanning Over 2,000 Leaked BND Files
Sources
- Federal Prosecutor General (Generalbundesanwalt), “Festnahmen wegen mutmaßlicher landesverräterischer Ausspähung…” (Oct. 6, 2026). Used for: the arrests, warrants and searches, the suspected offenses, the two men’s careers, the 2010 agreement, the documents and the intelligence situation meeting, the foreign-service allegations, the Block-search origin and the May 2026 referral, the court appearances.
- German Criminal Code, Sections 94 and 96. Used for: the penalty ranges and the especially serious case clause.
- dpa, via Tagesspiegel, “Spionageverdacht: Ex-BND-Präsident Hanning festgenommen” (Oct. 6, 2026). Used for: arrest locations, Manfred D.’s detention, the prosecutor’s refusal to name the country, the Central Asia report, Jäger’s and Henrichmann’s remarks, the government’s no-comment, earlier BND cases.
- dpa, via Tagesspiegel, “Ermittlungen im Fall Block brachten Hinweise auf Ex-BND-Chef” (Oct. 6, 2026). Used for: the Block trial, Hanning’s status in it, his lawyer’s denial, the Oct. 13 resumption.
- Tagesspiegel, “Ex-BND-Chef Hanning festgenommen: Das ist der Mann…” (Oct. 6, 2026). Used for: Hanning’s career, Curveball, the PNB Banka liability and pension report, his refusal to testify.
- taz, “Papiere aus dem Geheimdienst angekauft” (Oct. 6, 2026). Used for: arrest locations, the not-Russia report, the September 2025 search, Jäger’s and Henrichmann’s remarks, the lawyer’s non-response, the Carsten L. trial.
- ORF, “Spionageverdacht: Ex-BND-Chef Hanning festgenommen” (Oct. 6, 2026). Used for: the Süddeutsche Zeitung report on the documents’ contents, the not-Russia report, the Spiegel and Bild reports, the court schedule, von Notz’s remarks, no response from the two men.
- EUobserver, “German ex-spy chief arrested over espionage and treason allegations involving leaked BND files” (Oct. 2026). Used for: the WDR, NDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung reporting on the documents’ contents.
- Legal Tribune Online, “Block-Prozess führt zur Festnahme von Ex-BND-Chef Hanning” (Oct. 6, 2026). Used for: the September 2025 search and Hanning’s refusal to testify in the Block trial.
Filed under: Federal Intelligence Service (BND)