August Hanning, the 80-year-old former president of Germany's foreign intelligence service, was arrested Tuesday in Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen, Bavaria, on federal prosecutor orders — charged with treasonous espionage, obtaining state secrets, attempted treason and acting as an intelligence agent for a foreign power.
Hanning led the BND from December 1998 to November 2005. Prosecutors allege that from spring 2010 through June 2022, his former chief of staff, identified as Manfred D., supplied him with roughly 2,000 documents — including classified chancellery briefings — in exchange for payment, and that Hanning used the material to prepare analyses for a foreign intelligence service. The foreign power has not been publicly named, though German media report it is not Russia.
Manfred D., who served as chief of staff to Hanning's successors from 2012 to 2026, was arrested the same morning in Steinfurt. Both men were to appear before a Federal Court of Justice judge on pre-trial detention.
The story was first broken by the Bild newspaper, and a senior security lawmaker called it among Germany's biggest intelligence scandals since the Cold War. Hanning did not respond to requests for comment, and the chancellery declined to comment.
