Germany arrests former BND president August Hanning on suspicion of attempted treason and espionage

Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office announced on Tuesday, October 6, the arrest of August Hanning, president of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) from December 1998 to November 2005, and of a former close aide. Hanning is suspected of attempted treason, of spying on and gathering state secrets, and of acting on behalf of a foreign intelligence service. The second man arrested, Manfred D., is accused of aiding and abetting.

The arrests were carried out by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in the district of Steinfurt in North Rhine-Westphalia and the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen in Bavaria, on warrants issued by the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice. Searches of premises belonging to the two suspects began at the same time there and in Berlin.

What prosecutors allege

According to the prosecutors, Manfred D. was head of Hanning’s office at the BND and followed him as an aide when Hanning served as state secretary at the Federal Interior Ministry, from December 2005 to November 2009. From March 2012 to March 2026 he again ran the office of successive presidents of the service, a post that gave him access to a large volume of classified information.

The two men are alleged to have agreed, probably in the spring of 2010, that D. would supply Hanning with BND information in return for payment, which the former president would exploit for profit in his work as a private consultant. On the evidence gathered so far, nearly 2,000 documents, many of them classified, had been handed over by June 2022. The material was intended exclusively for internal use and served to brief the service’s leadership, in particular for the regular meeting of senior officials from the ministries and the security services at the Chancellery.

The prosecutors refer to two contacts with foreign services, without naming any state. In one case, Hanning is alleged to have used classified information to draft an analysis for an official of a foreign security and intelligence apparatus; it has not so far been established whether the text reached its recipient. In addition, he is alleged to have been in close contact for years with a member of another state intelligence service, to whom he provided political information based in part on the material he was receiving. According to reporting by WDR, NDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung, the case does not concern Russia.

How the investigation began

The case arose from the findings of a search of Hanning’s home in September 2025, carried out by the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office as part of a separate case. The file was passed to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in early May 2026, and the investigation is being conducted in cooperation with the BND and the BKA.

The two suspects were to be brought on Tuesday, October 6, and Wednesday, October 7, before the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice, who is to inform them of the warrants and decide whether they are to be held in pre-trial detention. Both are presumed innocent. Lawyers for the 80-year-old Hanning had not responded to a request for comment, according to the same report.

The case has come to light shortly after the current head of the BND warned the Bundestag that Germany is at risk of a violent conflict with Russia.