The astonishing fall of a German spymaster

Not even John le Carré could have dreamt up a story like the one swirling around his former friend August Hanning. The spy novelist met Hanning regularly during his tenure, from 1998-2005, as head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND).In his memoir, Le Carré described the gaunt BND head as “courtesy itself”, yet their friendship fell apart after modern Germany’s greatest-ever intelligence failure: the 9/11 plot hatched in Hamburg under the clueless noses of German spy chiefs.Hanning’s subsequent passivity during Washington’s so-called “war on terror”, including the detention and torture of an innocent German citizen, was, Le Carré later told him, a “moral failure of the highest order”.Had he not died in 2020, the novelist might have revised that view over the charges Hanning faces now.READ MOREA police convoy arrives at the German federal supreme court in Karlsruhe on Wednesday in advance of a hearing concerning former foreign intelligence service chief August Hanning. Photograph: Thomas Kienzle/AFP via Getty Images After a dawn raid on his home on Tuesday, the 80-year-old Hanning was detained overnight and brought before a remand judge on Wednesday. He faces charges of treason, illegal spying of state secrets and espionage for a foreign power.Prosecutors say the ex-spy chief himself turned spy in retirement, buying classified information from his former BND office manager – identified only as Manfred D and reported assistant to many BND heads after Hanning – and selling the information to foreign intelligence services.Azerbaijan is reportedly top of Hanning’s client list but other buyers are likely, potentially making this Germany’s greatest espionage disaster since 1974, when a senior aide to former West German chancellor Willy Brandt was exposed as an East German spy. Just as damaging as the alleged espionage is how it emerged only by chance.[ John le Carré ‘died an Irishman’ after gaining citizenship, son saysOpens in new window ]In retirement Hanning set himself up as a security consultant and built up an eclectic client list, from Baltic banks to Russian oligarchs, that raised eyebrows – and protest – in Berlin.Hanning’s most unusual client emerged in a high-profile custody court case, running since July 2025 in Hamburg, involving Christina Block, heiress to the Block House steak restaurant fortune. Block is accused of hiring Israeli ex-secret service agents to kidnap two of her children, living with her estranged husband in Denmark, to return them to Germany. Hanning’s name was mentioned in court as the man who allegedly helped her find the agents.In light of that claim, Hamburg criminal police raided Hanning’s home a year ago. As part of their search, they reportedly found a hard drive containing 2,000 classified documents, including eyes-only BND reports for the chancellor.Alarmed at what they saw, and determined to outfox the ex-spy chief, a Hamburg security services officer posed as a disgruntled former police man and applied for a job with Hanning’s consultancy. Once inside, the spy reportedly gained full access to Hanning’s information trove, client list and more. It was on the basis of this information that police raided Hanning’s home on Tuesday.August Hanning in his office when he was head of Germany's foreign intelligence service (BND). Photograph: Melde Bildagentur\ullstein bild via Getty Images For Germany, though, the worst may be yet to come. For decades, Hanning’s civil servant career was clouded by speculation about his loyalties, with persistent whispers of too-close-for-comfort ties to Israel and Russia. The latter date back to his days in West Germany’s permanent representation in East Berlin, where he was responsible for the political prisoner release programme.As BND head during the 9/ 11 attacks, his ties to the US brought him considerable blowback. As part of the aftermath, US special forces abducted Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen and German resident. They accused him of ties to the 9/11 plot and he was tortured during a year in the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. In 2002, when US authorities concluded Kurnaz was innocent, they offered to return him to Germany. Hanning protested and Kurnaz was kept at Guantánamo Bay for another five years.Hanning’s notoriety grew in 2002 after he passed on to the CIA what he called “plausible and convincing” evidence, from an Iraqi asylum seeker in Germany, that he had worked on mobile plants in his homeland producing chemical and biological weapons. Weeks later the claims, which Hanning told the CIA “couldn’t be confirmed”, made it into US president George W Bush’s state of the union address.Curveball was later revealed to be a fantasist who, in the opinion of spy thriller writer Frederick Forsyth, was responsible for the “biggest fiasco in the history of secret intelligence.”[ How the sexual problems of a KGB double agent may have stopped the cold war from going nuclearOpens in new window ]Unless, that is, Hanning proves to be an even greater fiasco. The latest BND scandal is just the most recent test of its partner agencies’ patience in recent years. The last scandal from 2022, the subject of an ongoing trial, involves claims a senior BND agent passed high-level security secrets to the Kremlin. Furious BND partner agencies demanded to know then whether any information they had provided the Germans – on trust that it would be safe – was part of those alleged leaks to Russia. It is likely that BND chief Martin Jäger is fielding similar calls today. Hours before Hanning’s arrest, in a public parliamentary hearing, Jäger warned of the growing threat from Russia and demanded an upgrade to his agency’s finances and competences to match those other western intelligence services.Former BND president August Hanning at a Bundestag hearing in 2008. Photograph: Carsten Koall/Getty Images “We are serious,” he said, “about being Germany’s first line of defence.A day later, Germany’s supposed first line of defence was revealed to have been breached – allegedly from the inside.