BERLIN (AP) — A former head of Germany 's foreign intelligence service was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion that he had passed state secrets to a foreign intelligence service, the federal prosecutor's office said.
August Hanning, who led the Federal Intelligence Service, known by its German acronym BND, from 1998 to 2005, is “strongly suspected of treasonous espionage, spying out state secrets, attempted treason, and espionage,” the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Hanning, 80, was arrested in Bad Toelz-Wolfratshausen in southern Germany. A former aide, identified as Manfred D., was also arrested Tuesday in Steinfurt in western Germany and has been charged with aiding and abetting attempted treason and treasonous espionage.
The statement did not reveal who the two men were suspected of spying for.
The premises of both men were searched Tuesday.
Former aide allegedly supplied Hanning with BND documents
The prosecutor's office said Manfred D. worked as Hanning's chief of staff and later served as chief of staff for several subsequent BND presidents from 2012 until 2026.
“In his role, he had access to confidential information,” the prosecutor's office said.
Both suspects are believed to have agreed in 2010 to have Manfred D. continuously transmit valuable intelligence from the BND to Hanning in exchange for payment, the statement said.
“The current findings suggest that, over the years, Manfred D. provided Hanning with approximately 2,000 documents, many of which contained classified information to be used exclusively by the federal intelligence service for internal purposes, particularly for executive intelligence briefings,” the statement said.
Hanning used the information in private consulting work, and on one occasion "used classified intelligence provided by Manfred D. to draft an analysis for an officer of a foreign intelligence service.”
Manfred D., who in line with German privacy rules cannot be identified by his full name, provided Hanning with classified information for several years, the statement said, but it was not immediately clear if the collaboration continued until their arrests on Tuesday.
The office did not say which country the foreign agent worked for and said “it has yet to be determined if the material reached the intended recipient.”
The statement added that “Hanning was in close contact with a representative of another foreign intelligence service, to whom he passed on political information, partially based on material provided by Manfred D., for several years.”
Hanning is suspected of involvement in a prominent child abduction case
Hanning came under scrutiny in a separate investigation into the abduction of Hamburg businesswoman Christina Block’s children from her ex-husband in Denmark in January 2024 in a custody battle that had been going on for several years.
The investigation into that case led to Tuesday's arrests.
The current proceedings stem from evidence found during a search of Hanning’s residence in connection with that case, the federal prosecutor’s office stated.
Hanning and a retired official from the Hamburg State Criminal Police Office are suspected of having accepted a contract from Block in 2022 to abduct her children while serving as executives of a security firm, the public prosecutor’s office announced in the fall of 2025, according to German news agency dpa.
The Blocks are a prominent Hamburg family best known for their popular national steakhouse chain Block House. The custody trial has received a lot of attention in the country, with German tabloids offering heavy coverage from the court.
A message to the BND for comment was not immediately returned.
German opposition lawmaker calls for a quick probe
German opposition lawmaker Konstantin von Notz expressed shock about the allegations against Hanning and called for a quick investigation.
“This is a hard-hitting and deeply troubling story," said von Notz, a member of the Greens party and also the German parliament committee overseeing the intelligence services.
"We expect a swift and thorough investigation into the egregious allegations leveled against former BND chief Hanning,” von Notz told Spiegel Online.
"We have been criticizing the dubious and wide-ranging lobbying activities of former top officials and those with the highest security clearances in the Germany for years,” he said and called for banning former officials with security clearances from engaging in private consulting work after leaving office, Spiegel Online reported.
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An earlier version of this story was corrected to describe the suspect as the former head of foreign, not domestic, intelligence.
