Germany Jails Its Former Spy Chief August Hanning on Treason Charges in a Cold War-Scale Espionage Scandal

August Hanning, 80, who ran Germany's BND from 1998 to 2005, was ordered held in pretrial detention on suspicion of passing state secrets to a foreign intelligence service - a case analysts call the country's biggest espionage scandal since the Cold War.

A German judge has ordered the country's former spy chief held in pretrial detention on suspicion of treason and espionage, capping a week in which the arrest of a onetime intelligence titan sent shockwaves through Berlin and its allied spy services.

August Hanning, 80, was arrested at his home in the town of Nordwalde on Tuesday. He led the Bundesnachrichtendienst — the BND, Germany's foreign intelligence service — from 1998 to 2005. His former office head, identified only as Manfred D. under German privacy rules, was arrested the same day and is already in pretrial detention. On Wednesday a judge issued a formal arrest warrant ordering Hanning jailed pending trial.

Federal prosecutors accuse Hanning of treasonous espionage, spying out state secrets and attempted treason. Investigators allege he bought classified documents from a former colleague and used them to advise a foreign intelligence service. In a second instance, they say, he passed on information after an extensive exchange with an employee of another intelligence agency. The prosecutor's office said it has not yet been possible to determine whether one of the reports reached its intended recipient, and it has not publicly named the service involved.

Reporting has pointed to Azerbaijan's foreign intelligence service as one possible recipient. Azerbaijan's media and broadcasting council denied any connection to Hanning, calling the claim a disinformation operation aimed at damaging ties with Germany.

Analysts describe the case as potentially Germany's biggest espionage scandal since the end of the Cold War, evoking the 1974 Guillaume affair that brought down Chancellor Willy Brandt. Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government said it takes the allegations "extremely seriously," and Marc Henrichmann, who chairs parliament's intelligence oversight committee, said he was "fairly flabbergasted" while stressing that much remains unknown. "We need to restore broken trust" in the BND, he told Deutschlandfunk.

The arrest lands as Berlin moves to toughen the BND and its domestic counterpart, the BfV, against sabotage and hacking threats from Russia and Iran. It has also revived calls to bar retired officials who hold security clearances from taking lucrative consulting work — a second career Hanning built through his own advisory firm. A former director who once branded Edward Snowden an "internal offender," he remained a fixture in German security debates long after leaving office.

Sources: The Guardian, NPR, France 24