Wired for War: The German spymaster caught in Mossad’s web

August Hanning is accused of working with a foreign intelligence agency, and all the evidence points one way It took a bungled kidnapping for Germany’s former spymaster to be charged with espionage and treason, but August Hanning’s ties to Israeli spies and criminals should have set alarm bells ringing in Berlin long ago. Hanning, who led Germany’s Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) from 1998 to 2005, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with espionage, the disclosure of state secrets, and treason. Prosecutors have alleged that Hanning bought state secrets from his former BND aide – identified as ‘Manfred D’, who remained in the agency after Hanning’s departure and served several of his successors. They claim Hanning acquired nearly 2,000 BND documents between 2010 and 2022, which he then leveraged in his work as a private security consultant at-large to the rich and powerful.Hanning, part of the woodwork on the security conference circuit, used this material to prepare a report for an employee of a foreign intelligence service, and maintained “close contact with a representative of another foreign intelligence service,” to whom he passed information obtained by Manfred D “for several ye...