In 2016, it employed around 6,500 people; 10% of them are military personnel who are formally employed by the Office for Military Sciences. As Germany's only overseas intelligence service, the BND gathers both military and civil intelligence. Burwitz died in Munich last month at age 88. The BND agency declassified the documents on Gudrun Burwitz-Himmler at the Bild newspaper’s request. The BND had collected intelligence from an informant known as Rafid al-Janabi alias CURVEBALL, who claimed Iraq would be in possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction, apart from torturing and killing over 1,000 dissidents each year, for over 20 years. [15], A further laudable success involved the BND's activity during the Czech crisis in 1968; by then, the agency was led by the second president, Gerhard Wessel. MSS facilities in Xiyuan, Beijing. [24], Reinhard Gehlen's memoirs, The Service, The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen (English title), were published in 1977, (World Publishers, New York). [14] At 23:11 on 20 August 1968, BND radar operators first observed abnormal activity over Czech airspace. Tue 18 Sep 2018 13.51 EDT. : Geheimdienstkrieg in Deutschland. Among them were Adolf Eichmann’s deputy Alois Brunner, who would go on to die of old age despite having sent more than 100,000 Jews to ghettos or internment camps, and ex-SS major Emil Augsburg. [27], In 1986, the BND deciphered the report of the Libyan Embassy in East Berlin regarding the "successful" implementation of the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing. Unsung analysts at Pullach, with their contacts in the East, figuratively functioned as flies on the wall in ministries and military conferences. [43][44], According to reporting in Der Standard and profil, the BND engaged in espionage in Austria between 1999 and 2006, spying on targets including the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the Austria Press Agency, embassies, and Austrian banks and government ministries. List of intelligence agencies of Germany: Besides that there are several other military and civilian agencies in Germany which do not have the status of an intelligence service, but have certain responsibilities similar to those of intelligence services or include close cooperation with German intelligence services: This espionage-related article is a stub. Germany's BfV spy agency conducted a two-year review of the far-right Alternative for Germany party. Burwitz worked at the BND when it was led by Reinhard Gehlen, a former Nazi military intelligence commander who went on to run West Germany's spy agency until 1968. Huawei Isn't Trustworthy 5G Partner, German Spy Agency Says By . Untersuchungsausschusses nach Artikel 44 des Grundgesetzes", "Tiitinen says he has no recollection of names on Stasi list", "Supo Determined to Keep Tiitinen List Classified", "Kriegslüge: BND bezahlte irakischen Betrüger", "Ex-spy chief says BND 'misused' for Iraq War", "The Real Story of 'Curveball': How German Intelligence Helped Justify the US Invasion of Iraq", "Mr. Hezbollah: German Mediates Between Israel and the Shiite Militants", Three German Spies Await Release At Kosovo Airport, German spy affair might have been revenge, "BND Kosovo intelligence report, 22 Feb 2005", "Austria calls on Germany to clarify spying allegations", "Spiraling Spying: Suspected Double Agent Further Strains German-US Ties", "PJ Crowley: US-German relations have 'Groundhog Day, "Wikileaks releases 2,420 documents from German government NSA inquiry", BND stores 220 million telephone data – every day, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/09/world/europe/germany-intelligence-service-headquarters-berlin-bnd.html, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/08/worlds-biggest-intelligence-headquarters-opens-berlin-germany-bnd, Dirección Nacional de Inteligencia Criminal, Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Federal_Intelligence_Service&oldid=1010879840, Interlanguage link template forcing interwiki links, Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from January 2014, Articles with disputed statements from May 2015, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2015, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from May 2015, Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia, Articles with German-language sources (de), Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with multiple identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Ronny Heidenreich, et al. [3] Both Russia and the Middle East remain important focuses of the BND's activities, in addition to violent non-state actors. As a higher federal authority, we are tasked by the Federal Government. [24] The New York Times News Service obituary lauded the BND's many successes under Wessel but noted that there had been "a number of incidents of East Germans infiltrating the West German government, particularly intelligence agencies, on Gen. Wessel's watch".[26]. China is using fake LinkedIn profiles to gather information on German officials and politicians, the German intelligence agency (BfV) has said. After the war Gehlen worked with the U.S. occupation forces in West Germany. A veteran agent remarked at the time that the BND pond then contained some sardines, though a few years earlier the pond had been alive with sharks. [45] The government of Austria has called on Germany to clarify the allegations.[45]. At the official opening in February 2019, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, made this statement: "In an often very confusing world, now, more urgently than ever, Germany needs a strong and efficient foreign intelligence service". However, the agency was reluctant to report communist initiatives and had no knowledge of the scope and timing because of conflicting inputs. The German Intelligence Agency (BND) has relocated to its massive new base in the capital after decades in provincial Pullach. The agency's second President, Gerhard Wessel, retired in 1978. As a result of the premature cancellation, al-Janabi filed a lawsuit at the Munich labour court and won the case. "Operating until 1956, when it was superseded by the BND, the Gehlen Organisation was allowed to employ at least 100 former Gestapo or SS officers. The head of the North Rhine-Westphalian domestic spy agency, Burkhard Freier, has warned of "terrorist tendencies" in Corona protests. [7] The American National Security Archive states that "he employed numerous former Nazis and known war criminals". The BND offered a fair and reliable amount of intelligence on Soviet and Soviet-bloc forces in Eastern Europe, regarding the elaboration of a NATO warning system against any Soviet operations against NATO territory, in close cooperation with the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces). [50] The agency's total number of employees, in Germany and other countries, was approximately 6,500.[51]. The CIA however ignored those warnings and presented the information as facts. Laboratory tests had shown no evidence of the BND agents' involvement. [18] Others were not uncovered during Gehlen's term in office. Crypto AG produced and sold radio, Ethernet, STM, GSM, phone and fax encryption systems world wide. Helms' information came from the BND. [dubious – discuss] CIA analysts on the other hand did not support the notion of "fraternal assistance" by the satellite states of Moscow; and US ambassador to the Soviet Union, Llewellyn Thompson, quite irritated, called the secret BND report he was given "a German fabrication". It seems certain that the metadata only come from "foreign dialed traffic," that is, from telephone conversations and text messages that are held and sent via mobile phones and satellites. The Bundesnachrichtendienst is the foreign intelligence service of the Federal Republic of Germany, compiling political, economic and military foreign intelligence. Spiegel said Germany's BND spy agency had asked members of the U.S.-led "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance for evidence to support the accusation. This deal though fell through due to Hagelin, who was already cooperating with the CIA, refusing. Then its spies sat back and listened", "Journalisten bespitzeln war wohl Chefsache", "Vom Parlamentarischen Kontrollgremium des Deutschen Bundestages beauftragter Sachverständiger – Gutachten – Für die Veröffentlichung bestimmte Fassung", "Kanzleramt verbietet BND Anwerbung von Journalisten Nach Skandal um Bespitzelung", "Drucksache 16/13400 – Beschlussempfehlung und Bericht des 1. Annual Budget: $3 … [41] See 2008 Liechtenstein tax affair. So far (as of April 2020) eleven volumes have been published.[10]. Germany's foreign intelligence agency helped the CIA track down Osama bin Laden in Pakistan where US special forces killed the al-Qaeda leader, according to a German news report published Sunday. The new BND headquarters in Berlin, near the former Berlin Wall, was completed in 2017. [17] One mole, Heinz Felfe, was convicted of treason in 1963. Agency now able by law to monitor phones and activities of largest opposition party … According to his obituary in the Los Angeles Times in August 2002, the "former intelligence officer in Adolf Hitler’s anti-Soviet spy operations" ... "is credited with modernizing the BND by hiring academic analysts and electronics specialists". In February 2017 the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that at least 50 telephone numbers used by international journalists had been monitored by … The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign countries. German spy agency concerned about Russian penetration of Austrian government May 20, 2019 by Joseph Fitsanakis 3 Comments A day after Austria’s political system was thrown into a disarray by a covert video featuring the country’s vice chancellor and a woman posing as a Russian investor, German intelligence sources have raised fears that Russia may have penetrated the Austrian … State Offices for the Protection of the Constitution (LfV) (German: Strategic Surveillance Command (KSA) (German: Ministry for State Security (MfS, "Stasi") (in. The domestic secret service counterparts of the BND are the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, or BfV) and 16 counterparts at the state level Landesämter für Verfassungsschutz (State Offices for the Protection of the Constitution); there is also a separate military intelligence organisation, the Militärischer Abschirmdienst (MAD, Military Counterintelligence Service). The BND headquarters is located in central Berlin and is the world's largest intelligence headquarters. [21] Only slowly did the younger generation then advance to substitute new ideas for some of the bad habits caused mainly by Gehlen's semi-retired attitude and frequent holiday absences. There is close cooperation between the BND and the KSA. Prior to December 2003, there was only one Vice President. German intelligence agency to spy on far-right AfD party. It was suspected that the arrest was a revenge by Kosovo authorities for the BND report about organized crime in Kosovo which accuses Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi, as well as the former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj of far-reaching involvement in organized crime. [42] Later the "Army of the Republic of Kosovo" had accepted responsibility for the bomb attack. In 1970 the CIA and the BND bought the Swiss informations and communication security firm Crypto AG, for $5.75 million. The payments of 3,000 Euros monthly were made by a cover firm called Thiele und Friedrichs (Munich). The BND today acts as an early warning system to alert the German government to threats to German interests from abroad. The CIA at the time did not cooperate with the French. The predecessor of the BND was the German eastern military intelligence agency during World War II, the Abteilung Fremde Heere Ost or FHO Section in the General Staff, led by Wehrmacht Major General Reinhard Gehlen. People who demonstrated against the Federal Government's draconian Corona measures are in the cross hairs. The published materials had been submitted in 2015 as part of a German parliamentary inquiry into the surveillance activities of the BND and its cooperation with the US National Security Agency. For other intelligence agencies in Germany, see, CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (, Federal Intelligence Service (Switzerland), Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Bundestag committee investigating the NSA spying scandal, "Klaus Kinkel, high-profile German foreign minister after reunification, who had earlier led West Germany's intelligence agency – obituary", https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/himmler-daughter-germany-bnd-foreign-intelligence-ss-nazi-hitler-war-criminals-evaded-justice-a8422726.html, https://books.google.ca/books?id=MrONBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA288&dq=Reinhard+gehlen+nazis&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWhbb09rXkAhWKmeAKHYU4CwkQ6AEITjAF#v=onepage&q=Reinhard%20gehlen%20nazis&f=false, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/index.htm, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/03/18/cia-declassifies-its-records-on-dealings-with-ex-nazis/2fa93bad-62ee-42f2-833a-b1d04bc63079/, "The origins of the BND and "official history" in Germany", https://books.google.ca/books?id=GnkBYN8ipYcC&pg=PA405&dq=soviet+moles+in+the+BND&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_5-mL_LrkAhWxmOAKHYZCCPkQ6AEIQDAD#v=onepage&q=soviet%20moles%20in%20the%20BND&f=false, https://books.google.ca/books?id=k-O-DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA153&dq=erwin+tiebel+convicted&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjLyMOe87rkAhUGhuAKHRwsBI4Q6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=erwin%20tiebel%20convicted&f=false, https://books.google.ca/books?id=X7i_I_np11IC&pg=PA797&dq=BND+moles++Soviet&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjA6bnQhLvkAhUEhOAKHTN_CvgQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=BND%20moles%20%20Soviet&f=false, https://books.google.ca/books?id=I84rBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA343&dq=Gehlen+Org+eyes+and+ears+of+the+CIA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj5kcy4-rrkAhVLJt8KHc0KCxUQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=Gehlen%20Org%20eyes%20and%20ears%20of%20the%20CIA&f=false, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-aug-03-me-passings3-story.html, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol16no3/html/v16i3a06p_0001.htm, https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2002-08-05-0208050063-story.html, "The CIA secretly bought a company that sold encryption devices across the world. Almost every sphere of eastern life was known to the BND.[11]. [5], Several publications have criticized Gehlen and his organizations for hiring ex-Nazis. In 1969, after negotiations with the US, the BND approached Hagelin anew and bought the company together with the US intelligence service. [13] Several informants in East Berlin reported in June and July 1961 of street closures, clearing of fields, accumulation of building materials and police and army deployments in specific parts of the eastern sector, as well as other measures that BND determined could lead to a division of the city. It was the successor to the earlier Gehlen Organization, often known simply as "The Organization" or "The Org", a West German intelligence organization affiliated with the CIA whose existence had not been officially acknowledged. They knew the carrying capacity of every bridge, the bed count of every hospital, the length of every airfield, the width and level of maintenance of the roads that Soviet armor and infantry divisions would have to traverse in a potential attack on the West. The BND and the CIA rigged the company’s devices so they could easily decipher the codes that countries used to send encrypted messages. The BND's military work "had been outstanding",[14] and in certain sectors of the intelligence field the BND still showed brilliance: in Latin America and in the Middle East it was regarded[by whom?] German spy agency’s mass surveillance of global communications and internet traffic is unconstitutional, the country’s top court ruled on Tuesday. german spy agency Russia's opposition leader Alexei Navalny accuses Vladimir Putin of being behind poisoning Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is recovering in Germany after being poisoned in Russia by a nerve agent, accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being behind the attack in comments released Thursday. Published: September 11, 2020, 10:13 am. Office/Center for Intelligence of the Federal Armed Forces (ANBw/ZNBw) (German: This page was last edited on 3 March 2021, at 03:18. Abdication of responsibility by Reinhard Gehlen was the malignancy; cronyism remained pervasive, even nepotism (at one time Gehlen had 16 members of his extended family on the BND payroll). The latter recruits were later controversial because the SS and its associated groups were notoriously the perpetrators of many Nazi atrocities during the war. The Israelis will strike and their object will be to end the war in their favor with extreme rapidity." Germany's spy agency is working on a 300 million euro project that would extend its digital espionage program and allow the monitoring of Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks in real-time, according to documents obtained by local media. The BND's reach encompassed the highest political and military levels of the GDR regime. The German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) has been trying to hamper its own oversight, the country’s data protection commissioner said in a leaked report, which also unveiled excessive and systematic violations of citizens’ rights by the spy agency. Jess Smee in Berlin. [37], Several former senior BND officials publicly stated that the agency had repeatedly warned the CIA not to take Curveball's information as fact. The report is absolutely reliable." The following persons have held this office since 1956: The president of the BND is a federal Beamter paid according to BBesO order B, B9,[53] which is in payment the equivalent of a lieutenant general. • Prussian Secret Police (German: Preußische Geheimpolizei): Precursor of the Gestapo between 1851 and 1933. Established In: 1983. However, the Germans were released only 10 days after they were arrested. Its main purpose was to collect information on the Red Army. [22] His successor, Bundeswehr Brigadier General Gerhard Wessel, immediately called for a program of modernization and streamlining. [34], In 1990, BND gave the Finnish Security Intelligence Service the so-called Tiitinen list—which supposedly contains names of Finns who were believed to have links to Stasi. The BND mediated the German Finance Ministry's $7.3 million acquisition of a CD from a former employee of the LGT Group – a Liechtenstein bank owned by the country's ruling family. Warsaw Pact forces had moved as forecast. Berlin (AFP) - Germany's foreign intelligence agency helped the CIA track down Osama bin Laden in Pakistan where US special forces killed the al-Qaeda leader, according to a German news report published Sunday. The Federal Intelligence Service (German: Bundesnachrichtendienst; German pronunciation: [ˌbʊndəsˈnaːχʁɪçtnˌdiːnst], BND) is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinate to the Chancellor's Office. [14], "This negative view of BND was certainly not justified during … [1967 and] 1968." German spy agency says ISIS sending fighters disguised as refugees. The President of the BND has three deputies: one Vice President, one Vice President for Military Affairs (Since December 2003), and one Vice President for Central Functions and Modernization (Possibly Since 2013). One high point of BND intelligence work culminated in its early June 1967 forecast – almost to the hour[dubious – discuss] – of the outbreak of the Six-Day War in the Middle East on 5 June 1967. The list was classified and locked in a safe after the Director of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service, Seppo Tiitinen, and the President of Finland, Mauno Koivisto, determined that it was based on vague hints instead of hard evidence. "[2] From the early days of the Cold War the Gehlen Organization and later the BND had an intimate cooperation with the CIA, and often was the western intelligence community's only eyes and ears on the ground in the eastern bloc. [4] The organization worked at first almost exclusively for the CIA, which contributed funding, equipment, cars, gasoline and other materials. Its clients included Iran, Libya, military juntas in Latin America, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican. This data is supposedly collected across the world, but the exact locations remains unclear to this date. Critchfield added that Gehlen hired former Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service of the Reichsführer-SS) men "reluctantly, under pressure from German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to deal with 'the avalanche of subversion hitting them from East Germany'"[9], From 2011 to 2018, an independent commission of historians studied the history of the BND in the era of Reinhard Gehlen. In 1946 he set up an intelligence agency informally known as the Gehlen Organization or simply "The Org" and recruited some of his former co-workers. At the time, some 4,000 employees were expected to work from this location, moving here from the former headquarters in Pullach, a suburb of Munich. Rafid was employed before and after the 2003 incident which ultimately led to the invasion of Iraq. [47] In December 2016, WikiLeaks published 2,420 documents from the BND and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). During the first years of oversight by the State Secretary in the federal chancellery of Konrad Adenauer of the operation in Pullach, Munich District, Bavaria, the BND continued the ways of its forebear, the Gehlen Organization. The East German regime, however, fought back. The kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich was a watershed event for the BND, following early warnings from other countries, because it led the agency to build counter-terrorism capabilities. [28], In 2005, a public scandal erupted (dubbed the Journalistenskandal, journalists scandal) over revelations that the BND had placed a number of German journalists under surveillance since the-mid 1990s, in an attempt to discover the source of information leaks from the BND regarding the activities of the service in connection with the war in Iraq and the "war against terror". Last month at age 88 3,000 Euros monthly were made by a cover firm called Thiele und Friedrichs ( )... Divided into the following directorates: the head of the question Mr. President Gerhard... The Bundestag constituted an investigative committee ( `` Parlamentarischer Untersuchungsausschuss '' ) to investigate the.... 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Ethernet, STM, GSM, phone and fax encryption systems world wide then asked helms for the most,! [ 45 ] the Bundestag constituted an investigative committee ( `` Parlamentarischer Untersuchungsausschuss '' to! Yesterday that everything was normal. the Bild newspaper ’ s request tendencies '' in protests! Has relocated to its massive new base in the last years of Gehlen! Groups were notoriously the perpetrators of many Nazi atrocities during the war Israelis will strike and their object will to...