There is (another) case of Russian espionage in Germany
In Germany, an armed forces captain suspected of spying for Russia has been arrested. All the details
A German who works for the Bundeswehr, who is suspected of spying for Russia , was arrested in Koblenz on 9 August following an investigation by the Federal Office for Military Counterintelligence, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BkA ) and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THOMAS H.
The suspect's name is Captain Thomas H. of the Bundeswehr who allegedly worked for the Russians by sending an email in May 2023, an email sent to both the Russian consulate general and the embassy in Berlin.
The information he gave the Russians is certainly of great interest since his area of expertise was that of electronic warfare. Specifically, he was in charge of the IT department and military equipment management.
The reason for the betrayal would be determined by the fact that his work was not satisfactory and that he felt undervalued compared to his potential.
Furthermore, according to information from the Tagesspiegel periodical, the captain had already been scrutinized by the German security services because he had openly shown sympathy for the far-right party Alternative for Germany and had also openly shown sympathy for Russia.
THIS IS NOT AN ISOLATED CASE
It is certainly not the first time that episodes of this kind have occurred: last year a member of the German secret service was arrested precisely on charges of having provided classified information to the Russians. Indeed, on October 18 the director of the German information security agency was fired for his very ambiguous positions on the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Let us also not forget that in the spring of 2022 Germany had expelled around 40 Russian diplomats because they would have represented a security threat.
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE GERMAN SECRET SERVICE?
But why – it is legitimate to ask – are there so many cases within the German secret services?
According to the statements of two former directors of the German secret service, August Hanning and Gerhard Schindler, the German spy agency is subject to such widespread control by the political class that it does not have the necessary autonomy. More specifically, there would even be seven political and legal committees that end up viewing the work done by the German spy agency and very often, not trusting the results of the investigations carried out by the German service, openly urge the Bnd officials to do reliance on collaboration with allied services. The legitimate suspicion then arises that the arrests made, rather than being the result of German counter-espionage, were actually the result of close collaboration with the allied secret services.
Finally, two concluding considerations: during the Cold War – as amply testified by the Italian historian Falanga but also by the memoirs of Marcus Wolff – the Western secret service was easily prey to the espionage of the Stasi; secondly, the political class's obsession with continuous and capillary control of the espionage activity against the Bnd is certainly also the consequence of the legacy of Nazi totalitarianism, i.e. of the concern that the German secret service could become a state inside the state.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/germania-spionaggio-russia-bundeswehr/ on Wed, 16 Aug 2023 06:06:45 +0000.