Asbjørn Svarstad, Russia | Top Russian spy caught in Berlin
The comment expresses the writer’s opinions.
It is really serious when the Attorney General intervenes and takes over responsibility for an investigation. THEN it can really just be a matter of terrorism or espionage. On Thursday, the supreme prosecutor’s office made it known that it has arrested a 58-year-old man who, until Wednesday last week, was head of department in the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) – that is, the German foreign intelligence service. The person must be responsible for the collection of electronic information about Russia – with everything that it involves.
“Treason”
The news was released in the middle of the Christmas season, just as politicians and journalists were about to leave Berlin for the Christmas holidays and a few weeks of relaxation. So the case didn’t come very high on the list of important news either, after the Minister of the Interior had made a statement of disgust and a couple of other politicians said that THIS is not good for either the country or the intelligence service’s reputation among Western partners.
From the charges, it appears that the 58-year-old is suspected of “treason”, something which involves that he is no small fish. This involves handing over state secrets to an enemy – in this case information about conditions behind the scenes in the Kremlin.
Click here to subscribe to the newsletter from Norwegian debate
Serious matter
What is happening now could be the beginning of a really big upheaval. Because we are talking about an expert who has spent many working years in the BND, and in the end found himself in a position where he not only knows what Berlin receives from secret information from Moscow – but very likely has also opportunity to acquire. the identity of German spies in Russia.
It has emerged that the accused – right up until immediately before his arrest – supplied state secrets to his superiors in the Russian foreign espionage agency SVR. From the few expert comments that have come so far, it appears that he had access to all the information that the Germans shared with the Ukrainians.
If Kyiv is notified of the location of Russian airports and weapons depots, the SVR can obviously alert at the same time. Such there is an enormous damage to the Ukrainian defense struggle, but makes the matter even more embarrassing for the German service. Because it is not just own material, but also secrets from – primarily – British and American intelligence that have found their way through the hands of the Russian spy. And “friends” are often furious to learn that a close business partner had a mole’s favors in high demand for a number of years.
Asbjørn Svarstad
Asbjørn Svarstad started writing in the local newspaper Dagningen, for some years was linked to VG. From 1987 Dagbladet’s stringer in Copenhagen. Since 1996, lived permanently in Berlin and worked for various Scandinavian media. Works mostly with historical feature articles, political commentary and is an authorized guide in Sachsenhausen.
Old Nazis
The case gives associations to the «Felfe case», which was rolled out in 1961. The former officer from the SS intelligence service SD had already been hired as an agent for the KGB, when in 1953 he managed to be employed in the «Organisation Gehlen», which was the forerunner to BND. Heinz Felfe (1918-2008) made a fast career, and ended up as head of the department that ran counter-espionage against the Soviet Union. Over the course of a year, he tipped off the Soviet leaders about all German hunts for possible agents – but also obtained the names of many Western spies in the GDR and the rest of the Eastern Bloc. Those who were exposed and arrested faced either a death sentence or years behind bars.
Eyes closed
When the case came up, however, the German media were most concerned with the fact that both Felfe and two of his BND colleagues had had SS careers before 1945, but despite suspicions of participation in war crimes had never been investigated afterwards. Whether the BND had become a hiding place for old Nazi criminals – and was it the case that BND chief Reinhard Gehlen – who himself was a former Hitler general – had completely proven to have turned a blind eye to the grotesque criminal record of many a former SS officer?
At the time, those in charge messed around until the booze stood, but could not talk themselves out of the fact that Felfe and his co-conspirators had in practice been the KGB’s eyes and ears – and that Moscow was well informed about everything that was going on inside the BND.
Read more comments from Asbjørn Svarstad
Hunting for moles
In our day, we know that a number of ex-Nazis with terrible things on their records made up around 200 of the BND’s total of 2450 permanent employees. These were often equipped with false identities, and protected by the employer if other authorities tried to search for them. The Cold War was raging at the time, and many post-war Germans believed that experienced communist hunters had to be put to work with what they had learned in the Gestapo: Namely hunting communists. THIS was considered far more important than tracking down and prosecuting people who had mass murder on their conscience.
The problem that was then overlooked was that every single one of them who had something to hide was a possible blackmail target. And both the East Germans and the Soviets had a good overview of SS criminals who walked freely around – and made careers – in West Germany.
The revelation of Felfe and his aides triggered a frantic hunt for other Kremlin spies – not just in the BND, but all over the West German state apparatus. Many were found, but after the fall of the Wall and the opening of the Stasi archives, it became clear that many more managed to fly under the radar.
More?
After 30 years without a Wall through Europe, it has certainly also become easier in the Bundesnachrichtendienst to get through the security check and what was the case before. I’m guessing that the hunt for them is already in full swing, and that any and all of the German espionage chiefs these days have to put up with being put in short order – by people looking for traitors in their own ranks.
The television station ARD reports that at least 100 accredited “diplomats” at the Russian embassy in Berlin and at the consulates around the country work full-time on espionage missions. There is now great tension in relation to how many of them will be deported in the coming days.
BND president Bruno Kahl does not want to comment specifically on the case, apart from stating that it is large – and that it immediately triggered an “extensive internal investigation”: “When it comes to Russia, we are dealing with an actor where we must count on both unscrupulousness and a willingness to use violence”, he says.