This concerns IntelNews article: Germany set to enact most sweeping intelligence reforms since World War II of August 13, 2026 by Joseph Fitsanakis at https://intelnews.org/2026/08/13/01-3449/
My comments are:
"After WW2 West Germany undertook painful soul searching driven by guilt about the activities and memory of the Abwehr (military-foreign intelligence) and more particularly the Gestapo and SS security services during the years of Nazi Germany.
The caused a "soft security" revisional response for decades after WW2. Some felt the intelligence and security services of West Germany and re-unified Germany (1990 on) were too defensive, toothless and publicly transparent - all reducing their operational performance. (East Germany's KGB run Stasi was clearly hard-line different).
The revised approaches outlined in the above article can be seen as redressing the "wokeness" (useful word in this context) of the post WW2 West German approaches.
Also the rising challenge of Putin's Russia (and possibly Belarus) would be driving "free" European counter-measures styled on the CIA's/US Special Forces' long established approaches - see this 6 month old video explainer at https://youtu.be/DqyhyQnL3EE?si=TscZh63xfwPwJs_G
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The fighting has caused hundreds of thousands of military casualties and tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties.
Russia would see its increasingly aggressive hybrid warfare against free Europe as just - this is given some countries aid Ukraine. Ukraine's large drones (long range slow missiles) are doing increasing damage. This is to Russia's energy infrastructure and weapons eg. $Billion aircraft on the ground and to Russian civilian areas, including Moscow.
3 comments:
So, I think there should be some context for reference:
Germany is a federation. There are 3 federal secret services and 16 state secret services. They all need some form of coordination and clear fields of responsabilites. All state services and one federal service are dedicated to internal security ("Verfassungsschutzämter" - services for the constitutions' protection); intelligence against foreign espionage, all forms of extremism and terrorism. One federal service (BND) is the external secret service and one is the military secret service (MAD). All constitution protection services are subject to relatively tight parliamentary control through parliamentary committees that act under secrecy. They don't act "kinetically", but gather information and call in e.g. SWAT (Gwrman: SEK) or GSG9 commandos in order to intervene. The same is true for the military service, the MAD.
The BND however, is a totally different matter... Officially, it is subject to parliamentary control aswell. Practically, it’s only reporting to the chancellor's office. Officially, it only collects intelligence for "external actions of unknown kind". In reality, it passes information on to KSK, KSM and allied military commando units. It even has it’s own intervention unit, which lacks a name. Only in 2022 it was revealed that this unit was kept on stand by in order to evacuate the BND director himself from Kiev at short notice... That’s how its existence became public, but nothing more.
And in general, one could just google for "Operation Rubicon" or the "Maximator"-network (a European "5-Eyes").
Some years ago, it even founded a fake-shipping company, the "Beluga Reederei" for arms exports to African countries... The BND is certainly one if the "more capable" secret services on the globe.
Hi Anonymous at 8/19/2026 6:44 AM
I see BND is not only a HumInt service but has a substantial SigInt aspect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Intelligence_Service#Signals_intelligence
"BND is responsible for the global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes with content of German interest. The department of Technische Aufklärung (TA) is the most significant unit within BND and has the highest number of employees. The department is located at the former BND HQ in Pullach, Bavaria. One of the major SIGINT stations after WW2 was Bad Aibling Station, which was operated for decades in cooperation with the National Security Agency (NSA). Furthermore, Station Gablingen, Station Husum, Station Rheinhausen, Station Schöningen, Station Starnberg-Söcking and Station Stockdorf.
BND does not operate its own satellites but uses instead the reconnaissance satellites of the Bundeswehr (SARAH-system), foreign partners, or commercial providers. The BND's first proprietary satellite project started in 2016, with systems built by OHB, and was supposed to have entered service in 2022. After investigations by German public media, the start was delayed, such that BND was likely to be unable to launch satellites into space until 2025.
Internet interception
BND intercepts the data traffic of DE-CIX in Frankfurt, the largest European hub for internet traffic.
Details concerning the BND's collaboration with the NSA between 2004 and 2008 have been published. In Frankfurt, Internet data was captured by filters and sent via a Deutsche Telekom line to the BND headquarters in Pullach and from there to the Bad Aibling station, where the NSA and BND have a joint headquarters."
Pete
Hi again Anonymous at 8/19/2026 6:44 AM
You raised https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rubicon and the Maximator alliance - info already published at Wikipedia and The Washington Post:
"Operation Rubicon (German: Operation Rubikon), until the late 1980s called Operation Thesaurus, was a secret operation by the West German Federal Intelligence Service (BND; Bundesnachrichtendienst) and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), lasting from 1970 to 1993 and 2018, respectively, to gather communication intelligence of encrypted government communications of other countries. This was accomplished through the sale of manipulated encryption technology (CX-52) from Swiss-based Crypto AG, which was secretly owned and influenced by the two services from 1970 onwards.
In a comprehensive CIA historical account of the operation leaked in early 2020, it was referred to as the "intelligence coup of the century" in a Washington Post article.
The Maximator alliance, which in addition to (West) Germany also includes Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Sweden, was also familiar with the vulnerabilities and used it in their intelligence gathering."
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