High key, maybe look at Gerhard Schröder for the same thing. His ceding of sovereignty over Germany's energy infrastructure and subsequent board seat at Gazprom is a flashing red siren.
I've seen an uptick online of russian proxies informing the EU nations their supreme national interest is in cheap energy, and nevermind funding a 1900s conquest on their doorstep.
> Documents supplied to the Hamburg court indicated that Hanning was the go-between with the Israelis. According to media reports, these Hamburg court documents contained clues to his other business activity with classified BND information.
Are you sure it says that? As far as I can see it only says he dealt with Israeli ex-spies in an (unrelated) kidnapping and that he was friendly with Israeli spies.
Actually the even more fun part is that they only found out because they raided his house due to this really sketchy case he was contracted for via his really sketcy swiss(!) private eye company: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/20/germany-christ...
“Among several alleged accomplices are August Hanning, a former head of Germany’s federal intelligence service, the BND, who according to prosecutors forged the initial contact between Block and the Israeli spy firm believed to have carried out the abduction.”
The connection to the current case may actually be a more direct one, via the Israeli spies.
As a geopolitical nerd, I've consumed a lot of non-fiction espionage content. In general, there's a general theme that German intelligence is a joke at best. He must have gotten too greedy or very lazy/sloppy.
i'm not qualified to pass any judgement here, just Wirecard comes to mind. Routing sensitive payments, including to the network of secret informants, through Wirecard while the Wirecard guy (son of a KGB spy) was safari-ing (and posting photos of it) in Syria with the Wagner mercenaries... He lives right now in Russia, and it looks like German intelligence hasn't exacted any revenge.
Name one EU country's intelligence service that has a reputation, any reputation - good or bad. European intelligence services (ex-Russia/Ukraine) are a bunch of jokers. They are lagging behind so much vs their adversarial peers.
There is no evidence of Mossad involvement. Far from me to defend Israel's spy agency but the article only mentions a possible connection to Azerbaijan.
The Russians claim otherwise - https://www.rt.com/news/646794-german-spy-chief-arrested/ -... According to them, his private agency also sub-contracted some high-profile kidnapping to Yaakov Perry, the former chief of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet.
This one doesn't since it's a US outlet and they don't have free speech in the US, on Israel-related matters. The Irish Times reported the Israel connection though.
That's not a thing. What triggers moderation and/or banning is when accounts break the site guidelines by going into political/nationalistic/ideological flamewar, as they unfortunately often do on divisive topics.
I think the problem is better stated as a large flagging contingent, rather than anything intrinsic to the site's code or official moderation. And the real problem is that it has an outsized chilling effect on substantive comments, which require putting in actual effort just to possibly be killed. From what I've observed comments/stories get a penalty from flags (before they actually end up [dead]) and this seems to be the actual objective - to stymie concrete discussion while a topic is popular.
Someone downvoted you, but if you do look at the sweatshirt sales webpage, it does say this
"Licensor: Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German Foreign Intelligence Service
The BND logo is a registered trademark of the Bundesnachrichtendienst in Berlin, Germany. The BND is not involved in the operation, production, or sale of these products and accepts no liability. The BND does not receive any revenue from the BND Shop."
In 2013 he was a defence witness for the oligarch Oleg Deripaska who was then tied to Putin. He was also on the board of companies such as PNB Banka (operated by a Russian Grigory Guselnikov). Also connections to many shady "security consulting" firms, among them "Prevent" who were suspected to have planted child porn with a manager of HSH-Nordbank. Incidentally child porn was also planted with the husband of Christina Block in Denmark, a case in which Hanning is also involved.
On the angle of Azerbaijan who allegedly bought Hanning's secrets it's interesting that in the past there were several court cases about corruption against German politicians. It's summarised in the so called Aserbaidschan-Affäre (Azerbaijan Affair) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aserbaidschan-Aff%C3%A4re
We don’t know what country he was spying for, but we do know it’s not Russia.
From the very short article:
> The case does not involve Russia, according to information obtained by Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
The Eastern Germans remember the old days fondly (you know, before "the West destroyed their industry" and whatnot) while the Western Germany had a national policy of "not provoking Russia" and "accepting its sphere of influence" for basically all of it's existence.
From personal experience I would also say that Germans and Russians are alike in quite a few ways - both are pretty chauvinist societies looking down at other nations, and both have very low empathy. Obviously, there are big cultural differences as well.
From what I see here it’s a mixture of anti-Americanism, „Ostslgie“ (the longing for the good old times of the DDR, a feeling often inherited from parents) and a crap ton of Russian propaganda that floods social media.
Combine this with a step economic decline and voila you got the perfect conditions for autocratic sympathies
Some part of the population was subject to 60 years of continuous propaganda. That's three generations. You might say people should be able to see beyond that, but the ones influencing them were professionals too.
Similar to why there's a significant fraction of pro-mainland China people in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Reasons include people who benefitted from the Soviet Union, often due to business and trade. Analogy would be Foxconn, a Taiwanese company which is dependent on manufacturing in China.
Nostalgia/rose-tinted glasses/rosy retrospection, Ostalgie in German.
Families that were ethnically from Russia, moved during the Soviet Union times and still have ties to Russia.
The former East Germany is way more pro-Russian than the former West Germany, showing the effects of these factors.
I would not say it's many but certainly there are some. I found it surprising that in recent sabotage or spy cases in Germany there were often Ukrainian or Latvian accomplices to the Russians. But then again it's obvious that not all Ukrainians have the same opinion about the war.
There are obviously people throughout the western world (including East Germany) who are sympathizers of Russia well beyond just buying energy from them. Pretty sure GP is referring to those people.
> Can someone please explain what's going on here?
Putin got'em addicted to cheap Russian gas and paid up anti nuclear NGOs who also got cash from big oil.
Also Berlin still has some Russian minority since the GDR. That includes anti Putin Russian diaspora or people that just needed a break from paranoia and brespredel.
> It’s not sympathy so much with Russia, more of a complete distrust of US-led causes for war.
The ex-DDR folk has nothing to do with this. They literally want a tzar and claim the life was better in DDR (translate: got stuff for free, didn't have to do much).
Between the end of the Cold War and the start of the war in Ukraine, there was no peace in Afghanistan, in the Caucasus, in Syria, in Georgia, and in Crimea.
Russian misinformation and funding of far-right parties had never stopped. Every country in Russia's vicinity knew that it was coming for them. In the West relations were peaceful indeed, because all these wars were with faraway peoples.
If you're not a paid shill but genuinely believe what you're saying, you're what they call a useful idiot. This attempt at the apology of Russia, in this pretend calm tone, with emotional bits peppered throughout, is disgusting.
A lot of people who came to the West thanks to the peacefulness of Russia also want to go rebuild their countries 'Some day. Maybe.'
And lower down you say Ukraine should have some neutral autonomous territory. Maybe parts of Poland and of the Baltics and of Finland will also know the prosperity and peace that comes with 'neutrality'.
Yeah, the only problem is that you can't really establish a lasting peace with a government that is more interested in land grabbing, and turning its neighbors into vassal states.
If Europe gives in to Russia in Ukraine, anyone with basic understanding of history can see that they'll turn their attention towards Baltics, Moldova and maybe Finland and Poland. Putin doesn't want to return those "good years" between cold war and Ukraine conflict, he wants to return to the glory days of Cold War when Russia (Soviet Union) was a real superpower.
Over here in Finland, we would absolutely love to have peaceful relations with Russia, based on mutual respect and trade. But we're under no illusion about it being possible with current Russian administration.
There's a certain subset of every population that just wants to be dominated. Some of these people don't have the courage to ask their romantic partner or a professional, so they try to realize their kink through political means.
One of the things you eventually learn is how important it is to understand how the media reports on a story. Not only what they say and how they say it but also what they don't say.
In this case, the reporting I've seen on this doesn't mention the country that he was allegedly spying for. That means it was Israel. Because if it was any other country, particularly Russia, it would absolutely be blasted from the rooftops.
It's honestly depressing how captured institutions, the media and Western governments are by the Israeli lobby. My only hope is that history will correctly label all those involved as collaborators.
Let me give an example: Jonathon Pollard [1], who was responsible for one the largest national security breaches in American history and was tried and convicted for espionage. This was a sticking point where basically every Israeli PM would ask for his release. No president would do it until Trump on his first day of his second term [2].
Trump mega-donor Sheldon Adelson lent Pollard his private plane [3] for his return to Israel where he was given a hero's welcome [4]. He's since met with the Israeli PM and even invited into the US Embassy in Israel [5].
Beyond spies, even Israelis are aware that Israel has become a refuge for the worst kinds of criminals [6].
High key, maybe look at Gerhard Schröder for the same thing. His ceding of sovereignty over Germany's energy infrastructure and subsequent board seat at Gazprom is a flashing red siren.
No, the thing he was arrested for is having classified documents in his possession.
[flagged]
[flagged]
I've seen an uptick online of russian proxies informing the EU nations their supreme national interest is in cheap energy, and nevermind funding a 1900s conquest on their doorstep.
Thankfully, the Europeans aren't stupid.
2 replies →
In my country, they posted the news translated as: 'Spy chief is detained in counts of espionage'
I just wanted to share the journalism pearl.
Well at least he paid for it and did not outright steal it :)
Any idea which foreign country he was spying for?
Mossad/Israel at least:
> Documents supplied to the Hamburg court indicated that Hanning was the go-between with the Israelis. According to media reports, these Hamburg court documents contained clues to his other business activity with classified BND information.
https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2026/10/06/former-ge...
Where there’s smoke there’s fire, and western intelligence precedent (eg russian “illegals program”) is that when it’s Russia/China, it’s named.
So the omission here itself (and denial of Russia) is some additional speculative information, on top of his already known ties to Mossad.
Are you sure it says that? As far as I can see it only says he dealt with Israeli ex-spies in an (unrelated) kidnapping and that he was friendly with Israeli spies.
with friends like these…
[dead]
Spiegel says Azerbaijan.
> Hanning is strongly suspected of treasonous espionage, attempted treason, and espionage.
Well that clears that up.
Is anyone else shocked that the head spy was a spy, or that Germany was being blackmailed by Mossad?
Actually the even more fun part is that they only found out because they raided his house due to this really sketchy case he was contracted for via his really sketcy swiss(!) private eye company: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/20/germany-christ...
“Among several alleged accomplices are August Hanning, a former head of Germany’s federal intelligence service, the BND, who according to prosecutors forged the initial contact between Block and the Israeli spy firm believed to have carried out the abduction.”
The connection to the current case may actually be a more direct one, via the Israeli spies.
As a geopolitical nerd, I've consumed a lot of non-fiction espionage content. In general, there's a general theme that German intelligence is a joke at best. He must have gotten too greedy or very lazy/sloppy.
The CIA actually build the Gehlen Org (now BND) from some ex-Nazis as spy's against the communists. Is all a very sad joke.[0]
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jun/08/secondworldwar...
"If you want to tell Putin something, say it to the BND" is more or less known in that context.
>German intelligence is a joke at best
i'm not qualified to pass any judgement here, just Wirecard comes to mind. Routing sensitive payments, including to the network of secret informants, through Wirecard while the Wirecard guy (son of a KGB spy) was safari-ing (and posting photos of it) in Syria with the Wagner mercenaries... He lives right now in Russia, and it looks like German intelligence hasn't exacted any revenge.
2 replies →
Name one EU country's intelligence service that has a reputation, any reputation - good or bad. European intelligence services (ex-Russia/Ukraine) are a bunch of jokers. They are lagging behind so much vs their adversarial peers.
8 replies →
He was a career bureaucrat who got position after position. BND was just one of them.
The list of German politicians and bureaucrats with scandals is long, ranging from Olaf Scholz to von der Leyen. So this isn't too surprising.
When it gets to bad, you send them to retire in strassbourg
1 reply →
There is no evidence of Mossad involvement. Far from me to defend Israel's spy agency but the article only mentions a possible connection to Azerbaijan.
The Russians claim otherwise - https://www.rt.com/news/646794-german-spy-chief-arrested/ -... According to them, his private agency also sub-contracted some high-profile kidnapping to Yaakov Perry, the former chief of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet.
This one doesn't since it's a US outlet and they don't have free speech in the US, on Israel-related matters. The Irish Times reported the Israel connection though.
3 replies →
Was it the country whose name triggers automatic comment cancellation?
That's not a thing. What triggers moderation and/or banning is when accounts break the site guidelines by going into political/nationalistic/ideological flamewar, as they unfortunately often do on divisive topics.
I assume you're asking about Israel. HN Search shows about 170k comments: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... All of those are live. That's a far cry from "automatic cancellation".
If you meant some other country, it's easy enough to check this about any of them.
I think the problem is better stated as a large flagging contingent, rather than anything intrinsic to the site's code or official moderation. And the real problem is that it has an outsized chilling effect on substantive comments, which require putting in actual effort just to possibly be killed. From what I've observed comments/stories get a penalty from flags (before they actually end up [dead]) and this seems to be the actual objective - to stymie concrete discussion while a topic is popular.
1 reply →
edit:wrong assumption
It was Azerbaijan: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/ex-bnd-chef-hanning-s...
[dead]
It's like one of those "one last job before quiting for good but gone bad" movie plots.
I take BND less seriously since I learned they're eager to sell you merch:
https://www.bnd.shop/en
Someone downvoted you, but if you do look at the sweatshirt sales webpage, it does say this
"Licensor: Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German Foreign Intelligence Service
The BND logo is a registered trademark of the Bundesnachrichtendienst in Berlin, Germany. The BND is not involved in the operation, production, or sale of these products and accepts no liability. The BND does not receive any revenue from the BND Shop."
Which does seem a little bizarre.
i'll take one Bemale Nody Dinspector shirt, please.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49975688
The German Roger Hollis.
This (paywalled) article in Süddeutsche Zeitung has a lot more background info, for instance about Hanning's Russian connections.
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/hanning-festnahme-spiona...
In 2013 he was a defence witness for the oligarch Oleg Deripaska who was then tied to Putin. He was also on the board of companies such as PNB Banka (operated by a Russian Grigory Guselnikov). Also connections to many shady "security consulting" firms, among them "Prevent" who were suspected to have planted child porn with a manager of HSH-Nordbank. Incidentally child porn was also planted with the husband of Christina Block in Denmark, a case in which Hanning is also involved.
On the angle of Azerbaijan who allegedly bought Hanning's secrets it's interesting that in the past there were several court cases about corruption against German politicians. It's summarised in the so called Aserbaidschan-Affäre (Azerbaijan Affair) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aserbaidschan-Aff%C3%A4re
See also https://www.esiweb.org/proposals/caviar-diplomacy
A link to a non paywalled version of the Süddeutsche Zeitung article on archive.is https://archive.is/sJkwC
It's weird that so many Germans are sympathetic to Russia given that they were subjugated by Russia for decades.
Can someone please explain what's going on here? What am I culturally missing?
We don’t know what country he was spying for, but we do know it’s not Russia. From the very short article: > The case does not involve Russia, according to information obtained by Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Even "allies" spy on each other. The US has been caught, several times, spying on allies, and Israel spies on everyone.
4 replies →
It's in the 3rd paragraph:
The Spiegel news magazine reported late on Tuesday that investigators were pursuing a possible connection to Azerbaijan.
Ah, sorry I was thinking of 2023.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyeedd6kzdko
> A German military officer has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for spying for Russia.
The Eastern Germans remember the old days fondly (you know, before "the West destroyed their industry" and whatnot) while the Western Germany had a national policy of "not provoking Russia" and "accepting its sphere of influence" for basically all of it's existence.
From personal experience I would also say that Germans and Russians are alike in quite a few ways - both are pretty chauvinist societies looking down at other nations, and both have very low empathy. Obviously, there are big cultural differences as well.
From what I see here it’s a mixture of anti-Americanism, „Ostslgie“ (the longing for the good old times of the DDR, a feeling often inherited from parents) and a crap ton of Russian propaganda that floods social media.
Combine this with a step economic decline and voila you got the perfect conditions for autocratic sympathies
Some part of the population was subject to 60 years of continuous propaganda. That's three generations. You might say people should be able to see beyond that, but the ones influencing them were professionals too.
Similar to why there's a significant fraction of pro-mainland China people in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Reasons include people who benefitted from the Soviet Union, often due to business and trade. Analogy would be Foxconn, a Taiwanese company which is dependent on manufacturing in China.
Nostalgia/rose-tinted glasses/rosy retrospection, Ostalgie in German.
Families that were ethnically from Russia, moved during the Soviet Union times and still have ties to Russia.
The former East Germany is way more pro-Russian than the former West Germany, showing the effects of these factors.
I would not say it's many but certainly there are some. I found it surprising that in recent sabotage or spy cases in Germany there were often Ukrainian or Latvian accomplices to the Russians. But then again it's obvious that not all Ukrainians have the same opinion about the war.
Are you sympathetic to MBS when you buy oil from Saudi Arabia?
I don't buy oil from Saudi Arabia. I buy gasoline from a local gas station. It doesn't say where the oil came from.
There are obviously people throughout the western world (including East Germany) who are sympathizers of Russia well beyond just buying energy from them. Pretty sure GP is referring to those people.
6 replies →
> It's weird that so many Germans are sympathetic to Russia given that they were subjugated by Russia for decades.
Do you think that Germany might have done something right before this "subjugation"?
Maybe 25-40 million things?
If the Holocaust were that "successful", Israel wouldn't exist today. Perhaps you're confusing with Mao.
5 replies →
> Can someone please explain what's going on here?
Putin got'em addicted to cheap Russian gas and paid up anti nuclear NGOs who also got cash from big oil.
Also Berlin still has some Russian minority since the GDR. That includes anti Putin Russian diaspora or people that just needed a break from paranoia and brespredel.
[flagged]
> It’s not sympathy so much with Russia, more of a complete distrust of US-led causes for war.
The ex-DDR folk has nothing to do with this. They literally want a tzar and claim the life was better in DDR (translate: got stuff for free, didn't have to do much).
2 replies →
Do they want to let Russia keep Ukrainian land, kids, etc?
1 reply →
What a load of lies.
Between the end of the Cold War and the start of the war in Ukraine, there was no peace in Afghanistan, in the Caucasus, in Syria, in Georgia, and in Crimea.
Russian misinformation and funding of far-right parties had never stopped. Every country in Russia's vicinity knew that it was coming for them. In the West relations were peaceful indeed, because all these wars were with faraway peoples.
If you're not a paid shill but genuinely believe what you're saying, you're what they call a useful idiot. This attempt at the apology of Russia, in this pretend calm tone, with emotional bits peppered throughout, is disgusting.
A lot of people who came to the West thanks to the peacefulness of Russia also want to go rebuild their countries 'Some day. Maybe.'
And lower down you say Ukraine should have some neutral autonomous territory. Maybe parts of Poland and of the Baltics and of Finland will also know the prosperity and peace that comes with 'neutrality'.
How dare you.
Yeah, the only problem is that you can't really establish a lasting peace with a government that is more interested in land grabbing, and turning its neighbors into vassal states.
If Europe gives in to Russia in Ukraine, anyone with basic understanding of history can see that they'll turn their attention towards Baltics, Moldova and maybe Finland and Poland. Putin doesn't want to return those "good years" between cold war and Ukraine conflict, he wants to return to the glory days of Cold War when Russia (Soviet Union) was a real superpower.
Over here in Finland, we would absolutely love to have peaceful relations with Russia, based on mutual respect and trade. But we're under no illusion about it being possible with current Russian administration.
4 replies →
There's a certain subset of every population that just wants to be dominated. Some of these people don't have the courage to ask their romantic partner or a professional, so they try to realize their kink through political means.
One of the things you eventually learn is how important it is to understand how the media reports on a story. Not only what they say and how they say it but also what they don't say.
In this case, the reporting I've seen on this doesn't mention the country that he was allegedly spying for. That means it was Israel. Because if it was any other country, particularly Russia, it would absolutely be blasted from the rooftops.
It's honestly depressing how captured institutions, the media and Western governments are by the Israeli lobby. My only hope is that history will correctly label all those involved as collaborators.
Let me give an example: Jonathon Pollard [1], who was responsible for one the largest national security breaches in American history and was tried and convicted for espionage. This was a sticking point where basically every Israeli PM would ask for his release. No president would do it until Trump on his first day of his second term [2].
Trump mega-donor Sheldon Adelson lent Pollard his private plane [3] for his return to Israel where he was given a hero's welcome [4]. He's since met with the Israeli PM and even invited into the US Embassy in Israel [5].
Beyond spies, even Israelis are aware that Israel has become a refuge for the worst kinds of criminals [6].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard
[2]: https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-israel-jonathan-poll...
[3]: https://forward.com/fast-forward/461235/watch-flown-to-israe...
[4]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/world/middleeast/jonathan...
[5]: https://www.reuters.com/world/white-house-was-unaware-us-amb...
[6]: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2016-03-22/ty-article/.p...
We also know it was Israel because they said it was Israel, as reported by other media from the few Western countries that don't like Israel: https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2026/10/06/former-ge...
That article doesn't say it was Israel.
> My only hope is that history will correctly label all those involved as collaborators.
Bad news, only nerds care about history.
The article says a possible connection to Azerbaijan is being investigated.
Agree with everything else you said though.
[dead]