Intelligence services

60 years BND: More frustration than pleasure

If a secret service device in the headlines, it usually means nothing Good. The abroad competent BND can sing a song. Sometimes, though, he has reason to be happy.

Positive about the Federal intelligence service reports? Not an easy task. It is almost impossible. And that is the nature of the thing. Finally, the BND is to collect with a high degree of discretion, knowledge about foreign countries, “the foreign and security – political importance for the Federal Republic of Germany”. As it stands in clause 1 of the BND-law. The in Pullach / Munich, Germany-based authority, with around 6500 employees working in the shadows. The noise she poorer do, the more soothing. In theory, anyway. But the reality looks different. Scandals run like a red thread through the history of the on 1. April 1956, founded the BND.

On closer inspection, it is long to a brown thread, because the West German foreign intelligence service is rooted in a staffing strong in the Nazi-time. The head of the BND predecessor, the “organization Gehlen” was a General of the Wehrmacht. Under Hitler, those Reinhard led Gehlen, the Department of Foreign armies East. The predestined him from the point of view of the US-American occupying power, to keep a watchful eye especially on the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence. The pioneering work is worth it for Gehlen, he is the first BND President, and it remains to 1968. Too busy this time of service are still several hundred people with a Nazi past.

Armed to clear the name of former employees and informers

Positive Messages? After all, according to BND data in the 1960s, about 70 impacted employees will be made redundant. The reason is that involvement in war crimes. Unsparing openness in dealing with its darkest Chapter, the foreign intelligence service, however, still difficult. This is demonstrated by different attitudes between the BND and the of and in 2011 established the Independent historians ‘ Commission (UHK). Your job: the time until 1968. So the Era of Gehlen. It is argued, in particular, whether and what are the names of former employees and informers are allowed to be published.

The first BND-President and the President: Reinhard Gehlen (left) and Gerhard Schindler

Relatively quiet the BND story runs between 1970 and 1990. It is the Era of the policy of détente, which opens in the fall of the Iron curtain between East and West. In the United Germany for the first time adopted a “law on the Federal intelligence service”. In other words, The BND worked 34 years without a legal basis in the strict sense. After all, members of the Bundestag are able to control the parliamentary monitoring body (PMB) is the work of the intelligence services. You days, of course, secret in a secure room, but they are often ill-informed or deliberately misled. An experience that will make you in the since 2013, smoldering NSA affair all the time.

The fruits of the NSA Committee of inquiry

Once again, a Parliamentary Committee of inquiry with the conduct of the BND. He should have helped his American partner service in defiance of German Law, the global telecommunications spying. Were monitored, therefore, a number of European governments and institutions, also German. Without the revelations of the Whistleblower Edward Snowden, the world knows well, there is still nothing of these machinations. In mid-March, foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in the NSA Committee of inquiry has been the outside questioned. To him, the BND is under

Also, foreign Minister Steinmeier (SPD) had to answer in the NSA Committee of inquiry questions for the BND

As a witness, the since 2012, President of the BND President Gerhard Schindler had to go to the members of Parliament. Of the unlawful practices of his authority, he wants nothing to know and learn. The Federal government now wants to exacerbate the BND-law, welcomes Schindler. In the future, it should be expressly forbidden, friendly countries in Europe to spy. “What must a foreign intelligence service and what not, would have to be actually cleared up a long time ago,” asks the BND-in-chief in a recent Interview with the German press Agency (dpa).

The cases of Murat Kurnaz and Khaled El-Masri

The NSA Committee of inquiry is only the latest example, and it is now also to the BND. Theme of earlier committees spied on politically, journalists and the abduction of alleged terrorists by American secret services. For special attention the fates of Murat Kurnaz and Khaled El-Masri. They were advised, in the framework of the international Anti-terrorist struggle into the visor of the secret services. The first one was found in the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo, the other was kidnapped and taken to Afghanistan. Both of them were innocent. What is the role of the BND played, remained unclear.

Witnesses in a previous BND investigation Committee: Khaled El-Masri (left) in 2006 and Murat Kurnaz 2015

In the face of such dubious stories messages about breakdowns and Sabotage the BND sound-new building in Berlin, almost like jokes. About that leaking water had caused millions of damage. This is what happened in March of 2015. The future Headquarters in the government district is even more expensive – more than a billion euros, the move from Pullach costs in the German capital.

Pictures at an exhibition: “SCARY”

When everything is ready, there is also a public visitor’s center, “in the about the work and the mission of the Federal intelligence service informed”. This message in your own thing you get on the BND Homepage. There is also information on current exhibitions, via the German foreign intelligence service. To see in Washington, Dresden and Hamburg. Including a photo essay by Martin Lukas Kim, whose title is as simple as it is suitable in the light of 60 years of the BND: “SCARY – The Federal intelligence service in 1956 in 2016”.