The government of each country, in order to maintain its integrity and control relative security, sooner or later faces the need to create its own intelligence and counterintelligence. And although cinema and television present these organizations in a romanticized form to us, in fact their work is not so noticeable and more prosaic, which makes it less important. Let's find out about the features of modern German intelligence, and also look at how this structure looked in the past.
A little about the country of Heine and Goethe
Today, this European state takes fourth place in terms of living standards in the world, and it is hard to believe that in the first half of the twentieth century. it lay in ruins twice.
In its structure, Germany is a parliamentary republic led by the Federal Chancellor.
The capital is Berlin, the official currency is the euro, and the language is German.
More than 80 million people live here, but every year thousands of people from around the world try to move here by hook or by crook.
To ensure the safety of all of them, as well as maintain a high standard of living in the state, the government spends about half a billion euros annually on the maintenance of intelligence and counterintelligence in Germany. Why is this espionage organization for taxpayers so expensive?
Federal Intelligence Service
To better understand why the cost of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) is so high - the BND (which is exactly the modern official name for intelligence in Germany) - it’s worth to learn a little about its resources.
At the moment, only according to official data, the staff consists of 7,000 people. In addition to the headquarters in Germany, the BND has 300 branches around the world. And these are only officially registered, and how many secret espionage shelters still have to be kept by this organization.
In order to remain "in service", German intelligence has to constantly monitor the situation in the world, which requires not only human resources, but also technological ones. In particular, powerful computers, satellites, special espionage devices, etc. And if you take into account how quickly this area is developing today, in order to keep up, the Germans should come regularly to update equipment or even invent new ones, and this is not cheap.
In addition, in order to prevent various chemical and biological attacks, the BND must have a staff of relevant specialists, and the equipment for them themselves is also a very expensive pleasure. So the budget, equal to the cost of three films from "Marvel", is not so big as it turns out.
Timeline of the existence of German intelligence services
As you can see, espionage is very troublesome and expensive. However, the Germans always had it well set.
The great-grandfather of modern German intelligence (as it is called in the previous paragraph) was Abwehr. It existed from 1919 to 1944.
After the victory of the Allies for almost 2 years, the Germans did not have any espionage service, and only in 1946 it began to function again. It was headed by the former Nazi Major General Reinhard Gehlen, by the way, in his honor, the educated institution - "Organization of Gehlen" was named. In this form, it existed until 1956.
Since April, OG has been transformed into the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), which has been successfully operating to this day.
Having examined the chronology, it is worthwhile to elaborate on the history of each of the spy organizations that existed among the Germans.
Military Intelligence and Counterintelligence of Hitler Germany (Abwehr)
This name is familiar to anyone who has ever watched "17 Moments of Spring", "Shield and Sword", "Variant" Omega "", "Scout's Feat" or other spy war films of the USSR.
For those who do not quite understand what Abwehr was doing, we clarify that his official powers included espionage, counterintelligence and planning with the further implementation of sabotage acts. Despite the dryness of this definition, in practice in this organization blackmail, torture, murder, theft, abduction, forgery, and other illegal acts were honored. At the same time, the lion's share of the time for Abwehr employees still went to the analysis of the collected data, as well as attempts to misinform the enemy.
It is worth noting that although Abver was created in 1919, but until 1928 various organizations were engaged in intelligence and counterintelligence, and Abver was only a group of military counterintelligence.
Only in April 1928 the navy intelligence services were added to it and turned into a full-fledged autonomous department. Now only Abwehr had the right to engage in all types of espionage activities. However, at that time the apparatus of this institution was too small (about 150 employees) to fully function. True, this did not prevent him from fulfilling his future Gestapo duties.
With the advent of the Führer and the beginning of preparations for a large-scale war, the financing of intelligence of Nazi Germany was significantly increased, as was its personnel, which by 1935 already amounted to almost 1000 people.
By then, Wilhelm Canaris became the head of Abwehr. Together with Reinhard Heydrich, they are reforming the organization and sharing its functions with the Gestapo, which receives all civilian powers. While Abwehr becomes the military intelligence of Nazi Germany.
In this capacity, in 1938, the institution is part of the Wehrmacht Supreme Command, however, only as a group. But already by 1941 it was evolving to control, changing its name to "Abwehr Abroad."
After the resignation of Canaris in 1944 and until its dissolution in 1945, this institution is subordinate to the General Directorate of Imperial Security.
Over the entire period of its existence as the German foreign intelligence body, the following functions were entrusted to Abwehr.
- Gathering secret information about the enemy’s forces and its military-economic potential.
- Keeping all German preparations in secret a secret, thus ensuring the surprise of its attack. In fact, Abwehr was responsible for the success of the Blitzkrieg tactics.
- Disorganization of the rear of the enemy.
- Fighting foreign agents in the armed forces and military-industrial complex of Germany.
"Organization of Gehlen"
After the fall of the fascist regime and the victory of the allies, the country found itself without any intelligence organization for almost a year.
However, Reinhard Gehlen managed to rectify this situation. In the last days of the war he managed to take out to hide the old archive of military intelligence of Germany. With his help, in the coming months, he managed to come to an agreement with the Americans, who a year later initiated the creation of the German spy organization Helena Organization. Unlike Abwehr, it was funded by the United States and subordinated to the leadership of this country until its own government appeared in Germany, which would decide the fate of the offspring of Gehlen. The basic principles for organizing the work of the newly formed military intelligence agency in Germany were as follows:
- The organization was supposed to work under German leadership, but carry out the instructions of the United States.
- If the interests of Germany and the United States diverged, the "Gehlen Organization" was supposed to represent the German side.
- Funding was undertaken by the US government. For this, the organization "shared" with them all the intelligence information received, and also actively supported American agents.
- The main mission of the "Organization of Gehlen" was the intelligence of the situation in the East of Europe. In fact, it was spying on the USSR and its friendly countries.
In 1953, the defeated state recovered and gained sovereignty and the procedure began for transferring all the “capacities” of this intelligence agency in Germany to the jurisdiction of its government. The procedure took 3 years and only by April 1, 1956, the "Organization of Gehlen" was transformed by the BND, which has successfully existed to this day.
A Brief History of BND
Immediately after the official opening, BND positions itself as the German Foreign Intelligence Service. However, in the 70s. gradually, her interests also include the prevention of terrorist groups in the state. This is facilitated by the scandal with the shooting of Israeli athletes in Munich during the Olympics.
Since 1978, the country's parliament has taken over the supervision of the activities of the BND, in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Act.
The eighties went quite calmly for German intelligence. During these years, she focuses more on collecting and analyzing data both domestically and abroad.
In the nineties, the BND gradually leaves the underground and makes public many aspects of its own activities. In particular, it declassifies the location of headquarters and holds "Open Days" for a select circle of civilians.
In the same years, the organization undergoes restructuring, and it focuses on the fight against organized crime, the proliferation of weapons and terrorist threats. At the same time, the Federal Intelligence Law becomes the main document regulating the rights and obligations of the BND. By the way, it focuses on the issue of personal data protection.
In the two thousandth sphere of influence of this intelligence body is growing. A department specializing in international terrorism is opening. In addition, during these years, the BND is especially close together by the German Federal Ministry of Defense and the Federal Armed Forces, collecting and analyzing data for them.
Among the most striking events in the history of BND over the past decades is the scandal with the publication of data on the organization’s surveillance of its citizens and the transmission of the information to US intelligence in the person of the NSA.
BND leaders
Over the past years, 11 presidents have visited Germany as the head of this intelligence agency:
- The first 12 years of the BND were led by Reinhard Gehlen.
- Gerhard Wessel became his successor, who remained at the helm for a decade.
- From 1979 to 1983 intelligence was led by Klaus Kinkel.
- For the next 3 years, Eberhard Bloom was president.
- Heribert Hellenbroich, who replaced him, stayed on duty for only 26 days in August 1985.
- Hans-Georg Wieck headed the Federal Service from 1985 to 1990.
- Konrad Porzner served for the next 6 years.
- Gerhard Güllich was officially listed as Acting President from April to June 1996.
- The next 2 years, intelligence in Germany was led by Hansjörg Geiger.
- From 1998 to 2005 August Hanning was in this post.
- From 2005 to 2011 - Ernst Urlau.
- Until April 2016, the president of the BND was Gerhard Schindler, but due to terrorist attacks in Europe, he was forced to resign.
- Since then, Bruno Kal has been at the head of intelligence, who is still acting, which does not prevent him from completing his own work quite successfully.
The structure and functions of the BND
At present, the German Federal Intelligence Service consists of 13 departments:
- GL is an information and situational center. He monitors all events in the world and is the first to react in the event of the abduction of German citizens abroad.
- UF - specialized intelligence services. Their task is to collect and analyze geoinformation. It is obtained thanks to photos from satellites and data obtained from open sources.
- EA - regions of activity and external relations. Responsible for the supply of weapons to the armed forces of Germany beyond its borders. They also coordinate BND relations with the intelligence services of other NATO member countries.
- TA - technical intelligence. Collects data on plans of other countries.
- TE is the counter-terrorism department. Focused on confrontation with Islamic terrorist organizations, drug trafficking, illegal migration and money laundering.
- TW - deals with weapons of mass destruction, nuclear chemicals and military equipment. He tries to prevent their spread.
- LA and LB are departments that study the political and economic situation in certain countries and try to prevent crisis situations there, including with the use of German armed forces.
- SI - own security.
- IT is an information technology department. It is the central technical service in the BND for data processing and communications.
- ID - internal services. It solves various administrative issues, in particular, the purchase or disposal of equipment.
- UM - BND relocation organization. It specializes in arranging intelligence headquarters, as well as dismantling them, if necessary.
- ZY - central management. Coordinates the work of all departments of the BND, and also solves financial and personnel issues.
Who controls intelligence
Although the Germans are a people famous for their honesty and meticulousness in work, they are also people. This means that there may be cases of using the power gained not for the good of the country, but for their own benefit.
To prevent this from happening, Germany has developed 4 levels of control over the work of the BND:
- The most stringent surveillance of intelligence is carried out by the responsible minister, an authorized person for data protection, as well as the Court of Accounts.
- The parliamentary oversight commission is another body that sees to it that spies do not "flirt."
- Judicial control. Due to the nature of the intelligence work, in which it is sometimes necessary to violate the current legislation of Germany, it is only partially possible.
- Public oversight. It is carried out by journalists and citizens through various publications. The weakest of all of the above.
Other secret services in Germany
As for the BND, despite the expanded range of its interests, it is primarily focused on intelligence - this is its priority. However, there are two other secret organizations in Germany with similar functions:
- BFF - Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Officially, this organization specializes in combating actions that threaten the constitutional system of Germany. That is, most of its employees are engaged in ensuring the security of federal bodies and protecting state secrets. However, in recent years, the BFF has assumed some of the responsibilities of the BND, combating extremism and terrorism in its homeland and abroad.
- MAD - military counterintelligence service. This is part of the armed forces of modern Germany, an internal secret service inside the Bundeswehr itself. She specializes in the same tasks that the BFF performs in the civilian sphere. MAD has the same powers and is controlled by the same bodies and documents. All that the BFF is involved in at the federal and local levels is also carried out by the MAD, but only in the Bundeswehr.
Annually, taxpayers allocate 260 million euros for the maintenance of the BFF, and about 73 for the MAD. This does not include the cost of the main intelligence mentioned above. The work of these services is indeed very important, but the first thing that interests every citizen paying taxes is his safety. That's just, as the events of the New Year's Eve 2015-2016 showed, not everything is safe with her in Germany. Indeed, more than 1000 women in the center of Cologne were attacked by migrants and citizens of other countries. Therefore, I would like to hope that the government will draw the appropriate conclusions and instead of constantly increasing spending on espionage games a la James Bond will begin to allocate more funds for the needs of law enforcement, because they are the first to take the blow in case of any emergencies in the country.