Conventional espionage

The Office of the Federal Prosecutor protects the interests of the Federal Republic of Germany. Facts that are classified as confidential in Germany, as well as freely available information, are skimmed on the orders of foreign secret services. State secrets in particular can be targeted by agents.

The focus of investigations has changed many times since the Federal Republic of Germany was founded. Until the mid-1990s, international espionage was dominated by the Cold War. The best-known espionage case of this period was the proceedings against Günter Guillaume at the Higher Regional Court in Düsseldorf in 1975. The revelation of Guillaume’s activities as a spy for the East German Ministry of State Security (Stasi) led to his arrest and the resignation of Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt.

After the fall of the “Iron Curtain”, those Stasi files and documents that were still available were used to bring agent activities of the former GDR in the Federal Republic to light. Over the years that followed, 253 citizens of former West Germany and 23 of former East Germany were sentenced for espionage.

The espionage activities of foreign secret services and organisations have changed since reunification. The technical capabilities of cyberespionage in particular are increasingly used to skim information. As well as attacking individual points of access, foreign secret services also use large-scale cyberattacks to gain access to confidential data from authorities and other institutions in Germany. One of the best-known cases is the investigation into the allegation that the mobile phone of Federal Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel was spied on by American intelligence services. The suspicion was not valid for legal purposes and the proceedings were halted in June 2015.

However, foreign intelligence services continue to use methods of conventional espionage. In collaboration with the security authorities, agents from foreign secret services are successfully convicted time and again. In 2012, the Office of the Federal Prosecutor charged two employees of a Russian secret service. They were given long jail sentences. In July 2015, the Office of the Federal Prosecutor brought treason charges against an employee of the Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst) who had provided access to secret documents to an American secret service. The court handed him a long custodial sentence.

In the future, too, foreign secret services will continue to try to conduct espionage in Germany. Given the enhanced technical capabilities and changed political interests of international secret services, the Office of the Federal Prosecutor is adapting to new challenges.

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