The head of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency has been removed from his post in a move described by observers as surprising. Gerhard Schindler, 63, had led Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, known as Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND, since 2012. Founded 60 years ago with direct input from the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the BND is today responsible for collecting intelligence abroad in the service of German national interests. Headquartered in the southern German city of Pullach, near Munich, the BND is directly subordinate to the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
On Tuesday, the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper said
that Chancellor Merkel had ordered Schindler’s removal from the BND.
Several regional television stations followed with similar reports. The Süddeutsche Zeitung
cited unnamed government sources as saying that Schindler’s sudden
removal from his post was unexpected, as the career intelligence officer
was scheduled to retire in two years.
However, intelNews readers will
recall that last year Schindler was severely criticized in Germany,
after the BND was found to have secretly collaborated with the US
National Security Agency in spying on several European governments and
private companies. According to German newsmagazine Der Spiegel,
the BND used its Bad Aibling listening station to help the NSA spy on,
among other targets, the palace of the French president in Paris, the
headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels, as well as
French-based European conglomerate Airbus. In response to the
revelations, Airbus filed a criminal complaint against the German government, while Belgium and Switzerland launched official investigations into the joint BND-NSA activities.
In the months that followed the
revelations, Schindler appeared to have convinced the Chancellery that
he was not personally responsible for the BND-NSA collaboration, which
many political figures in Germany said had subverted Germany’s national
interest. In response to criticism, Schindler said that some departments
inside the BND had taken on “a life of their own” and promised to
reform the agency. On Tuesday, however, his tenure came to an end. It is
believed that he will be replaced by Bruno Kahl, a senior civil servant
in Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance, who is a close associate of
the country’s Minister of Finance, Wolfgang Schäuble.
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