Spies Spying on Spies: Germany Sets Up New Counterespionage Unit

The German Federal Intelligence Service ( bnd ) has officially resurrected its counterespionage service. The  bnd  ”is working to build up its own powerful force to  spy on foreign intelligence agencies ,” Spiegel Online reported on March 16 ( Trumpet  translation throughout).

The move comes after the attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom.

The assassination attempt and numerous successful assassinations  by Russian agents around the globe in recent years are alarming the world. Russian intelligence is again to be feared. But an even more dangerous and deceitful secret service is making a comeback almost unnoticed by the world.

During the Cold War, Germany’s counterespionage team had successfully combatted Russian spying in Europe. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, its greatest enemy was significantly diminished, so the team was retired. Recent events, however, prove that Russian intelligence services are again a major threat to Europe. Germany doesn’t want to be caught off guard, so it has resurrected its counterespionage unit.

To give the new team legal backing, it will cooperate with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) and the Military Counterintelligence Service (German: Militärischer Abschirmdienst, or mad). The domestic use of German intelligence services has been a sensitive issue due to the nation’s history of mass surveillance. More than 50 agents will form the new bnd unit; it will be led by a top, well-respected female bnd agent, whose name has not yet been revealed.

The unit’s scope of operation will go beyond Europe. According to Spiegel Online, it will cover Iran, China and North Korea.

It is unusual for an intelligence service to leak such information so early in its development. German intelligence expert Erich Schmidt-Eenboom suspects that the leak may be intended as a warning for other foreign intelligence in Germany.

The counterespionage unit may be a resurrection from Cold War times, but it faces a different set of challenges today.

In 2013, Edward Snowden revealed that the United States had been spying on Germany. The news created a major uproar in the German government and media, casting a shadow on the friendship Germany and the U.S. had built during the second half of the 20th century.

Since the scandal, distrust has grown significantly on both sides. In the era of President Donald Trump, this distrust has soared to new levels, unprecedented since the end of World War ii. Many in the German media and politics consider America’s president to be the greatest threat to German prosperity. Thus one might ask: Will Germany’s new counterespionage unit also be used against American secret services?

The bnd spied on the U.S. while President Barack Obama was in office. In June 2017, Der Spiegel reported that the bnd spied “for years on thousands of targets in the U.S.A.  Among these connections were the White House and military institutions.” This revelation exposed the hypocrisy in Berlin’s outrage when it learned that America had been spying on Germany.

The bnd is a secretive and deceitful organization. Scandals in its recent past dwarf the indiscretions of every other major Western spy agency—smuggling nuclear material on a passenger aircraft as part of an operation to change the outcome of a local election, for example. (For a detailed explanation, read “Germany’s Spying Scandal—Why It Should Alarm You .”)

The BND Does More than Just Spy on Spies

In 2017, the bnd finished construction on what is considered to be the largest building project in Germany since the end of World War ii. The newly erected bnd  headquarters in Berlin will be home to more than 4,000 agents. The building is the size of 14 soccer fields and includes 135,000 cubic meters of concrete plus 20,000 tons of steel. The building cost more than €1.1 billion (us$1.4 billion) plus an additional €400 million for equipment.

Despite its 14,000 windows, the German public gets no peek into the work occurring within its walls. The German newspaper Bild calls the new headquarters “Germany’s Most Secretive Building.” The enormous facility fits well in the bnd’s Nazi history. Even the architecture bears shocking resemblances to buildings designed in Nazi Germany . After World War ii, America allowed and encouraged the establishment of the bnd to combat Russian influence. But while the U.S. focused on combating Russia, it ignored many warning signs of the bndreturning to its Nazi roots.

“The story of the founding of the bnd sounds like a fanciful spy novel—so outlandish it would be unbelievable if not for the fact that it has been thoroughly documented,” theTrumpet.com assistant managing editor Richard Palmer wrote. He continued:

After World War ii, America was desperate for intelligence on the Soviet Union. So they resurrected a Nazi spy agency.

They found the perfect partner for this effort in Maj. Gen. Reinhard Gehlen.

Gehlen commanded the Wehrmacht’s Foreign Armies East military-intelligence unit from 1942 to 1945, a highly capable intelligence network in Eastern Europe and Russia. …

Gehlen wasn’t picky [in selecting his team]. Ex-Gestapo, ex-SS, war criminals, Nazis who had participated directly in the Holocaust—all were welcome. According to one estimate, 10 percent had worked for SS head Heinrich Himmler. The Americans, so worried about the Soviet threat, allowed this network to flourish.

The details of the bnd’s foundation are well documented—as are the trails of scandal over the decades since it was founded. This is in large part due to the agency’s involvement in a string of neo-Nazi murders starting in 2000 that have not yet been explained.

The world is justifiably frightened by recent Russian activities. They are outraged by the actions of the U.S. National Security Agency. But considering the bnd’s Nazi past and its current massive buildup, the world should also be deeply alarmed by modern Germany.

Germany will not use its secret service capacities to support America, but to turn against it.

“From the very start of World War ii, [German leaders] have considered the possibility of losing this second round, as they did the first—and they have carefully, methodically planned in such eventuality, the third round,” wrote Plain Truth editor in chief Herbert W. Armstrong in 1945.

The bnd is a clear, well-documented case of this truth.

Mr. Armstrong based his forecast on Bible prophecy. Scriptures in Revelation 17 and elsewhere tell of a European power that rises to the fore before going “underground,” or hiding. Ezekiel 23:5-7 make clear that this power will betray America. Read Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s article “The Significance of Germany’s Break From America ” to learn how this betrayal will unfold.

War is at the door. Request a free copy of our book Ezekiel: The End-Time Prophet  to understand why.▪