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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The buses operated on behalf of the „Liegenschaftsverwaltung Pullach“, a #BND cover organisation. Since the headquarters moved away, the Isar Valley has become quieter, and many of the official federal residences have been sold 7/7

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Providing cover addresses and hideouts. For decades, there was even a dedicated, non-public local transport network. Hundreds of #BND employees travelled daily on federal government buses from Bad Tölz, Geretsried and Wolfratshausen to the BND HQ in Pullach 6/7

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The federal government therefore built official residences elsewhere, particularly in Wolfratshausen and the foothills of the Alps. Many employees built or bought homes in the area, including Manfred D. The towns also served operational purposes for the #BND 5/7

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

This came at a price. If #BND personnel lived primarily in Pullach, the Isar Valley telephone and address directories became a gold mine for hostile intelligence services. The East German #Stasi regularly combed through them, specifically looking for these addresses 4/7

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

From 1953 onwards, growing space requirements forced families to move out of Camp Nikolaus in Pullach. The federal government built official residences for them, as it did for other federal civil servants 3/7

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Behind the idyllic landscape between the Isar and Loisach rivers lies an unusually high concentration of current and former #Bundesnachrichtendienst employees. Its roots go back to the 1950s 2/7

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Former senior BND official Manfred D. - who served as head of office to several #BND presidents - was arrested at his home in Geretsried, Upper Bavaria. Geretsried and Wolfratshausen have a long history with the BND. A closer look at the region 🧵1/7

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Were there other helpers or individuals within the service who knew what was happening? 9/9

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The current Hanning case is more than just another German espionage scandal. The crucial question is not merely: What did Hanning pass on? It is also: Why did no one inside the service notice the flow of information from the #BND’s senior leadership over a period of years? 8/9

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

September 2027: Sensitive data was published online, including the mobile phone number and home address of #BND Deputy President Dag Baehr, among other information and his lax handling of the matter 7/9

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

This includes the case of section head Carsten L., who is alleged to have committed treason through espionage on behalf of Russia. He was arrested in late 2022. His trial is still ongoing 6/9

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Observers, however, expect that corresponding internal reviews are either already underway or imminent. The Hanning case adds to a remarkable chain of security failures and espionage cases involving the #BND in recent years 5/9

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Whether, and to what extent, close European partners such as France’s DGSE or the Polish intelligence services have already launched systematic reviews has not yet been publicly confirmed 4/9

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

What intelligence services share ultimately depends on trust. That trust has been damaged here. According to consistent media reports, #MI6, #GCHQ and several US agencies are currently conducting systematic reviews to determine whether their own intel have been compromised 3/9

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

At the #BND Intelligence Fusion Center in Berlin, intel from partner services is likely to thin out in the coming months. For those partners, the question is: what may have been compromised through this channel? And which sources, agents or operations could be affected? 2/9

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The spy case involving former #BND President August Hanning and his former chief of staff could develop into one of the biggest scandals involving Germany’s intelligence services since the Cold War 🧵 1/9

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The allegations are serious. If confirmed, the years-long leak of classified information from the circle around the #BND leadership would be catastrophic. (Source of screenshots: Federal Public Prosecutor's Office)

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Only recently, German media reported that the mobile number, email addresses and home address of #BND Vice President Dag Baehr have been online since a 2020 hack 5/5 bsky.app/profile/lecu...

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

My assessment: the partner-service aspect is delicate. If material from foreign services is involved, trust in the rules protecting third-party information is at stake. For an agency undergoing far-reaching change, the timing could hardly be worse 4/5

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Around 2,000 documents reportedly reached Hanning over the years, in exchange for money, some dating from spring 2022. They include situation assessments, information from foreign partner services, and material on Iran's nuclear programme and the Russian military 3/5

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

That the Federal Prosecutor steps in shows the gravity of the allegations. Guilt is for a court to decide. German media report that a former senior BND employee passed #BND intelligence to Hanning after his tenure, which he allegedly used in his consulting work 2/5

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Germany's foreign intelligence service #BND can't stay out of the headlines. Ex-BND President August Hanning has been arrested on suspicion of espionage, according to the Federal Prosecutor General. His former chief of staff was also arrested. 🧵 1/5

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Another #Stasi hideout in the Bavarian Alps. Active until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. 7/7 x.com/lcueilleur/s...

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The Stasi hideout „Berghaus“ on Etztalstraße in Oberberg was sold in 1962. 6/7

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The operation was called off at the last minute. The reason was Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's historic visit to Moscow in September 1955. The Kremlin did not want to jeopardize important negotiations and stopped the operation 5/7

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

May 1955, Freitag bought a house at Etztalstraße 87 (today No. 3) in Oberberg, about 600 meters from Gehlen's property. The Stasi gave the property the code name „Berghaus“. It served as an observation post and lodging base for the six-man abduction team 4/7

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

This included „Aktion Jäger“. The planned kidnapping of Gehlen. Concrete preparations ran between 1954 and 1955. Otto Freitag #Stasi scouted Gehlen's residence in Berg, the route to Pullach, and possible escape routes toward the GDR, Czechoslovakia and Austria 3/7

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

In 1953, the GDR's Ministry for State Security struck. A wave of arrests of suspected spies of the #OrganisationGehlen (Org.) in the GDR, accompanied by propaganda campaigns. The goal was the systematic destruction of the US-led intelligence service in West Germany 2/7

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

During the Cold War, the #Stasi maintained a secret network of safe houses and covert field stations in West Germany, including one in the immediate vicinity of the first #BND president, Reinhard Gehlen, in Berg on Starnberger See. East Berlin planned to kidnap him 🧵1/7

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Foreign intel services have most likely long since built a profile, even without any provable attack. Important: there is no evidence of actual surveillance. This is an assessment, not an established fact 4/5

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Intelligence services worldwide routinely collect dumps like this, and #BND Vice President Baehr was already a high-value target back then (KSK, Bundeswehr Strategic Reconnaissance Command) 3/5

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Particularly delicate: by his own account Dag Baehr had known about the leak for some time, yet kept using the affected number until shortly before the story was published 2/5

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The private mobile number, email addresses and home address of #BND #Bundesnachrichtendienst Vice President Dag Baehr have been online for years. The source: a 2020 hack of a US auction house that exposed around 3.4 million customer records 1/5🧵

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Alongside Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, the station played an important role in the gray zone of the „war of the airwaves“ between the two systems 12/13

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Whether and to what extent this connection continued during his time at Radio Luxembourg has not yet been conclusively established. Radio Luxembourg and the Cold War remains, to this day, a piece of contemporary history that has never been properly worked through 11/13

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Another example of Western interest: longtime RTL staffer Olaf Steinbauer (former head of the news desk) worked as an informant for the #BND #Bundesnachrichtendienst before his radio career (code name „Steinmetz“) recruited during his time at the Abendzeitung in Munich) 10/13

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Including the possible use of Radio Luxembourg for propaganda broadcasts in the event of „general hostilities.“ For the US, the station was seen as a potential strategic communications channel in a possible hot war 9/13

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

But Western services also had the station on their radar. A declassified 1953 US report notes that the Pentagon and the State Department were negotiating base rights with the Luxembourg government 8/13

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

After being confronted, they would stop showing up. Such infiltration attempts are documented for Western media in general; concrete, named cases at Radio Luxembourg itself are not yet publicly known 7/13

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

… professional disadvantages, or imprisonment. Contemporary witnesses from the German-language editorial team also report repeated Stasi attempts to plant staff members. Suspicious "new colleagues" stood out through clumsy questions or rummaging through editorial files 6/13

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The lighthearted, ad-financed programming was considered ideological subversion (a „NATO station“). It carried Western notions of consumption and freedom into the GDR without overt political agitation. Attempts by GDR citizens to make contact could lead to interrogations, …5/13

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

For many listeners - especially in the „Valley of the Clueless“ around Dresden - Radio Luxembourg was one of the few ways to receive Western pop culture and a different sense of life. That was precisely what made the station dangerous in the eyes of the SED and the Stasi 4/13

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The find sheds light on the interest that both Eastern and Western intelligence services took in the international broadcaster based in Luxembourg. The intercepted letters were largely apolitical: song requests, chart-vote ballots, autograph requests, notes of thanks 3/13

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

RTL Lëtzebuerg reports on around 600 letters, postcards, and envelopes that GDR citizens sent to Radio Luxembourg in the 1970s and 1980s. Letters that never arrived. The #Stasi had systematically intercepted them 2/13

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Radio Luxembourg. For the Stasi a source of „Western lifestyle“ and potential unrest. For Western planners a possible instrument of psychological warfare. For the intelligence services of both sides an interesting object of observation and influence in the heart of Europe 1/13 🧵

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Picture source: The National Archives 10/10

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Documents indicated, among other things, stations of the Special Collection Service NSA CIA that intercepted satellite communications and other signals. The methods had evolved over the decades, from open rooftop antennas to more discreet and technologically advanced systems 9/10

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Le Cueilleur @lecueilleur.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The large loop antennas on the roof of the US Embassy in Brasília later disappeared. Signals intelligence did not end with them. The revelations by Edward Snowden beginning in 2013 showed that the US continued to maintain #SIGINT activities in Brazil (including Brasilia) 8/10

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