According to security experts, all major attack plans have been foiled in recent years after initial indications from the United States.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin A debate has broken out in the Bundestag about the extent to which the German secret services are sufficiently prepared for the current challenges. The deputy chairman of the secret service body in the Bundestag, Roderich Kiesewetter (CDU), expressed serious doubts and called for better equipment for the security authorities. There are also calls in the traffic light coalition to strengthen the services.
Kiesewetter told the Handelsblatt: “Our own services are obviously not efficient enough, especially since we are confronted with new threats in the context of the hybrid war against Germany.” Germany is “many dependent on the USA” for intelligence gathering.
The dependency was most recently demonstrated in the case of the suspected Islamist terror planners from Castrop-Rauxel in North Rhine-Westphalia. According to the public prosecutor’s office in Düsseldorf, the decisive clue for the arrest of the two suspected Iranians came from a US security agency.
The Green politician Konstantin von Notz also sees “a strength of modern democratic security authorities” in such references. “Because they don’t work purely nation-state oriented, but value-based cooperatively with friendly nations,” said the chairman of the intelligence committee of the Handelsblatt.
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At the same time, given the changed security situation caused by the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, he was open to improvements in counter-espionage and counter-sabotage. “The services and parliamentary control must be strengthened against this background,” said von Notz.
The protection of the constitution calls for the strengthening of the entire German security structure
The SPD foreign politician Ralf Stegner made a similar statement. “We have to give the services more options – but only if the strict parliamentary control keeps up,” he told the editorial network Germany (RND). The services would have to evolve to keep up with the opponent.
>> Read also: Russian espionage: The biggest challenge for BND boss Bruno Kahl
The CDU MP Kiesewetter called for better equipment for the secret services. In the future, an “overall threat calculation” must be drawn up, from which conclusions can be drawn to protect society, he said.
“We have to adapt the structural, financial and human resources of the intelligence services and the legal situation to the broader threat situation.” This affects, for example, technical skills and reconnaissance tools, especially in the area of monitoring financial flows.
The President of the Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Stephan Kramer, also sees a need for action. “In Germany, I increasingly have the impression that we are more concerned with control obligations and reports than with our actual task of averting danger and identifying dangers,” Kramer told the Handelsblatt. “Distrust in the work of the authorities comes first, and that is not a healthy attitude and basis for a successful defense of our security.”
Kramer warned that the requirements for the intelligence services should be “urgently” reconsidered in view of the current threat situation. Cooperation with foreign partner services always presupposes that information can be exchanged and not just tapped. “In this respect, it is necessary to strengthen our entire security structure and thus also the intelligence services.”
Expert: German security agencies almost 100 percent dependent on NSA and CIA
Security experts have long recognized the problem that Germany is very dependent on the United States in the fight against terrorists at home. “I’m 100 percent sure that more major attacks would have happened in Germany if we hadn’t gotten the information from the Americans,” terrorism expert Peter Neumann from London’s King’s College told RND.
>> Read also: Espionage case at the BND: Kubicki is concerned about cooperation with partner secret services
Guido Steinberg from the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) already stated in September 2021: “All major attack plans of the last 20 years were foiled according to the first indications from the USA.” When it comes to intelligence gathering, the German security authorities are almost 100 percent from the US intelligence services Dependent on the NSA and CIA, Steinberg told the Tagesspiegel at the time.
The Thuringian constitutional protection officer Kramer considers the analysis to be wrong. This “does not match my experiences of the last few years and improperly degrades the work of the German services,” he said. “We have our skills, we are making our contribution and we don’t need to hide,” emphasized the head of the agency.
Nevertheless, there is no question that “there is room for improvement and that we could do more if we were allowed to be political”.
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