Consulate in Frankfurt Consulate No staff listed

El País reported on August 21st that “when Berlin was divided by its infamous wall, the city was reputed to be the spy capital of the Eastern communist bloc and also of the democratic and capitalist West. This appeared to be condemned to history when the Iron Curtain came down, marking the end of the Cold War. However, the city, which later became the capital of reunified Germany, did not lose its appeal to the secret services. Indeed, eight years ago, the then head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the country’s counterintelligence services, Hans-Georg Maassen, referred to the city as a modern, active and thriving “espionage capital of Europe.” The city continues to draw agents, most of whom come from Russia. President Vladimir Putin — who in his youth served as a KGB officer in the now defunct German Democratic Republic (GDR) — and his government are keen to understand everything about the assistance Germany has been providing to Ukraine since the Kremlin-ordered invasion on February 24, 2022. Last Wednesday, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Koblenz announced the arrest of Thomas H., a captain who worked for the German Army’s Office of Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support, the agency in charge of the procurement of armaments and equipment for the Armed Forces. Thomas H., a supporter of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and a sworn friend of Russia, was spotted several times in front of the Russian Embassy in Berlin and in the vicinity. “He seemed insecure, like a shy deer,” said a state security official from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), which is investigating the case in conjunction with the BfV and the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD). According to the German Prosecutor’s Office, last May Thomas H. supplied information to the Russian Consulate in Bonn and the Moscow Embassy in Berlin. “On one occasion, he transmitted information obtained in the course of his professional activity, with the purpose of having it transferred to a Russian secret service,” the institution reported. The arrest of the German captain triggered a wave of reactions among politicians and intelligence services in Germany, where it is believed that Russian espionage has infiltrated many places. These concerns are not misplaced. A few weeks after the attack on Ukraine began, the Berlin city-state government announced that spies from at least three Russian secret services were operating out of the Russian embassy on the city’s Unter den Linden avenue. These were the successor to the KGB, the Federal Security Service (FSB); the Foreign Intelligence Service (SWR), whose agents passed themselves off as diplomats or journalists; and the Russia’s military intelligence service (GRU). “There must be over 100 spies with diplomatic cover, and a year ago there were almost 150,″ said a Foreign Ministry official, pointing out that his department expelled 40 foreign agents in April 2022. “The entrances to the Russian Embassy in Berlin and the Russian Consulates General in Bonn, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig and Munich are filmed and monitored 24 hours a day by cameras of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution [German counterintelligence].”.”