Merkel opens spy agency’s massive new Berlin HQ
BERLIN: Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday inaugurated the new, fortress-like Berlin headquarters of Germany’s scandal-plagued BND foreign intelligence service.
Located where the Berlin Wall once dissected the city, the huge 1.1-billion-euro ($1.25-billion) complex now houses 4,000 of the spy agency’s 6,500 staff.
Built on the former site of an East German sports stadium, it is one of the world’s largest secret service bases, covering 10 hectares (25 acres) — the equivalent to 36 football fields.
Pointing to a host of global threats from terrorism to cyber-attacks, Merkel thanked the BND staff for their work “so that millions of Germans can live in safety”.
For the BND, which until now has been cloistered away in a former Nazi settlement outside Munich since its founding after World War II, its bold new presence is meant to signal a more self-confident global role.
The massive limestone and aluminium-fronted structure in central Berlin affords Federal Intelligence Service chief Bruno Kahl a view of the chancellery building, which he reports to.
The BND, hit by a series of scandals — most recently the 2013 revelations of fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden — has also signalled greater transparency to a sceptical public.
Mid-year it even plans to open a visitor centre, having already built up its online presence and stepped up open recruitment activities for the next generation of German spies.
For many Germans, given their country’s fascist and totalitarian past, the idea of a secret service evokes images not just of James Bond but also of the Gestapo and Stasi.
The far-left opposition Die Linke party routinely demands the abolition of Germany’s three intelligence agencies, also including the domestic BFV and military spy service MAD.
Merkel stressed that while the Stasi “was used against the populace”, the BND serves the country and is subject to laws and parliamentary oversight.
“A healthy distrust is helpful, but being overly suspicious is a hindrance,” said Merkel.