This is kind of inter­est­ing: Accord­ing to a late 2011 report in the Ger­man mag­a­zine Focus on the US spy­ing on the BND, it sounds like the CIA’s spy­ing against the BND actu­al­ly inten­si­fied fol­low­ing Ger­man uni­fi­ca­tion. The report claims that the tar­gets were BND agents with a Nazi or Com­mu­nist pasts and the CIA ver­i­fied that at least two BND agents that served in the SS had joined “a NATO sab­o­tage unit”. It’s not sur­pris­ing, but still inter­est­ing:

Analy­sis: Unit­ed States and Ger­many spy on each oth­er

Octo­ber 26, 2011 by Joseph Fit­sanakis

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
New­ly released doc­u­ments reveal that the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency has main­tained an active pro­gram of espi­onage against Ger­many in the post-Cold War era, and experts say that Ger­many rec­i­p­ro­cates the ‘favor’. Accord­ing to an arti­cle in the lat­est issue of Ger­man news­magazine Focus, the US intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty, led by the CIA, has been keep­ing tabs on Germany’s intel­li­gence agen­cies since the 1950s, and con­tin­ues to do so today. The magazine’s edi­tors say they are in pos­ses­sion of inter­nal gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments, which describe con­stant CIA mon­i­tor­ing on the Bun­desnachrich­t­en­di­enst (BND), Germany’s main exter­nal intel­li­gence agency. The CIA’s spy­ing extends to Germany’s coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence agency, known as the Fed­er­al Office for Pro­tec­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion (Bun­de­samt für Ver­fas­sungss­chutz). CIA oper­a­tions against the Office have report­ed­ly includ­ed the inter­cep­tion of tele­phone calls, some of which involved high-lev­el con­ver­sa­tions between Ger­man and British or French intel­li­gence offi­cials. Focus claims that CIA spy­ing against the BND actu­al­ly inten­si­fied fol­low­ing Ger­man reuni­fi­ca­tion in 1990, as the Amer­i­can agency kept tabs on Ger­man intel­li­gence offi­cers with for­mer Nazi or com­mu­nist past. Accord­ing to one report, the CIA was able to ver­i­fy that at least two BND offi­cers with ser­vice in the Nazi SS had joined a NATO sab­o­tage unit. The mag­a­zine spoke to an unnamed for­mer BND coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence offi­cer, who said he was not in the least sur­prised by the rev­e­la­tions. Com­ment­ing yes­ter­day on the Focus report, Wash­ing­ton-based reporter Jeff Stein argued that a lit­tle friend­ly spy­ing is to be expect­ed among allied intel­li­gence ser­vices. The vet­er­an intel­li­gence cor­re­spon­dent spoke to an unnamed for­mer CIA offi­cer, who told him that the espi­onage between Wash­ing­ton and Berlin has not been “a one-way street” —the BND also spies on the CIA and oth­er Amer­i­can intel­li­gence agen­cies. Stein notes that Ger­many “has always field­ed a robust team of agents to keep track of Amer­i­can, as well as oth­er for­eign spies run­ning around in their back­yard”. More­over, he says, while Amer­i­can and Ger­man agen­cies tend to coop­er­ate on some lev­els, they still tend to keep “secrets from each oth­er”. Why, then, have no Ger­man spies been arrest­ed by the FBI and deport­ed from the Unit­ed States, or vice-ver­sa? Because, he says, “among friends, some things are best han­dled dis­creet­ly”.

Here’s anoth­er inter­est­ing report from late 2011 relat­ed to the his­to­ry of ex-Nazis serv­ing in the BND. It’s his­to­ry that’s a lit­tle less clear and lit­tle more shred­ded:

Der Spiegel
Obscur­ing the Past: Intel­li­gence Agency Destroyed Files on For­mer SS Mem­bers

By Klaus Wiegrefe

His­to­ri­ans con­duct­ing an inter­nal study of ties between employ­ees of the Ger­man for­eign intel­li­gence agency and the Third Reich have made a shock­ing dis­cov­ery. In 2007, the BND destroyed per­son­nel files of employ­ees who had once been mem­bers of the SS and the Gestapo.

Novem­ber 30, 2011 – 12:00 PM

Prepa­ra­tions have already been made for Ernst Uhrlau’s retire­ment par­ty next Wednes­day when he steps down from his post as the head of the Bun­desnachrich­t­en­di­enst (BND), Ger­many’s for­eign intel­li­gence agency, on his 65th birth­day. The office of the chan­cel­lor has select­ed a posh loca­tion in Berlin for his farewell par­ty and Angela Merkel her­self is expect­ed to attend. Uhrlau, a mem­ber of the cen­ter-left Social Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (SPD), will be turn­ing over his post to Ger­hard Schindler, a mem­ber of the busi­ness-friend­ly Free Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty.

At events like this, the suc­cess­es of the per­son retir­ing are usu­al­ly cel­e­brat­ed. In Uhrlau’s case, top­ping the list are his efforts to review the prob­lem­at­ic his­to­ry of the BND’s cre­ation after World War II. It has long been known that around 10 per­cent of the employ­ees at the BND and its pre­de­ces­sor orga­ni­za­tion once served under SS chief Hein­rich Himm­ler in Nazi Ger­many. In 2011, Uhrlau appoint­ed an inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion of his­to­ri­ans to research the agen­cy’s Nazi roots.

Now, only one week before Uhrlau’s retire­ment, the com­mis­sion has uncov­ered what is a true his­tor­i­cal scan­dal. The researchers have found that the BND destroyed the per­son­nel files of around 250 BND offi­cials in 2007. The agency has con­firmed that this hap­pened.

The com­mis­sion claims that the destroyed doc­u­ments include papers on peo­ple who were “in sig­nif­i­cant intel­li­gence posi­tions in the SS, the SD (the intel­li­gence agency of the SS and the Nazi Par­ty) or the Gestapo.” They added that some of the indi­vid­u­als had even been inves­ti­gat­ed after 1945 for pos­si­ble war crimes. His­to­ri­an Klaus-Diet­mar Henke, spokesman for the com­mis­sion, told SPIEGEL ONLINE he was “some­what stunned” by the occur­rence.

Did Agency Employ­ees Seek to Sab­o­tage Inves­ti­ga­tion?

The inci­dent inevitably rais­es sus­pi­cions that agency employ­ees have delib­er­ate­ly tried to obstruct Uhrlau’s efforts to inves­ti­gate the orga­ni­za­tion’s his­to­ry. The his­tor­i­cal com­mis­sion had not yet been appoint­ed at the time of the doc­u­ments’ destruc­tion, but Uhrlau had already announced that he planned to look into his agen­cy’s Nazi past.

It is no secret that some peo­ple with­in the BND are unhap­py about Uhrlau’s project. Some employ­ees are fun­da­men­tal­ly opposed to the agency shed­ding light on its own past. Oth­ers are wor­ried about the rep­u­ta­tions of their own fam­i­lies — for many years, the BND delib­er­ate­ly recruit­ed new staff from among the rel­a­tives of exist­ing BND employ­ees.

With­in the BND, a work­ing group head­ed by Bodo Hechel­ham­mer is respon­si­ble for coop­er­a­tion with the his­tor­i­cal com­mis­sion. The group is cur­rent­ly try­ing to shed light on the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the destruc­tion of the doc­u­ments. Hechel­ham­mer told SPIEGEL ONLINE that he regret­ted the loss of the doc­u­ments.

...

The arti­cles pre­dict­ing a Junck­er come­back in the wake of his res­ig­na­tion fol­low­ing the spy­ing scan­dal might turn out to have been right. Junck­er just got anoth­er step clos­er to becom­ing Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion:

Merkel backs Junck­er to lead con­ser­v­a­tives in EU elec­tions

By Ger­not Heller

BERLIN Thu Feb 6, 2014 12:04pm EST

(Reuters) — Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Angela Merkel threw her weight behind Lux­em­bourg’s Jean-Claude Junck­er on Thurs­day as the lead­ing con­ser­v­a­tive can­di­date in May’s Euro­pean Par­lia­ment elec­tions, a poten­tial spring­board to head the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion.

It was her first pub­lic endorse­ment of the vet­er­an for­mer prime min­is­ter and ex-chair­man of euro zone finance min­is­ters and it appeared to dim the prospects of French Euro­pean Com­mis­sion­er Michel Barnier, the only oth­er declared can­di­date.

As leader of Europe’s biggest econ­o­my and most pow­er­ful con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty, Merkel wields strong influ­ence in the cen­ter-right Euro­pean Peo­ple’s Par­ty (EPP).

“It is no secret that I have a lot of sym­pa­thy for Jean-Claude Junck­er,” she said at a joint news con­fer­ence with new Lux­em­bourg Prime Min­is­ter Xavier Bet­tel, who oust­ed Junck­er after a gen­er­al elec­tion last Octo­ber.

While stop­ping short of explic­it­ly back­ing Junck­er to head the EU exec­u­tive, the chan­cel­lor said the imme­di­ate task was to find some­one to lead Euro­pean con­ser­v­a­tives in the elec­tions who could move up to become Com­mis­sion pres­i­dent.

Merkel added that sup­port from his own coun­try was a “very impor­tant mes­sage”.

“If Mr Junck­er can become Com­mis­sion pres­i­dent, we will sup­port this can­di­da­cy,” Bet­tel told reporters.

A new Com­mis­sion chief, in charge of propos­ing and enforc­ing reg­u­la­tions for some 500 mil­lion Euro­peans, will take office for five years from Novem­ber, suc­ceed­ing Por­tu­gal’s Jose Manuel Bar­roso who has led the insti­tu­tion since 2004.

...

Whichev­er group wins the most seats in the May 22–25 elec­tions is expect­ed to lay claim to the Com­mis­sion pres­i­den­cy, although it is EU lead­ers who pro­pose a can­di­date under treaty rules, and par­lia­ment votes on their nom­i­nee.

The Euro­pean leg­is­la­ture has gained an expand­ed role in pol­i­cy mak­ing under the 2009 Lis­bon treaty.

Junck­er, who was prime min­is­ter for 19 years, is a Euro­pean fed­er­al­ist who wants a big­ger say for the Com­mis­sion. He was a key bro­ker in Europe’s debt cri­sis, lead­ing the Eurogroup of euro zone finance min­is­ters until ear­ly last year.

How­ev­er, his rep­u­ta­tion has been tar­nished by a spy­ing scan­dal in Lux­em­bourg and his Eurogroup suc­ces­sor, Dutch Finance Min­is­ter Jeroen Dijs­sel­bloem, told Dutch TV last month that Junck­er drank and smoked heav­i­ly dur­ing cri­sis meet­ings.

“I would like to be asked about pol­i­tics and not about my alco­hol prob­lem which I don’t have,” Junck­er respond­ed in Ger­many’s Der Spiegel mag­a­zine this week.

His coali­tion gov­ern­ment col­lapsed last year when the Social­ists quit, blam­ing him for fail­ing to curb abus­es of pow­er by the secret ser­vice.