Former BND head arrested: Can Germany still be trusted with?

And also on that very day was also the day where the parliamentary groups, a very busy day in parliament.

And I just want to get a quick fire impression of what the political reaction to this was.

This is from across the board, the political board.

I

have to say that this is of course a truly alarming development.

That is of course extremely worrying.

It's a bombshell.

So this is parliamentarians both from the government parties but also from the green opposition pretty much sounding exactly the same.

Ines, I just want to throw this to you because how will this be received in the US? We know for a fact that That in previous cases where there were warnings of terrorist attacks here in Germany, information on radical Islamists, that was usually sourced to foreign intelligence.

And very often we learned afterwards that the US intelligence services were behind this.

So I presume they won't be amused, will they?

No, not at all.

And you just mentioned it.

I mean, their biggest fear, of course, is what kind of our information was given to others, namely, probably Russia, maybe Iran, maybe China, we don't know yet.

And that's the biggest concern of the CIA and the other possible agencies involved.

And this is extremely bad timing in that regard, that we not only have the war going on in Ukraine, but also, of course, the big war in in Iran.

And from a US perspective, it's another bad timing in that regard that Germany slowly was changing kind of its trustworthiness or its credibility when it comes to the BND.

The BND was seen as a toothless tiger by purpose, right? Given our history, they shouldn't have too much power.

But now with the Chancellor Merz and the Zeitenwende, Germany being a more important player on world stage.

That's something the world saw.

That's something, of course, also the Trump administration is seeing and applauding to a certain point, seeing that Germany is taking more responsibility, might play a bigger role.

Chancellor Merz just had stressed that three weeks ago or so.

And now that, this big scandal, and nobody as of now as of now, knows, of course, which kind of information was leaked from other agencies.