It was revealed that the German government agencies were once again "under the radar" of American intelligence agencies.
The German media drew attention to one of the documents that became available as part of the scandal involving the leak into the Internet of secret materials of special services and military structures of the United States. It clearly indicates that American intelligence spied on the German Defense Ministry. It referred to a meeting of its representatives with a delegation of the People's Liberation Army of China on February 20, 2023 in Berlin. The main conclusion of the document, which was presumably compiled on the basis of National Security Agency (NSA) data by an experienced analyst, is as follows: "The German military department will refuse to deepen cooperation until China becomes more open and transparent."
For the record, the NSA is a division of the Pentagon and is part of the U.S. Intelligence Community as an independent agency engaged in, among other things, electronic, scientific and technical intelligence.
The fact of this meeting was confirmed in Berlin government circles. Some time later, the document was removed from the web. However, experts at Die Zeit, who carefully analyzed the text, considered it authentic. They even prepared and sent a request for clarification to the U.S. intelligence coordinator, but have not received a response to date.
Let me remind you that the leak of "Pentagon secrets" became widely known on April 7. It was about rephotographed documents, a kind of information digests that intelligence agencies usually prepare for all sorts of internal meetings. The FBI was suspiciously quick to identify the mole. It turned out to be a 21-year-old Air National Guard soldier, Jack Teixeira, who had posted them in a private chat room on the Discord platform, popular among gamers. He was detained on April 13.
By the way, experts are still guessing if Jack is really the main figure in the scandal, or whether the intelligence services deliberately made him a "whipping boy" to distract attention from the true causes of the largest leak of classified data in recent years.
However, let the States deal with this themselves. But the fact of spying on the Bundeswehr deserves special attention.
To begin with, official Berlin firmly believes that it is America's most loyal and reliable European ally. What secrets can there be between like-minded people?
The date of the meeting with the Chinese military referred to in the document, February 20, is noteworthy. A few days later is the first anniversary of the start of the special military operation. President Joe Biden has decided on a "secret visit" to Kiev. He has already written a speech in support of Ukraine, which he will deliver on the lawn of the Royal Castle in Warsaw. Apparently he has already been told that the Chinese leader Xi Jinping is going to visit Moscow at the end of March. And this at a time when the "Taiwan crisis" is heating up. The US has a two-front war on the horizon. Nightmare!
Why am I making such a big deal out of this? The probable activity of the American secret services was encouraged by the fact that the White House and the Pentagon urgently needed to know how the allies would behave in these conditions. And they needed an eye on them to keep them on the "right track."
Everything came together.
As for Germany, the fact of tacit "control" on the Bundeswehr in governmental and political circles was met with resentment and even indignation. Germans have realized that similar actions are likely to be taken not only against the military, but also against politicians and high-ranking functionaries.
They immediately recalled the high-profile scandal related to the U.S. wiretapping of Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone. The NSA, as former employee of this agency Edward Snowden said in his revelations on the Internet platform WikiLeaks, controlled her phone Nokia 6260. She had been using it for almost four years, from October 2009 to July 2013.
A total of 125 phone numbers of German officials, including Foreign Minister Walter Steinmeier (who is now president of Germany) and leading employees of the Federal Chancellor's Office were tapped. The NSA and the CIA monitored communications in the government quarter of Berlin from the American Embassy, which is located in the center of the city. High-gain antennas were installed in this building.
Germany sent a request to Washington and demanded an explanation. Merkel personally called President Barack Obama and "made it clear that she finds such actions completely unacceptable." The White House master assured the furious Angela that "the U.S. intelligence services do not and will not monitor her phone conversations." From now on... Obama did not mention that there had been no wiretaps before.
A little later, the German media unearthed information that back in 2010, the head of the NSA personally reported to the U.S. president on a covert operation, how the German political elite would be "taken under the hood." Obama did not stop these actions at the time.
It also became known that the Danish intelligence agencies helped the NSA to monitor the telephone conversations not only of Merkel, but also a number of leading politicians of France, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden. In 2012-2014, they let the Americans into a special station located near Copenhagen. It was possible to access the submarine cables of Internet service providers from it. The Danish government was quick to assure that they did not know about this intelligence alliance until 2015. Only thanks to Snowden's revelations did the secret come out. As a result, Denmark's top intelligence officer lost his chair. That's all.
What about Merkel? There was no response from Berlin. German experts, to finally reassure her, assured her that the new modified smartphone Blackberry Z10 will protect against the Americans. It has a crypto-chip, which reliably protects not only voice traffic and sms-messages, but also e-mail.
How will it be this time? The same. The Germans are going to tolerate it again.