Tag Archives: Spies

There are fireworks…

January 1, 2026 By in Hard Facts, History Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Then there are fireworks.

German Spies Detonated 2 Million Pounds of Explosives in New York Harbor in 1916: The Statue of Liberty’s Torch Has Been Closed Ever Since – Just after 2 a.m. on July 30, 1916, a freight car loaded with TNT exploded at a munitions depot on Black Tom Island in New York Harbor. The blast registered as a 5.5 magnitude earthquake and was felt 90 miles away in Philadelphia. Windows shattered from Times Square to Brooklyn. The Statue of Liberty took shrapnel damage. Firefighters were blown out of their boots.

FSB, DGSI, FBI…

December 28, 2025 By in Hard Facts, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

It’s all BfV to me.

Recruiting for Germany’s Secret Police – Like almost any other country – the Russian Tsar’s Okhrana (later: NKVD and now: FSB), Iran’s feared SAVAK, Pinochet’s torturing DINA, South Africa’s BOSS and NIS, Franco’s BSI, Mussolini’s OVRA, and Hoover’s FBI – Germany too has a secret police that today is no longer called Gestapo or Stasi. Yet Germany’s agency is distinctively different from, for example, France’s DGSI.

Deceptively labelled the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, or BfV), it spies on people. It operates in the shadows, in secret and by stealth. Being unnoticed and silent is of the essence.

German of the day: Russische Wegwerf-Agenten

October 31, 2025 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means disposable Russian agents.

You know, low-level agents who are not not professional spies but hired for small sums to carry out minor acts of sabotage, then “discarded?”

Things like photographing military sites, setting vehicles and facilities on fire, spray-painting political slogans, spreading pro-Russian content and conspiracy theories, etc. They would normally also sabotage rail lines and other forms of strategic infrastructure but the Germans have already beat them to it.

Putin’s secret terror in Germany – Russia’s “disposable agents” pose a threat to internal and external security. It is difficult to expose them. That is why German politicians are puzzling over how to defend the country against them. Now, for the first time, a strategy is taking shape.

How did they gather all that information without everybody carrying handheld surveillance monitors?

August 3, 2025 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, History, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

You know, like we do now?

Very impressive.

Stasi: How the GDR kept its citizens under surveillance – Do all intelligence agents live like James Bond? Not those who worked for East Germany’s Ministry for State Security (Stasi). A new book reveals the mundane lives of the agents.

“Comrades, we must know everything!”

German of the day: Verdeckte Tyrannei

May 3, 2025 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means covert tyranny.

Following the classification of the AfD as “verified right-wing extremist” by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, US Secretary of State Rubio has described the classification as “covert tyranny,” while US Vice President Vance even draws historical comparisons.

Both US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Vice President J.D. Vance have criticized the new classification of the AfD by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution with vigorous words. The Federal Foreign Office responded to the X-word battle and countered: “That’s democracy.”

“Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy — it’s tyranny. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD, but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes.”

Drones come seldom alone

December 14, 2024 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Myterious drones. They’re not just for New Jersey anymore.

Everybody’s doing it. It’s Drone-o-mania!

Germany: Drones spotted over US air base in Ramstein – Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine said drones were also seen over facilities belonging to the Rheinmetall arms maker. It comes after US authorities said there was no evidence of a threat over drone sightings in New Jersey.

What? Even more security?

October 10, 2024 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Germany is already more secure than Fort Knox when it comes to espionage as it is.

Although it’s more like the Fort of Hard Knocks, come to think of it.

Germany to beef up security checks amid spying fears – Germany’s government has said the country will tighten security checks for staff in sensitive areas of government and business. The move comes after an increase in suspected espionage cases…

Several cases of alleged spying for Moscow have rocked Germany since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In one case, a former German intelligence officer was accused of passing information to Russia that showed Berlin had access to details of Moscow’s mercenary operations in Ukraine.

Chinese espionage has also been a growing concern. In April, the most high-profile such case saw an aide to a German far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) member of the European Parliament arrested on suspicion of spying for Beijing.

Well, it was supposed to be a surprise attack, wasn’t it?

August 22, 2024 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

There are more Russian spies in Berlin than Russians in the Kremlin.

Scholz: Ukraine did not consult Germany over Russia incursion – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday Ukraine had not consulted Berlin about its Aug. 6 shock incursion into Russia and that he expected that military operation to be limited in time and territory.

Speaking at a press conference after talks with Moldovan President Maia Sandu in Chisinau, Scholz said Berlin was monitoring further developments around the incursion closely.

Ukrainian leaders have cast the attack as proof that their military can still succeed in offensive operations, and still surprise. Russia has vowed to repel the incursion.

How offensive

August 1, 2024 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Time to go on the defensive, again.

Germany blames China for ‘serious’ cyber attack – Berlin says Beijing behind 2021 hack on precision mapping agency…

The BKG, itself a part of the interior ministry, collects precision data about “the properties and position of every point on the surface of [the] country,” according to its website.

Its data systems are linked to many pieces of critical national infrastructure. After the attack was discovered, German security authorities worked to purge the BKG’s systems of Chinese intruders. The agency says it now believes its databases to be completely secure…

The accusations against Beijing come just weeks after the German government agreed a plan with telecommunications companies to strip Chinese technology from the country’s 5G networks over security concerns.

Sanctions work!

July 21, 2024 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In theory, at least.

Spy-linked Russians restart trade with German toolmaker – Heller Tools exported machinery to entities linked to a covert FSB smuggling network.

Companies linked to a Russian spy ring have resumed buying machinery from a German toolmaker — just months after the manufacturer was warned about sales to the same smuggling network.

Analysis by the Financial Times has established that Heller Tools, a Dinklage-based group founded in the 19th century, sold a total of $1.2mn of drills and other tools to companies linked to the so-called Serniya smuggling operation.