The man, identified only as Thomas H, had been a captain in the army’s procurement office when he contacted Russian embassy in Berlin and passed on secret military information.
German police arrested him in the city of Koblenz in August and accused him of sharing photographs of munitions training systems and aircraft technology.
The 54-year-old admitted to a Düsseldorf court on Monday to passing information to Russia, saying it was a “stupid idea” and that he regretted his actions.
“It is the biggest mess I have ever made in my life,” he told the court.
Prosecutors said the man approached the Russian embassy in Berlin and the consulate in Bonn unprompted and “almost persistently offered himself to Russia”.
They said he photographed sensitive military files and dropped information through a letterbox at the consulate building in Bonn.
In a closing statement, the man said he had contacted the embassy after becoming concerned about the risk of nuclear war driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He added that he was especially concerned that Germany’s supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine could draw it into the conflict. According to government figures, Berlin supplied about €6.6bn (£5.62bn) worth of military hardware to Ukraine in 2022 and 2023. This included 40 Leopard 1 tanks and 100 infantry fighting vehicles.
The man claimed that chronic overwork had impaired his ability to think critically about his actions.
His lawyer said he had been influenced by a stream of pro-Russian propaganda and disinformation that he had been consuming on TikTok and Telegram at the time. He noted that his client had also joined the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
He added that the decision came during a four-day period “in which [his client] crossed red lines”.
While prosecutors said the leaks had revealed sensitive military information, they noted that he had not disclosed state secrets, an act which would have attracted a much heavier lifetime sentence.
The trial comes as a slew of Russian spy affairs have hit headlines in Germany.
In April, two men with dual Russian-German citizenship were arrested, accused of spying on US army bases in Germany where Ukrainian soldiers were being trained.
Since December, an employee for German domestic intelligence, Carsten L, has been on trial accused of passing on classified data to Russian agents.
And in February 2023, a former security guard at the British embassy in Berlin was sentenced to 13 years in prison for passing on large amounts of sensitive information to the nearby Russian embassy.
The affairs have sparked a debate about whether security measures in Germany are tight enough. The government has admitted that more cases are likely to come to light.
In a recent television interview, Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said that Germany was a target for foreign powers. He added that over the next few months, more spies were likely to be “unmasked”.
Dude “persistently” tried to contact Russia to leak documents…
And then says he was overworked and fed Russian propaganda?
He actively pursued spying on his own country.
Meanwhile, Australia convicts a whistleblower soldier to years of prison.
Really think that German soldier got off easy.
Just to everyone saying it’s a lenient sentence: The guys fucked anyway. He lost all his retirement fund and very likely a lot of personal money (/everything) as the police can charge him for some of their costs and lawyers and shit are expensive.
He will have to pay for his own private health insurance when back out and is not eligible for public insurance anymore. And he is ineligible for a lot of jobs as he won’t pass the most basic background checks, he won’t even be allowed to drive a school bus until he is at an age that he needs to retire anyway. Even amazon will not hire him.
Basically he fucked his whole life over. For what? For things the Russian intelligence services very likely already knew.
(And no, tbh, I feel no pitty for him. I am all for resocialisation, but this way intentionally and beyond stupid)
Meh. It’s a 54 years old officer. Not some youngster who fucked up his life by diving in a shallow pool.
He may very well have endangered the lives of many people. I usually don’t like that argument as it is very conditional but in this case he wasn’t denouncing something or trying to be a whistleblower. He straight up tried to make an enemy army more effective at killing Ukrainians (and Germans to some extent ) because he was afraid of their nuclear weapons.
He got off easy. We don’t know what documents exactly he leaked but stuff about training/weapons can really change a war. You might pass it as things they already knew but what if they didn’t ?
You can get more for media piracy. Kinda bonkers.
There is a hidden “fine” for him though as he’s removed from service (rightfully so) and as such he goes from comfy pension with 70% of his last pay to retroactive normal employment for which he never put any money aside because he was calculating with that state pension. And since for soldiers the gross is quite small compared to what others make with the same net his social security will cover for very little later. The prison time isn’t his actual biggest problem.
That said he fully deserves it, I served in a very similar position (also Captain in the very same procurement agency in Koblenz) and you 100% know that this is an absolute no go. Absolutely inexcusable, and the only thing that saved him was that the information he passed on weren’t state level secrets. Traitor scum but the damage has been done and all you can do now is make sure these things don’t happen in the future
This is Germany. His “social security” will be compensated for by the state.
As said, he’ll only be retroactively be insured by his rather low gross, and only the employer share, not employee. So yeah his social security will be pretty much Grundsicherung. Which is much less than what he would have had if he didn’t fuck up, which was my original point
That’s still a slap on the wrist, which was my original point.
What else did you have in mind? Firing squad? I don’t think this is a “slap on the wrist”, the guy got rightfully fucked. Slap on the wrist I’d consider something like 6 months probation, fine, relocation to a position where you don’t deal with secrets and timed ban from promotion or a demotion.
If you don’t see anything between a couple years in prison and a firing squad then there’s not much point in talking to extremist nutjobs like you. This guy is a traitor and you think lowering his living standards a little is him being “fucked” and an appropriate response to such a high level crime. That’s straight up delusional.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
German police arrested him in the city of Koblenz in August and accused him of sharing photographs of munitions training systems and aircraft technology.The 54-year-old admitted to a Düsseldorf court on Monday to passing information to Russia, saying it was a “stupid idea” and that he regretted his actions.
Prosecutors said the man approached the Russian embassy in Berlin and the consulate in Bonn unprompted and “almost persistently offered himself to Russia”.
In a closing statement, the man said he had contacted the embassy after becoming concerned about the risk of nuclear war driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While prosecutors said the leaks had revealed sensitive military information, they noted that he had not disclosed state secrets, an act which would have attracted a much heavier lifetime sentence.
Since December, an employee for German domestic intelligence, Carsten L, has been on trial accused of passing on classified data to Russian agents.And in February 2023, a former security guard at the British embassy in Berlin was sentenced to 13 years in prison for passing on large amounts of sensitive information to the nearby Russian embassy.The affairs have sparked a debate about whether security measures in Germany are tight enough.
In a recent television interview, Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said that Germany was a target for foreign powers.
The original article contains 489 words, the summary contains 217 words. Saved 56%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!