Growing German awareness of CIA and NSA activities in the country
is buffeting U.S.-German relations in ways not seen since the 1940s.
U.S. Consulate General in Frankfurt: America's Spy Center in
Germany (SueddeutscheZeitung,
Germany)
"'Consulate General' has the ring of glamorous balls,
ceremonial welcoming addresses, or even of people who issue passports and
visas. It doesn’t sound like a control center for abductions, where the
logistics of secret prisons are planned, or that functions as a postal cover
address for CIA operations and secret service agents. ... The U.S. Consulate
General in Frankfurt, with about 900 employees, is not only the largest
consulate in the world, it also houses one of the largest branches - outside of
the United States - of the Langley-domiciled CIA."
ByChristian Fuchs, John Goetz, FrederikObermaier, Bastian Obermayer, and Tanjev Schultz
From here,
secret prisons are planned, kidnappings organized, and the occasional horse delivered
to Afghanistan. The U.S. Consulate General in Frankfurt houses one of the
largest branch offices of the CIA in the world. The research center for U.S.
espionage in Germany.
FRANKFURT: It’s no surprise
that people around the U.S. Consulate General in Frankfurt are nervous. But is
it really so suspicious when someone strolls by and even stops now and then? Or,
to rephrase the question, is it so suspicious as to require not one, but two
police vehicles and U.S. security people dressed in black? Really?
One
finds the consulate in the north of Frankfurt, in a building that once housed
the largest American military hospital in Europe. Today, the building looks
more like a fortress: high walls, barbed wire, tank traps, cameras, and men
with machine guns, who patrol with measured paces. It doesn’t take long for the
police patrol: “What are you doing here?” the officers ask. The American
security men join the group.
On
the other hand:It is no wonder one is
nervous here.The Consulate General’s
office plays a unique role in the NSA's global
surveillance scandal, and is a key element of surveillance when it comes to Germany.
Here, in the middle of Frankfurt, a branch of the “Special
Collection Service,” a joint CIA-NSA unit, is allegedly located, a unit
that, among other things, supposedly eavesdropped on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s
cell phone. This has emerged from a document in the collection of whistleblower
Edward Snowden.
Long
before the cell phone surveillance affair, it is clear that Germany's
government knew agents were operating from within the U.S. Consulate General.
It’s hard to find another explanation for the fact that the Federal
Office for the Protection of the Constitution had a helicopter take a low,
circular flight over the building in August to take high resolution
photographs. With the aid of this - by diplomatic standards, a remarkably
aggressive act - the protectors of the Constitution were attempting to
ascertain whether surveillance technology had been installed on the roof, similar
to that suspected at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin. A spokesperson for the Interior
Ministry says, “individual properties in certain foreign countries” are “viewed
on a routine or as-warranted basis by the Office of Constitutional Protection”
within the framework of “counterintelligence.” A clear message.
"Counterintelligence":
the word leaves little room for interpretation. “Consulate General,” on the
other hand, has more the ring of glamorous balls, ceremonial welcoming addresses,
or even of people who issue passports and visas. It doesn’t sound like a
control center for abductions, where the logistics of secret prisons are
planned, or that functions as a postal cover address for CIA operations and
secret service agents. Up until a few weeks ago, no one would have suspected
the existence of a secret listening post in an embassy.
The
U.S. Consulate General in Frankfurt, with about 900 employees, is not only the
largest consulate in the world, it also houses one of the largest branches -
outside of the United States - of the Langley-domiciled CIA. Frankfurt is
America’s capital city of espionage in Germany. CIA agents, NSA spies, military
intelligence personnel, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S.
Secret Service work here. Within a 20-mile radius of the city, the Americans
have also established a dense network of outposts and front companies. But the
U.S. Consulate General, according to everything we know, is the central office.
Is all of this top secret? Not so much. Even police officers around the
consulate openly say that there are CIA people sitting inside.
The U.S. Consulate General's Office in
Frankfurt Germany: the
largest U.S. Consulate - and one of the CIA's
largest centers of
One
would like talking to the U.S. Consulate General [Kevin C. Milas] about
this, so as to get some explanation. But the consul general, so they say, won’t
be available for the next few weeks. Nor, unfortunately, will it be possible to
visit the Consulate. That’s a shame, because there would be so much more to
discuss than issues and concerns surrounding the NSA. There is so much more to
marvel at than just the main building. To the right of the Consulate’s main
entrance, there is an additional driveway, also with an armed guard:
“Warehouse” is written above the archway. Every few minutes, vans pull up here
and guards use mirrors to check the undersides of vehicles for explosives. Only
then are they allowed to pass. Trucks are directed to an enormous, flat-roofed
building, with heavy-duty pickup trucks parked in front. Behind the pickups are
heavy-duty overseas transport containers awaiting transport. This is the
largest U.S. logistics center outside of the United States. From here, the
military, CIA, and other agencies, supply their units in many parts of the
world.
From
here, agents in Afghanistan and Pakistan are supplied, and probably those in
Yemen and Somalia. They are supplied with ordinary items, and with quite
extra-ordinary ones: When the CIA had special missions to complete in
Afghanistan - horses, including saddles and feed - were purchased in Frankfurt,
says a former head of the CIA in Germany. The Frankfurt Regional Support
Terminal procured whatever was needed. Even in the case of delicate requests:
After September 11, 2001, when the Americans were trying by all means necessary
to detain the attackers responsible, Frankfurt received a particularly
difficult request.
Researching the
Dagger Complex
Long-time
CIA man Kyle Foggo, nicknamed “Dusty,” was supposed
to draw up plans for three secret prisons. At these “black sites,” the CIA
interrogated many high-ranking terror suspects. From Frankfurt, Foggo made certain that interrogation rooms looked the
same, regardless of whether they were located in Romania, Morocco, or Poland:
plywood walls, slip-resistant floors, and a plastic chair. Same appearance,
same size. The prisoners weren’t to recognize what country or prison they
happened to be in at that moment - that would make it harder to prove that the CIA
was guilty of human rights violations. Only equipment for water boarding, a
long board on which victims are strapped, a bucket of water, a towel, so the
victim of torture doesn’t actually drown - were not delivered from Frankfurt,
but purchased locally. Foggo, the man who organized
all this at the time, was then officially attached to the U.S. Consulate
General in Frankfurt.
Frankfurt
plays a prominent role in America's intelligence architecture, or more broadly:
the greater Frankfurt area. Many key locations can be found here. For example,
the mysterious “Dagger
Complex” near Darmstadt-Griesheim. There,
secluded behind a small grove of trees, is the military arm of the NSA
espionage troupe: the U.S. Army’s intelligence service - the Army Intelligence
and Security Command (INSCOM).
Also located here: The NSA folks from the “European Cryptologic
Center,” the “principal analysis and reporting site in Europe,” at least that’s
what a 2011 report from the NSA says. Countless pieces of data are filtered
here by more than 200 employees, sorted, and if necessary, decoded and then
evaluated, with, among other tools, the analysis software “XKeyscore,” which became
public as a result of the NSA scandal.
From
outside of the building, it's hard to tell that millions of dollars have been
invested in it over recent years - the ventilation system providing the only clues:
The most important part of the Dagger Complex, the so-called Ice Box, is
situated underground. From there, surveillance and interceptions have been
organized since the American spies were drawn there from Bad Aibling in Oberbayern in 2004. Since
then, Hesse has become even more important for the Americans, because despite public
outrage over the spy program, it is unlikely to diminish in importance in the
future.
We've
long since left the area, but the police contact us by phone: What were we doing
near the Dagger Complex? We explain: research. In a friendly, joking manner,
the police officer says, “There’s still an empty cell in Guantanamo.”
1500 U.S. Secret
Service Professionals in Three Shifts
Soon
the Americans will no longer need their German helpers in Darmstadt. There are
plans to close the complex and relocate the employees to the Lucius
D. Clay Kaserne in Wiesbaden. There they'll run
into colleagues from the NSA and INSCOM, as this is INSCOM's
primary location. Sounds like a place one should take a closer look at. But a
visit? “Unfortunately not possible at the moment,” comes the response, “Nor
would a telephone interview be possible.”
One
learns more from the U.S. database for government contracts: According to the
database, a $124 million high tech control center for intelligence analysis is
being built here. Approved for bidding: Only U.S., security-cleared firms. Just
under 12,000 square meters are planned, in which probably more than 1,500
“intelligence professionals" will work in three shifts.
The
German heart of America's surveillance mania will be in Hesse. Why here?There are many answers: its central location,
many well-developed U.S. sites, a major airport. Perhaps also simply because
Hesse has long been more American than the rest of the nation. Traditionally, a
majority of U.S. troops stationed in Germany were located in Hesse. During the
Cold War, 100,000 soldiers were on guard at Rhein-Main
Air Base, organized the Berlin
Airlift from Wiesbaden, reconnaissance
flights over the Soviet Union began here, and from here, thousands flew
into the Gulf War or to Afghanistan.
Most
military flights are now handled at the nearby U.S. military airport at Ramstein. In 2003, Islamist Abu Omar, previously abducted by CIA
agents in Milan, was transferred at Ramstein. Omar
was taken to Egypt, where he disappeared into a torture prison for more than a
year. Twenty-three U.S.
agents were later convicted in absentia for multi-year sentences - a
symbolic triumph of a nation under the rule of law: the United States, of
course, didn't extradite the agents. The abduction was partly organized in
Frankfurt. Investigators followed the trail to a Frankfurt hotel, an shady
moving company at the airport, as well as to the: Consulate General.
Here
the threads come together, and they lead to almost every U.S. intelligence
agency operating in this country. Their staff decides who can board a plane at
Frankfurt Airport - and who cannot. Officially, however, they make only "recommendations."
Homeland
Security's men have apparently moved from their Frankfurt Airport office to the
Clay military base in Wiesbaden. There, NSA agents and military spies from
INSCOM sit together, and analysts from the Dagger Complex will soon be moving. Now
all that's missing are people from the Secret Service. On business cards presented
by two special agents as they arrested an Estonian hacker, however, the address
was different: U.S. Secret Service, Frankfurt Resident Office, GieβenerStraβe
30.The address of the U.S. Consulate
General.
![[Click Here for Jumbo Version]](http://polpix.sueddeutsche.com/bild/1.1822113.1384861384/860x860/geheimer-krieg.jpg){kind=link}