According to media reports, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wants to fire the head of the Federal Office for Information Security. The reason: possible contacts with Russian secret services. They had become public in a ZDF program.
According to media reports, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) wants to recall Arne Schönbohm, President of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). This is reported by “Bild” and the “Handelsblatt”, citing government circles. A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior did not want to comment on the reports when asked by dpa. Ministry circles said that the presentation of the BSI management report, originally planned for Thursday, is to be postponed.
Schönbohm has been criticized for possible contacts with Russian secret service circles via the controversial association “Cyber Security Council Germany”. The connection of Schönbohm had previously been discussed by Jan Böhmermann in the program “ZDF Magazin Royale”. A spokesman said the Interior Ministry was investigating and examining the matter closely. “All options are being examined and how the current situation should be dealt with.”
Because of the provisions of civil service law, the head of the agency cannot simply be dismissed. The “Bild” reported that after the dismissal, a new job for Schönbohm and a successor for the BSI would be sought as soon as possible. The BSI did not respond to a request from the dpa.
The association “Cyber Security Council Germany” is criticized, among other things, for the membership of the Berlin cyber security company Protelion. The company operated under the name Infotecs GmbH until the end of March. This is a subsidiary of the Russian cybersecurity company O.A.O.Infotecs, which, according to information from the research network Policy Network Analytics, was founded by a former employee of the Russian intelligence service KGB.
According to dpa information, there has long been displeasure in the Ministry of the Interior about Schönbohm’s role in and his dealings with the Cyber Security Council. The recent allegations and Schönbohm’s visit to the club’s anniversary have now apparently brought the last straw.
The digital policy spokeswoman for the Left Group in the German Bundestag, Anke Domscheit-Berg, said on Twitter on Saturday that she had requested that the digital committee deal with the topic next Wednesday. What Jan Böhmermann made public about connections between Russian intelligence services, “a dubious cyber security association, its members and the BSI” is incomprehensible.
Schönbohm is one of the co-founders of the “Cyber-Sicherheitsrat Deutschland e.V.”, which has been criticized, among other things, because it acted like a supposed state institution on certain occasions. In 2019, the association’s president, Hans-Wilhelm Dünn, also admitted contacts with Russian secret service agencies to the ARD magazine “Kontraste” and the weekly magazine “Die Zeit”.
According to dpa information, Schönbohm had been suggested several times to distance himself from the “Cyber-Sicherheitsrat Deutschland e.V.”. At the beginning of September, however, the head of the authorities appeared at the club to publicly congratulate it on its tenth anniversary.
