“We want to continue working closely with the Americans,” Marc Henrichmann, the chairman of a special committee in Germany’s Bundestag that oversees the country’s intelligence services, told POLITICO. “But if a [U.S.] president, whoever that may be, decides in the future to go it alone without the Europeans … then we must be able to stand on our own two feet.”

German leaders believe the need is especially urgent in their country, where the foreign intelligence service, or BND, is far more legally constrained than intelligence agencies elsewhere. Those restraints stem from intentional protections put in place after World War II to prevent a repeat of the abuses perpetrated by the Nazi spy apparatus.

But those restraints have had the side effect of making Germany particularly dependent on the U.S. for intelligence gathering, and this is now seen as a potential danger.

“The intelligence business is one where the question always arises: What do you offer me, what do I offer you?” Henrichmann said. “And of course, if Germany is only a taker, the risk is simply too great.” 

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz now wants to boost and unfetter his country’s foreign intelligence service, giving it much broader authority to perpetrate acts of sabotage, conduct offensive cyber operations and more aggressively carry out espionage.

Thorsten Frei, the chancellery official overseeing the intelligence reform, this week likened the plans to the Zeitenwende, or “historic turning point,” Germany’s former Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At the time, Berlin announced major investments to bolster its long-neglected armed forces.