Berlin Withholds Nord Stream Warning Details

The German Federal Chancellery has refused to say whether other countries warned it in the summer of 2022 that the Nord Stream gas pipelines were at risk of being blown up, according to the Ostdeutsche Allgemeine website.

In a terse response to AfD lawmaker Anne Rathert, the office cited the protection of national security and the need to keep intelligence information confidential.

The Chancellery refused to give the parliamentary oversight body access to the documents, even under classified conditions.

Rathert asked whether Wolfgang Schmidt (SPD), then head of the Chancellery, had been warned by the Dutch military intelligence service MIVD of a plot to attack the pipelines, and why Germany had failed to take preventive measures.

The Federal Chancellery responded that the requested information concerns the national interest to such an extent that it cannot be disclosed, even in a classified format, to members of the Bundestag. The response was signed by the then-Chief of Staff Thorsten Frei (CDU) before he moved to head the CDU parliamentary group.

According to Rathert, it is precisely this response that reveals a logical contradiction. If Berlin had no information, she argues, it could have simply said so, as it had done in the past regarding other sensitive operations. She argues that the refusal to provide a response suggests that the warning did exist and raises the question of why Germany did not act.

(mja)