The news about Alternative for Germany (AfD) MEP Maximilian Krah’s assistant and his arrest for suspected espionage on behalf of China continues to make national headlines, but as more information comes out, the more German intelligence and the political establishment continue to look worse and worse.
Now, news reports have revealed that Krah’s employee, Chinese-German national Jian G., worked for the German domestic intelligence service for years before joining the AfD politician.
Krah has since commented on the new bombshell information, writing on X: “Remarkable turn of events!”
Much is at stake, as Krah is the top candidate for the AfD in the run-up to the EU parliamentary elections in June. The latest report shows that the powerful Office for the Protection of Constitution (BfV) not only recruited Jian G. as a spy, but also dropped him as an informant because there were concerns he was a double agent for China.
However, despite these suspicions, Jian G. gained German citizenship, became a member of the Social Democrats (SPD), and even passed the EU parliament’s security clearance.
Former minister Mathias Brodkorb questioned the story on X, writing:
They are really funny. Let’s assume the story is true:
1. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is working with the man.
2. Then, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution ends the collaboration because the man could be a double agent.
3. Then the German state naturalizes this agent.
Intermediate question: Where was the Office for the Protection of the Constitution at that time?
4. Then, Krah wants to hire the man as an employee of the EU parliament. That cannot be done without a security check. So the EU parliament should actually have asked the German security authorities whether there was anything against the man. But apparently they didn’t. Otherwise, the man would not have been cleared and could not have been hired.
Intermediate question: Where was the Office for the Protection of the Constitution at that time? And you are now seriously asking what the problem is? Seriously?
One of the main questions is why the Office for the Protection of the Constitution never informed Krah or the AfD about their suspicions, which is standard operating procedure, and one designed to protect the country’s parties from foreign infiltration. Notably, allowing Jian G. to work for Krah created a favorable political scenario for the establishment to later arrest him in order to smear the AfD. Notably, Jian G. was arrested right before EU parliamentary elections.
The question now is whether the BfV purposefully kept the AfD in the dark for years about the information it knew in order to damage the party.
Working for the BfV all the way back in 2007
According to Bild newspaper, Jian G. was an informant for the Saxon Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) since 2007 at the earliest. Previously, he had unsuccessfully offered to work for the federal branch of the BfV, but he was rejected, and referred back to the Saxon branch of the BfV.
Jian G. reportedly worked with the intelligence service on his own initiative, including supplying information that dealt with Chinese state actors taking action against Chinese exiles in Germany. Eight years after joining the Saxon BfV as an informant, the Saxon branch was informed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution that G. could be a double spy.
In 2015 and 2016, G. was then directly observed by the counterintelligence department of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Officers also questioned him about their suspicions but were unable to prove that he was a spy for China. He was therefore listed as a “suspected case” during that period.
In 2018, G. was finally removed as an informant by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
However, by that time, Jian G. had already made contact with Krah and then went on to work as his employee in the EU parliament beginning in 2019. He was then intensively monitored by the domestic intelligence service from 2020 and finally arrested in April 2024.
As noted above, despite the suspicion of espionage, the Chinese national was granted a German passport, was also a member of the SPD for a time, and was able to pass the security check for the EU parliament.
In addition, the BfV under Thomas Haldenwang (CDU), who is notoriously anti-AfD and publicly working against the party, failed to inform Krah or the AfD about the suspicion of espionage against Jian G.
As Remix News has documented, Haldenwang has made numerous remarks against the AfD, including on state-funded television, all in violation of neutrality. Haldenwang belongs to the CDU party.
Notably, this is standard procedure in such cases, which means the Office for the Protection of the Constitution withheld this information from the AfD in violation of past precedent and procedure.
