The U.S. was responsible for setting up the German spy agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (or BND). It was treated by Washington „as a kind of colony,“ according to Glees, until the fall of the Soviet Union and reunification of Germany in 1990.

„Germany has always been considered a rather junior-league intelligence agency,“ according to British intelligence analyst Glenmore Trenear-Harvey. „The BND used to be terribly, terribly leaky.“