Nord Stream attack: The warning Germany won't discuss

Germany’s Federal Chancellery has refused to disclose whether it received advance intelligence about plans to sabotage the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022.

AfD MP Anna Rathert asked whether then–Chancellery chief Wolfgang Schmidt had been warned by foreign intelligence services and whether the government failed to take preventive action despite that warning.

The Chancellery justified its refusal by claiming that disclosure could harm Germany’s national interests and damage cooperation with foreign intelligence agencies. It even rejected the possibility of providing a classified answer through the Bundestag’s secure facilities, effectively blocking meaningful parliamentary scrutiny.

The government insists that its silence should be understood as neither confirmation nor denial. In practice, however, this refusal prevents lawmakers and the public from determining what senior officials knew before the explosions and whether they failed to act.

The inquiry follows reports that Dutch military intelligence learned of a possible Ukrainian sabotage plan in summer 2022 and informed the CIA. The warning was reportedly passed to Germany’s BND and the Chancellery, where Schmidt is alleged to have dismissed it as implausible.

The government’s secrecy does not prove prior knowledge, but it does intensify suspicion. Rather than clarifying the issue under appropriate confidentiality safeguards, the Chancellery has chosen to withhold information altogether.

The result is a serious transparency problem: the German government is shielding its handling of a major attack on critical infrastructure from effective parliamentary oversight.