Headquarters of the Federal Intelligence Service

Government facility housing Germany's intelligence agency (BND) in central Berlin
You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (February 2020) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
  • Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
  • Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,160 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
  • Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
  • You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Zentrale des Bundesnachrichtendienstes]]; see its history for attribution.
  • You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Zentrale des Bundesnachrichtendienstes}} to the talk page.
  • For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.
52°32′02″N 13°22′36″E / 52.533889°N 13.376667°E / 52.533889; 13.376667Current tenantsFederal Intelligence Service (BND)Construction started2006Topped-outMarch 2010CompletedNovember 2016Opened2017Cost€1.086 billionClientInstitute for Federal Real EstateOwnerGermanyTechnical detailsFloor countNine stories above groundFloor area260,000 square metres (2,800,000 sq ft)Design and constructionArchitect(s)Jan KleihuesArchitecture firmKleihues + KleihuesOther informationNumber of rooms5,000+Public transit accessU6 Schwartzkopffstraße

The Headquarters of the Federal Intelligence Service or the BND Headquarters (German: Zentrale des Bundesnachrichtendienstes, colloquially the BND-Zentrale) is the headquarters of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) of Germany, and is located at the Chausseestraße in the Mitte district in the centre of Berlin. The building that houses its headquarters is the world's largest intelligence building, somewhat larger than the CIA headquarters at Langley.[1]

History

The complex was designed by the architect firm Kleihues + Kleihues. Construction started in 2006 and was completed in 2017. With 260,000 m2 (2.8 million ft²), it is the world's largest intelligence headquarters, somewhat bigger than the CIA headquarters at Langley, and around 4,000 people work there. It is also Berlin's second largest building, after Berlin Tempelhof Airport.[2] The first employees moved into the new complex in late 2017; the relocation from the former headquarters in Pullach was completed in the autumn of 2018.[3]

BND headquarters in Berlin

The headquarters is located near the former trace of the Berlin Wall, on the eastern side, some 350 meters (1150 ft) from the canal which marked the border to West Berlin during the Cold War, and directly adjacent to the former Chausseestraße crossing point. The headquarters are built on the site of the former stadium Stadion der Weltjugend.

Following the decision to build the new BND headquarters there, a massive urban renewal has taken place in the neighbourhood, with many new construction projects opposite the BND headquarters, including high-end apartment buildings, a new park, the Café Top Secret, a new hotel, and buildings housing office spaces and retail stores.[4]

The headquarters includes a visitor center that is open to the public; it is the first intelligence organisation to have such a center.[5]

Although completed in 2017, the official opening was held in February 2019. Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany attended and made this statement: "In an often very confusing world, now, more urgently than ever, Germany needs a strong and efficient foreign intelligence service". At the time, some 4,000 employees were expected to work from this location, moving here from the former headquarters in a suburb of Munich. The agency's total number of employees, in Germany and other countries, was approximately 6,500.[6][7]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Headquarters of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (Berlin).
  1. ^ "World's biggest intelligence headquarters opens in Berlin". The Guardian. 8 February 2019.
  2. ^ BND-Zentrale: 3200 Agenten arbeiten in der neuen Geheimdienstburg an der Chausseestraße
  3. ^ Jansen, Frank (27 October 2017). "Die Spione kommen nach Berlin". Der Tagesspiegel Online – via Tagesspiegel.
  4. ^ Luig, Judith (20 October 2013). "Mein Nachbar, der Spion – Wie der BND Mitte verändert".
  5. ^ Nachrichten, n-tv. "In der neuen BND-Zentrale in Berlin".
  6. ^ "World's biggest intelligence headquarters opens in Berlin". the Guardian. 2019-02-08. Retrieved 2022-11-18.
  7. ^ Schuetze, Christopher F. (2019-02-09). "Germany Opens Massive Intelligence Complex (Maybe the World's Largest) in Berlin". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-11-18.
Authority control databases: National Edit this at Wikidata
  • Germany