MAD (Militärischer Abschirmdienst)

Status and tasks

Under § 1 MADG (text on gesetze-im-internet.de, as of 4 November 2026), MAD is a civilian higher federal authority within the remit of the Federal Ministry of Defence. It serves as the Bundeswehr’s office for the protection of the constitution and its counterintelligence security service; it may not be attached to any police unit.¹

Its activities are overseen by the Parliamentary Oversight Panel (§ 1 PKGrG), as are those of the BND and the BfV.²

From part of the Bundeswehr to a civilian authority

According to the Federal Government’s reply of 30 September 2022, a 2017 organisational order of the Ministry of Defence removed MAD from the structures of the Streitkräftebasis (Joint Support Service) and turned it into a civilian federal office (BAMAD) reporting directly to the ministry. The government stressed that MAD may conduct interviews (Befragungen) but not interrogations, searches or seizures, and may not ask the police to take measures that it is not itself authorised to take (§ 4(2) MADG).³

History, 1956–1990

The first archive-based history of MAD covering 1956–1990 was written by Helmut R. Hammerich, commissioned by the Ministry of Defence in 2012 (published 2019). According to a review on Portal Militärgeschichte, MAD was the smallest German service; in 1977 it had about 2,000 staff and had to carry out more than 200,000 security vetting procedures.⁴

Until the 1970s counterintelligence was the priority; after that, left-wing extremism (the RAF, the 2 June Movement) grew in importance. The reviewer points out that its senior staff included former intelligence specialists of the Wehrmacht and the Abwehr, among others. Illegal wiretapping and the Wörner–Kießling affair of 1984 damaged trust in the service. Attempts at reform came in the 1970s (under Horst Ehmke) and from 1984 onwards.⁴

Place in the system

Within the defence ministry’s remit, MAD carries out the tasks of a federal office for the protection of the constitution; outside it, these tasks fall to the BfV and the state (Land) offices. When interviewing people, MAD applies the provisions of the BfV Act accordingly (§ 4(1) MADG in conjunction with § 8(4) BVerfSchG).³

In Poland, military counterintelligence is the responsibility of the SKW (Military Counterintelligence Service), which reports to the Minister of National Defence; it may use operational control on the basis of an order of the Military Regional Court in Warsaw (Article 31 of the Act on the SKW and the SWW).⁵