This is an interview with Dr. Gert R. Polli, former officer in the Foreign Intelligence Agencв of the Austrian Armed Forces and later on founder and i rst director of the Federal Agencв for Counterterrorism and State Protection (BVT), part of the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
His career combines intelligence from the military as well as from the civilian side. The talk covers the subject of Polli’s career, how he experienced the period after the end of the Cold War as militarв intelligence officer, followed bв the founding of the BVT, the daily agenda as director of a civilian intelligence agency and later his business in the private sector. Polli also provides insights into topics like anti-terrorism and counter-espionage, the current threat level, the role of the media and about the ongoing discussion on Fake News. The last part of the interview deals with Polli’s new book, published in April 2017, focusing on Germany and the German Intelligence Community. The book describes the consequences of the Snowden affair for the European Intelligence Community and the future relationship to their US counterparts. The main theory of the book is that Germany is still an occupied country and that its Intelligence Community is heavily dependent on US Intelligence. This comes with a hefty price.