Germany's secret spy agency has used British icon James Bond and his 007 codename in its latest recruitment campaign. The Bundesnachrichtendienst — Germany's answer to MI6 — showcased an armoured vehicle bearing a "007" number plate at the Unity Day celebrations in the German city of Bremen.
The normally ultra-secretive agency, known as BND, also sold branded merchandise including T-shirts, mugs, towels and pool shoes at the event.
Bond glamour aimed at young recruits
Tobias Schwesig, chairman of Germany's James Bond Club Wattenscheid, said Germany's spies were clearly hoping a splash of Bond glamour could make a career in espionage more appealing to youngsters. He said: "They want to get some more young people to think about going to the BND. So therefore they take the James Bond image and say, 'Be sexy, be a spy', even if he's a British guy.
"He's my hero. I want to be like James Bond. But of course, a real spy has to do things differently. I think they just want to play a bit with it to get more attraction, get some positive press."
Bond's Wattenscheid connection
Schwesig's club champions the claim that the quintessentially British secret agent was actually born in Wattenscheid, now part of the industrial Ruhr city of Bochum. John Pearson's 1973 fictional biography of Bond gives 007's birthplace as Wattenscheid, with a birthday of November 11, 1920.
Schwesig joked that his Bond club might now even steal the BND's trick. He said: "Maybe we could copy it and get another number plate with Bochum and say, 'Yeah, we are looking for members. So everybody who wants to be a local spy can contact us.' It would be funny!"
007 is the secret service number of the fictional secret agent James Bond at MI6. The number was invented in 1953 by Ian Fleming in his first Bond novel, "Casino Royale". The BND's event was described as "absolutely bombastic" by Bremen newspaper Weser-Kurier.
Dark history behind the BND
The modern BND was born in 1956 from the Organisation Gehlen — the post-war intelligence outfit run by Reinhard Gehlen, who had been one of Hitler's senior military intelligence officers. Its ranks included veterans of former SS, Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst organisations.
Among the most notorious was Franz Alfred Six, a senior SS officer who commanded a deadly Einsatzkommando during Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. The Einsatzgruppen were Nazi mobile killing squads which followed the German armies east, massacring Jews and other victims in mass shootings.
Six was convicted at Nuremberg of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 20 years behind bars. After being released early, the convicted Nazi war criminal went on to work for the Gehlen organisation.
