Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven
Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven is NATOs first chief of intelligence since December 1, 2016. He served as the deputy director of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (also called BND or Bundesnachrichtendienst between 2007 and 2010. He was also Germany's ambassador to the Czech Republic and as a diplomat at the German Embassy in Moscow.
Loringhoven was born in Munich on 12 November 1956. He is the son of the late German lieutenant-general Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven. He is an Oxford graduate and completed his PhD studies at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried in 1984. After joining the German Foreign Ministry in 1986, he served as a diplomat at embassies in Paris and Moscow and he has also held several positions in the Foreign Ministry including Director of European Affairs.
In May 2017 he attended a panel debate about the counter-terrorism strategy of the NATO Civilian Intelligence Committee in the Croatian town of Opatija, where he also met with Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović. In December 2017, he spoke at the Prague Insecurity Conference, saying that "hybrid threats" from Russia and terrorist groups were increasing. He argued that Russia was attempting to regain some of its waning influence in Europe using "hybrid tactics" which included the influencing of elections, cyberattacks and dissemination of fake news propaganda.
