The BND File: The Secret Service and Its First Arms Dealer

The BND File: The Secret Service and Its First Arms Dealer (2019) blends Documentary elements. Top cast includes Niels Stolberg, Erich Schmidt-Eenboom, and Viktor Yushchenko. The narrative builds around escalating stakes, urgent decisions, and action-driven momentum.

Actor: Niels Stolberg

In occupied post-war Germany, the ex-paratrooper and former SS man Gerhard Mertins rises to become a powerful arms dealer. He has many contacts in the Middle East and with old Nazi greats, a man who therefore becomes interesting for secret services. He starts right after the Second World War as a simple taxi entrepreneur in Bremerhaven, but soon he does best business with the German secret service BND and also the American CIA. Until today many files about Mertins are secret. Because against German laws, against international law, Mertins moved weapons into war zones with the backing and sometimes on behalf of the German secret service BND. For almost two years, the team around author Rainer Kahrs did research for the film. For the first time, the BND granted a camera team access to files on Gerhard Mertins, the first BND arms dealer. For the first time, Mertins' wife and daughter also speak in front of the camera.