Bruno Kahl

Bruno Guntram Wilhelm Kahl (born 12 July 1962 in Essen, West Germany ) is a German civil servant and administrative lawyer. From 2016 to 2025 he served as President of the Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst).

Career In 1994, Kahl completed his second state examination at the Oberlandesgericht of Cologne, and then worked for the Confederation of German Employers' Associations. From 1995 to 1996, he was a desk officer at the Federal Chancellery. From 1996 until 2005, he was assigned as an adviser to the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, where he performed preliminary work for the group's chairman Wolfgang Schäuble. Since then, he has been a close confidant of Schäuble.

Kahl was appointed President of the Federal Intelligence Service on 27 April 2016, effective 1 July, after the dismissal of Gerhard Schindler. His replacement at the BMF is .

Kahl is a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU).

In February 2022, Kahl was in Ukraine when Russia invaded and had to be taken home overland in a two-day journey by special forces when the country's airspace was closed.

Only a few days before, Kahl had declared that Putin had not yet decided whether to attack Ukraine.

Personal life Kahl has two daughters and has been widowed since 2008.

Publications Europäische Union: Bundesstaat – Staatenbund - Staatenverbund? Zum Urteil des BVerfG vom 12. Oktober 1993. In: Der Staat, Volume 33, 1994, p. 241 ff. Bruno Kahl: "Elemente katholischen Denkens in säkularer Staatslehre zum Frühwerk Carl Schmitts", Dissertation, Berlin, 2007 Bruno Kahl et al. (ed.): Der fröhliche Sisyphos – für Wolfgang Schäuble, Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2012 . Der Große Vaterländische Betrieb – Warum die Treuhand eine Erfolgsgeschichte wurde? In: Otto Depenheuer, Karl-Heinz Paqué (eds.): Einheit – Eigentum – Effizienz: Bilanz der Treuhandanstalt. Gedächtnisschrift zum 20. Todestag von Dr. Detlev Karsten Rohwedder. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg 2012, , pp. 95–97. Bruno Kahl, Andreas Kerst: Öffentliche Unternehmen. In: Werner Gatzer, Tilmann Schweisfurth (eds.): Öffentliche Finanzwirtschaft in der Staatspraxis, BWV Verlag, Berlin, 2015 , pp. 613–642.