The German government is considering abolishing laws that have restricted its foreign intelligence service, the bnd, since just after World War ii. On Tuesday, Politico cited German officials saying the restrictions “are no longer justified, especially in light of the rising threat of Russian sabotage.” Left unspoken was what they consider “the rising threat” of America.

• The Bundesnachrichtendienst (Federal Intelligence Service) is under the strict control of the legislature. Now legislators want to unshackle it from restrictions originally imposed to prevent German spies from repeating their abuses of the 1930s and 1940s.

Marc Henrichmann, chairman of the Parliamentary Control Committee for the bnd, told Politico that if America chooses to act “alone without the Europeans … then we must be able to stand on our own two feet”:

Those who are working against us—Russian state actors, Russian cyberfactories—are working in the same way as the Nazi intelligence services did back then. In a game without rules, we cannot stand by and impose artificial restrictions on ourselves.

The reasoning here is that Germany needs to effectively revive the ruins of its Nazi spying operation to protect the world from the modern Nazis, the Russians, because relying on America to do it poses an existential threat to Germany.

“Old certainties have been devalued, tried-and-tested rules no longer apply,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told bnd spy chiefs in September. “Given the responsibility we bear in Europe in view of our size and economic strength, it is therefore our aspiration that the bnd should operate at the very highest level in terms of intelligence.”

Germany built the world’s largest intelligence headquarters facility for the bnd in 2017 and increased its budget this year by 26 percent to $1.8 billion. Merz and other legislators now want to relax data protection regulations and allow the bnd to use artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology.

• Germany’s leaders also want the bnd to be capable of perpetrating acts of sabotage, conducting offensive cyberoperations, and carrying out more aggressive espionage. Legislative votes on these measures are planned for later this year.

After Germany’s defeat in World War ii, it was not only the victors but also the German people who feared what could happen if the new postwar spy agency was granted too much power. Politico wrote:

Germany’s bnd was founded in 1956 with legal limitations intended to prevent a repeat of the abuses perpetrated by the Nazi Gestapo and SS—though, at the time, many of its agents were former Nazis.

That’s right: This spy service was founded largely by former Nazi spies. This is one reason Germany’s spies have more legal restrictions than those of other nations. But that could change dramatically before the year is out.

An unrestrained German spy agency will not be limited to countering Russian hackers. It will pose frightening dangers to the German people and Germany’s current allies, especially the United States.