For more than a year, a single criminal trial has held the attention of the German public, weaving together a bitter family custody battle, alleged connections to international intelligence operatives, and an unexpected bombshell that has upended the country’s national security community. At the center of the Hamburg proceeding is 53-year-old Christina Block, heiress to the multimillion-euro Block House steakhouse chain, a beloved culinary institution that has operated across Germany for half a century. Block stands accused of orchestrating a violent cross-border abduction of her two youngest children from their father’s home in Denmark, a plot that prosecutors say involved hired operatives from an Israeli security firm and ties to current and former spies from both Germany and Israel.
The conflict between Block and her ex-husband Stephan Hensel stretches back years, following their separation. Initially, all four of the couple’s children resided with Block in Hamburg. After Hensel remarried and relocated to Denmark, the two youngest children began making regular visits to his home. In 2021, the children stayed with Hensel and were not returned to Hamburg per their agreed custody arrangement. A Hamburg court later ruled Block retained full custody and ordered the children’s return, but a Danish court ruled in early 2023 that the children could remain with their father despite their unlawful initial removal to the country. Hensel currently faces pending charges of child abduction in Germany, and has accused Block of physical abuse toward the children – claims Block has repeatedly denied, countering that Hensel is acting out of revenge against her.
According to the official indictment, the abduction plot unfolded during 2023-2024 New Year celebrations, as Hensel and the two children – then 10 and 13 years old – watched a fireworks display. Prosecutors allege that six men, led by 36-year-old Israeli citizen Jonathan G, ambushed Hensel, beat him, and forced the children into a waiting vehicle. As the group traveled toward the German border, they switched vehicles, bound the 13-year-old girl’s hands and gagged both children, before completing the journey to Baden-Württemberg in a campervan. The children were held there against their will until Block arrived on January 2, 2024, to pick them up and bring them to her Hamburg home, prosecutors say.
Block, family lawyer Andreas Costard, and Jonathan G face three core charges: abduction of minors, grievous bodily harm, and unlawful imprisonment. Block’s partner, former TV sports presenter Gerhard Delling, and three additional co-defendants face aiding and abetting charges. All defendants have pled not guilty except for Jonathan G, who admitted participating in the operation but told the court he believed he was taking part in a legitimate “rescue mission” to return the children to their rightful custodian. Block has repeatedly denied any advance knowledge of the plot, telling the court the abduction was “a catastrophe” that she never would have condoned. Her legal team argues the Israeli security team acted entirely on their own initiative, without Block’s approval or knowledge.
That claim has been directly contradicted by David Barkay, the head of the Israeli security firm who is not a defendant in the current trial but faces future legal proceedings. Barkay, who a witness identified as a former Mossad operative, told the court that both Block and Costard were fully aware of the planned operation to retrieve the children, though he acknowledged he withheld full operational details from the pair because he “didn’t trust them.”
The most shocking development in the case came earlier this month, when evidence uncovered during the investigation into Block’s trial led to the arrest of 80-year-old August Hanning, Germany’s former head of foreign intelligence, on charges of treason and espionage. While Hanning’s espionage charges are not directly connected to the ongoing Block trial, he is accused of involvement in an earlier 2022 attempt to abduct the children from Denmark, arranging security personnel for a trip Block made to the country. Hanning’s lawyer denies those earlier allegations.
When investigators searched Hanning’s home as part of the preliminary inquiry into the 2022 abduction attempt, they stumbled upon evidence linking Hanning to a separate espionage scheme: prosecutors allege he purchased roughly 2,000 confidential documents from his former chief of staff, then passed classified state secrets to an unspecified foreign power. Hanning is currently in custody, and his lawyer has called the charges “unfounded,” claiming his client is the victim of “unjust persecution.” The revelation has sent shockwaves through Germany’s intelligence community, as officials and the public scramble for answers about the scope of the alleged betrayal and the foreign actor involved.
For now, the Block trial itself remains paused for a two-week adjournment – the latest in a string of delays that have stretched the proceeding across 15 months. This most recent delay came after the key witness, Hensel’s current wife, failed to appear for her scheduled testimony. As the case unfolds, it continues to tie a bitter family dispute to one of the most damaging espionage scandals in modern German history.