After Munich, politicians consider deploying troops at home

In remarks published in the “Welt am Sonntag” newspaper Sunday, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann advocated for the army to be allowed to deploy within Germany to support the police in case of a terror attack.

Germany’s constitution, drawn up in the aftermath of World War II, places strict limits on the use of the military, the Bundeswehr, within the country’s borders. Those regulations were now obsolete, Herrmann said.

“We have an absolutely stable democracy in our country,” he said. “It would be completely incomprehensible… if we had a terrorist situation like Brussels in Frankfurt, Stuttgart or Munich and we were not permitted to call in the well-trained forces of the Bundeswehr, even though they stand ready.”

In most European countries that was the case without question, he said.