BERLIN—As hundreds of police officers hit the streets of Munich last month fearing a terrorist attack, Germany’s defense minister broke a national taboo: She ordered soldiers to prepare to step in. After police found a lone teenage shooter, not a team of terrorists, killed nine victims and himself, the 100-strong army unit didn’t leave its base. But the minister’s unprecedented command, and three other acts of violence that shocked Germany in late July, are spurring debate about a World War II legacy. Germany’s postwar constitution—intended to protect democracy after the Nazi era—forbids the army from deploying at home, except for defense against invasion or in case of natural disasters or extreme emergencies. Last week, Chancellor Angela Merkel, under pressure to reassure anxious Germans, presented a nine-point counterterrorism plan that included training the army to assist police in dealing with a terror attack. “The time is ripe” for such a step, Ms. Merkel said. For 60 years, the ban has been taken to mean that only the police can tackle domestic threats such as terrorism. Conservative politicians say the heightened threat from Islamic State and other extremists means the military should be able to step in when police need backup or expertise. Islamic State claimed responsibility for two of the July attacks, including the first Islamist-linked suicide bombing. “There are scenarios we couldn’t imagine before the attacks of Paris or Brussels but that we must address openly and for which we must prepare,” Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday on a visit to a military command center in Berlin. Authorities are to decide this month what counterterrorism role the army could play. Ms. von der Leyen wants to start training troops and police to work together this fall. The initiative has split Ms. Merkel’s governing coalition in Berlin. Her junior partners, the center-left Social Democrats, say Germany should avoid militarizing its response to the threat. Police unions are skeptical. They argue that soldiers can’t offer what Germany really needs to tackle the terrorist threat: more investigators and intelligence agents. “Our lives won’t be safer because soldiers are hanging around at our railway stations,” said Rainer Arnold, a Social Democrat lawmaker and defense specialist, who argues the police should get more staff instead. “Does anyone think terrorists will stop because of that?” WWII left a deep pacifist strain, and many support the idea that the army’s role should be limited to national defense and U.N.-approved peacekeeping. Though some see the prospect of heavily armed soldiers patrolling German cities as unsettling, a YouGov poll conducted in the days after the latest attack showed that 57% are in favor of the army helping in counterterrorism operations. “Our history often gives people a stomachache whenever the role of the army is at stake,” said Stefan Hansen, researcher at the Institute for Security Policy at the University of Kiel. “But with the piling-up of violent acts in the past weeks, fear of attacks, and strategic thinking about how to deal with that, has now arrived here too.“ Germany’s efforts to visibly boost security have been muted compared with France, which has responded to recent terrorist atrocities by declaring a state of emergency, a new national guard, and deploying thousands of machine gun-carrying soldiers to guard targets from synagogues to the Eiffel Tower. Germany has debated a bigger role at home for its military before. In 2006, the constitutional court struck down a law authorizing jet fighters to shoot down hijacked planes, arguing that such actions would violate the protection of human dignity. In 2012, the court ruled that armed troops could be deployed at home in peacetime in an “extraordinary emergency situation of catastrophic dimension.” Soldiers have been used in rare cases to provide logistical support, such as during last year’s massive inflow of refugees and migrants. Conservatives in Bavaria, where three of July’s attacks took place, want to change the country’s constitution to loosen the rules on domestic use of the army. Others have already agreed for their police to train with the army. “It would be paradoxical and absurd if we found ourselves in a situation where the police are reaching their limits and the army has to look on helplessly,” said Klaus Bouillon, interior minister in the western state of Saarland. Berlin argues the constitution already allows leeway and doesn’t need changing. Some security analysts also point out that Germany’s military is already stretched. A growing list of tasks including international peacekeeping now falls on a force of only 176,000. The defense minister earlier this year announced a modest increase in its size for the first time since the Cold War. Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen are set to deploy the nation's military on German soil for the first time since WWII to help combat terrorism following a number of attacks in recent weeks. "There are scenarios we couldn’t imagine before the attacks of Germany or Brussels but… for which we must prepare,” Ms Leyen said. While Paris's constitution, drawn up after WWII, forbids the army from "deploying at home," a YouGov poll after the attacks showed 57% of the German public would back the move.