Germany approves amendment allowing police to shoot down drones, interior minister proposes involving the military

The German government has approved amendments to the Federal Police Act (Bundespolizeigesetz) that will allow federal police officers to use special technical means to protect the country against unidentified unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CDU/CSU) also announced the creation of a special unit within the federal police to combat drones, along with a dedicated coordination center on the issue. The amendments must now be voted on by both chambers of parliament before they can take effect.

If the law is adopted, €90 million a year would be allocated to purchase anti-drone equipment and to hire upwards of 341 personnel.

Drones disrupt flights

After nearly two dozen Russian drones entered Polish airspace on the night of Sept. 9-10, potential countermeasures began to be discussed in other European countries, including Germany.

The Deutsche Presse-Agentur news agency, citing German’s Deutsche Flugsicherung air traffic control service (DFS), reported that so far in 2025, drones have been sighted 11 times over Saxony’s Leipzig Halle and Dresden airports, 37 times over Frankfurt am Main airport, 13 times over Cologne Bonn airport, 10 times over Düsseldorf, and six times over Berlin Brandenburg (BER). In the first nine months of 2025, there were 172 reported airspace violations caused by drones across the country, 123 of them within the 1.5-kilometer no-fly zone around airports, where drone launches are officially prohibited. One of the most recent high-profile incidents was the incursion of unidentified drones into Munich airport airspace on two consecutive days: Thursday and Friday, Oct. 2 and 3. The result was 81 canceled flights and 46 delays, affecting about 10,000 passengers. Authorities were unable to determine who had launched the drones, their type, or their purpose. A police spokesman quoted by Die Zeit explained that “the drones flew off before they could be identified.” On Thursday evening, drones were also spotted over a Bundeswehr base in Erding and in the area of the German-Belgian border.

In an interview with the public broadcaster ARD, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz directly accused Russia of being responsible for most of the drone incidents, though he added that none of them had involved a drone equipped with a warhead. Merz described the incursions as “attempts at espionage and destabilization.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the violations of EU airspace by drones an act of “hybrid warfare” by Russia.

However, at least some cases of airspace disruption involving drones had nothing to do with Russia or the war in Ukraine. On Oct. 4, police conducted an operation over a no-fly zone around Frankfurt airport after reports of an unidentified drone. It turned out a local resident had launched the drone for recreational use. He said he had intended only a “short test flight.” He now faces a large fine.

Who should shoot down the drones?

According to Germany’s air traffic control service, once its staff receive a report of a drone over an airport from controllers or pilots, takeoffs and landings are suspended within the affected area of the airport. Those measures are coordinated with airport management and the police.

Under the Federal Police Act (section 4) and the Aviation Security Act (section 16), airport security is the responsibility both of airport administrations and air carriers and of federal and state police; however, the division of powers between them is not strictly defined. The Federal Ministry of the Interior’s guidance says federal police currently provide air-security protection against sabotage, hijackings, and terrorist acts at Berlin-Schönefeld, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Erfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Hanover, Cologne/Bonn, Leipzig, Saarbrücken, and Stuttgart airports. State police are responsible at most other airports, while in Munich the Bavarian police and the federal police work together. Nevertheless, police currently lack the equipment that would allow them to shoot down or jam drones, and the measures to counter such a threat are not described in the relevant laws.

Under Section 3 of the Aviation Security Act, the defense minister may, with the consent of the interior minister, deploy troops to assist police, but only if the action is taken in order to prevent a serious aviation incident. Even then, the military may act only after checks and warning — for example, to force an aircraft to land — while the law’s wording does not authorize shooting to kill. Still, the Bundeswehr has already supported local security forces at Munich airport by helping to monitor drone activity. That assistance followed a request from the Bavarian interior ministry.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has proposed amendments to the Aviation Security Act that would allow the Bundeswehr to permanently assist police in combating drones in airport areas, but the idea met immediate criticism. Under the German constitution, the use of the Bundeswehr on German soil in peacetime is strictly limited, and troops may be deployed only when police and border forces are insufficient, such as in the event of a natural disaster or a mass armed uprising. A 1968 amendment that allowed the use of the military in emergencies provoked intense debate at the time, as Germans feared that the right to deploy troops domestically could be abused, thereby harming democracy.

Changing the constitution requires support from two-thirds of lawmakers, support Dobrindt cannot currently count on. As Justice Minister Stephanie Hubig (SPD) explained, For good reasons, deployments of the Bundeswehr within Germany are only permitted within very narrow limits — and it must remain that way.”

Falko Drossmann, the SPD’s defense policy spokesman in the Bundestag, also criticized Dobrindt’s idea, saying the military already faces “serious provocations from Russia on land, at sea, in the air, and in cyberspace” and therefore simply cannot take on police functions. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, while broadly supportive of Dobrindt’s initiative, stressed that drones have so far not posed a clear threat. Defense experts have also criticized the proposal to shoot down drones, noting that falling wreckage or the detonation of an explosive payload could cause serious damage.