Landmark ruling allows armed soldiers' deployment in Germany for first time since Nazis

London - A court in Germany made a landmark ruling, permitting armed soldiers to be deployed in the country, for the first time since the days of the Nazis.

The Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe said armed soldiers could only be turned out in 'exceptional cases to prevent threats to the state' but never against demonstrators.

According to the Daily Mail, it also said that the particular threat would have to be of 'catastrophic proportions', in order to get troops from their barracks.

Interestingly, the ruling also forbade the deployment of fighter jets of the Bundeswehr to intercept and shoot down suspected hijacked airliners, even if they threatened to kill large numbers of people on the ground, the paper said.

According to the paper, Germany has become more and more militarily engaged abroad since the 9/11 attacks and has a considerable detachment of servicemen currently in Afghanistan.

It also recently dropped its requirement for all young men to do national service and is now a purely professional army, like Britain, the paper added.