March 16, 2004: Last week's terrorist attack in Madrid, Spain has German politicians discussing the possibility of implementing new homeland security measures. In an interview with Germany's ZDF national television network, Günther Beckstein, Bavaria's conservative secretary of the interior, urged his colleagues in Germany's other 15 federal states to follow Bavaria's example and imlement security measures for public transportation, especially on trains and at train stations. Beckstein also demanded that surveillance for terror suspects and monitoring of Germany's telephone network and mail be improved.

The measures implemented in Bavaria reflect Beckstein's concerns that Germany itself might be a target since it has troops serving in Afghanistan, the "heartland of Al Qaeda." Noting that foreigners had been arrested in the Madrid attacks, the Bavarian Christian Socialist Union (CSU) politician asked why foreigners are allowed to remain in Germany who were known to have received training in terrorist camps in Afghanistan sponsored by Al Qaeda or who haved used the internet to download instructions on how to make bombs.

Beckstein suggested using the German army, the Bundeswehr, within Germany to combat the threat of terrorism. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder responded to the call for heightened security measures by ruling out the use of German soldiers for additional protection at railway stations. Germany's postwar constitution would have to be amended to allow the use of the Bundeswehr domestically for German national security reasons.

Beckstein's colleague Jörg Schönbohm, secretary of the interior for the state of Brandenburg, suggested that the Bundeswehr could be used to provide additional protection for U.S. military installations and housing facilities. 800 German soldiers were deployed after September 11, 2001 to provide additional security at American bases in Germany, and another 2600 Bundeswehr troops were deployed for the same reason after the start of the Iraq war.

Following the Madrid bombings, additional protection was implemented in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen for diplomatic missions of countries who had joined the "coalition of the willing" led by the United States in its attack on Iraq. Other measures were being taken as well, according to secretary of the interior Fritz Behrens (SPD), although he did not give details. Berlin's secretary of the interior Erhard Körting (SPD) called for the establishment of a European data network on known terrorists and terror suspects.