RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Explosive-laden drones at Leipzig/Halle airport have exposed gaps in Germany's defenses. DW looks at how prepared the country is for future drone attacks.
https://p.dw.com/p/5IlIk Advertisement On August 25, German media reported on a third drone allegedly found near Leipzig/Halle Airport in August. A drone and a substance — which initial assessments suggest could be around 50 grams of Hexogen, a highly explosive military-grade explosive — were reportedly discovered in a field outside the airport grounds. Consequently, public broadcasters NDR and WDR, and the daily broadsheet Süddeutsche Zeitung are speculating about a plot that may be far more extensive than what has been publicly disclosed so far.
Speaking on the sidelines of a federal government retreat in the state of Brandenburg, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) stated: "Germany has increasingly come into the crosshairs of hybrid attackers."
Merz also pointed to measures aimed at better protecting the public. Just a few days ago, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) inaugurated a drone security research center in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, not far from Leipzig and Halle in Saxony.
How could drones laden with explosives fly unhindered near or into Leipzig/Halle airport and remain unnoticed for at least several hours? Interior Minister Dobrindt had immediately spoken of a "hybrid attack scenario" which he suspected came from "foreign powers."
Suspicion has been directed at Russia, also because one drone was said to have been located near a Ukrainian Antonov cargo plane. The Federal Prosecutor's Office has taken over the investigation.
However, drone sightings over airports and ports, industrial sites and military properties have been increasing in Germany. In 2025, Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) recorded more than 1,000 suspicious drone flights .
Last October, drones disrupted air traffic in Munich for several hours, stranding numerous passengers. There is not sufficient drone protection at German airports, security expert Nico Lange warned.
"We do not possess the sensor networks and sensor beams needed to spot all types of drones, especially low-flying, slow drones," he told DW.
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The European Association for Unmanned Aviation has also long pointed out weak points in Germany's drone defense.
"That a drone could apparently reach the airport tarmac and be discovered rather by chance, shows where the core of the problem is," said chairperson Gerald Wissel in relation to the latest incident.
The association suggests "the establishment of real-time monitoring of the lower airspace as well as the mandatory tracking of all airspace participants via ADS-L" — a radio communications system that makes drones in an airspace electronically visible.
Interior Minister Dobrindt wants to remedy this by setting up new institutions.
In December, he launched the Joint Counter Drone Center (GDAZ) in Berlin. There, information from the federal police, state police, secret service and armed forces is collated around the clock. But the incident at Leipzig airport shows that even a new hub is of little use if a dangerous drone at a large airport cannot be discovered and intercepted.
Drones move quickly, and any response must be decided within minutes. Doing so is made more difficult by Germany's system of divided responsibilities. If a suspicious drone takes off somewhere in the country, it's initially a matter for the state police. Germany has 16 police authorities, one for each of its 16 states. Only when the drone moves over a large airport or railway facility are the federal police allowed to step in.
Europe's defense: Latest drone technology shown in Berlin To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
Security experts and opposition politicians in Germany's Bundestag federal parliament have called for clear regulation and consolidation of responsibilities.
"The muddle over responsibilities in drone defense is a substantial danger to our domestic security," said Irene Mihalic, lawmaker with the opposition Green Party and herself a former police officer.
Many, including the Greens, suggest the federal police should take the lead when it comes to drone defense. The federal police set up a new special unit for drone defense in December, and Dobrindt now wants to expand the unit following the incident at Leipzig airport.
Originally, 130 staff positions across four locations were planned. In the future, there will be 300 personnel across eight locations, to "be on site quickly and flexibly when needed," according to the Interior Ministry.
As so often happens following dramatic incidents, there have also been calls to deploy the Bundeswehr , Germany's armed forces, to take care of drone defense efforts at airports. However, current German law maintains that police are responsible for upholding security in the country.
A Defense Ministry spokesperson warned that protecting its own facilities, with their "tens of thousands of kilometers of fencing," is already a challenge for the Bundeswehr. Adding 24/7 protection of civilian infrastructure "would proclaim a false sense of security that we could never achieve," he added.
In an emergency, the police are allowed to ask the army for assistance. To achieve legal clarity in this regard, Germany amended its air security law in March. For the first time, it allows the Bundeswehr to shoot down drones outside their own premises to prevent "a particularly serious disaster."
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There is also a lot of catching up to do when it comes to the technical equipment used to defend agains...
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