Building up drone-defence capabilities will be a permanent task for Germany in the coming years, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Thursday.
Speaking during a visit to the Federal Police's aviation unit in the central town of Fuldatal, Dobrindt said he expected an "arms race" between the force's own drone-defence systems and opponents trying to overcome them.
The federal police's new drone-defence unit, which Dobrindt commissioned in December, currently has 70 personnel. That number is set to grow to 300 officers by the end of the year.
The expansion is a response to the most serious drone incident to date in Germany at Leipzig airport earlier this month.
A drone fitted with explosives and a detonation mechanism was discovered on the evening of August 4 in the security zone of Leipzig/Halle Airport, between Ukrainian cargo aircraft. The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office described it as a "serious attack on transport and logistics infrastructure in Germany."
Many politicians suspect Russian involvement. Dobrindt has rejected calls to state this publicly, saying he will await the results of the investigation into the incident.
At the Fuldatal site near Kassel, where 14 helicopters and around 120 staff are based, the minister was shown drones that can be used to search for people on railway tracks or hotspots in forest fires.
A demonstration of explosive ordnance disposal was also prepared for him. Other federal police officers showed how helicopters take on water to assist Germany's 16 federal states in fighting large wildfires.