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The head of Germany's armed forces and a senior defence ministry official have been forced to resign over reports the military withheld details about a deadly September air strike in Afghanistan.
Opposition parties have also called for Franz Josef Jung, defence minister at the time and now labour minister, to step down in what could become a major embarrassment for Chancellor Angela Merkel just as she considers sending more troops to Afghanistan.
The air strike, ordered by a German commander and carried out by a US F-15 fighter on September 4, was the deadliest operation involving German troops since World War Two, killing 69 Taliban fighters and 30 civilians, according to the Afghan government.
But in the days after the strike, Jung repeatedly denied that there were any civilian victims.
Germany's Bild newspaper reported on Thursday, just before the start of a parliamentary debate on extending Germany's 4,500-strong mission in Afghanistan, that videos and a secret military report had clearly pointed to civilian casualties at the time Jung and the military were denying them.
New Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who took over from Jung one month ago, acknowledged the existence of the secret report and said he had been unaware of it until Wednesday.
Speaking in the Bundestag lower house, Guttenberg said Wolfgang Schneiderhan, who as inspector general holds the highest military post in the German armed forces, and deputy defence minister Peter Wichert had both resigned.
"This (secret military) report and others from the previous legislative period were not presented and responsibility for this has been taken at a senior level," Guttenberg said.
Opposition parties called for a parliamentary inquiry into the matter and demanded a statement from Jung, who appeared briefly at the podium in the Bundestag and agreed to speak later on Thursday after reviewing the documents in question.
If it became clear that Jung, a member of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), was aware of the documents and ignored what they said about civilian casualties, he would almost certainly be forced to resign.
Unpopular mission
Germany has about 4,250 troops in Afghanistan, most in the north of the country where Taliban insurgents are staging a fierce bid to reclaim former strongholds.
Next week, parliament is expected to renew a mandate which allows Merkel's government to deploy up to 4,500 troops in the country, but senior officials have indicated that this number could be raised early next year after a strategy review.
NATO countries are reexamining their presence in Afghanistan and U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to announce on Tuesday that he will send an additional 30,000 troops there.
The mission has become increasingly unpopular in Germany and other western countries as violence has surged to its deadliest levels since the Taliban was forced from power in 2001.
The September strike, which took place only weeks before a federal election which gave Merkel a second term, came as a shock to the public in Germany, where opposition to military conflict runs deep more than 60 years after the Nazi defeat.
It took place near Kunduz in northern Afghanistan and was called in by German troops who later described it as a pre-emptive measure to prevent a possible suicide attack by Taliban fighters who had hijacked two fuel trucks.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai called the raid a major "error of judgment" and it was also criticised by the French and British foreign ministers.
On Nov 6, some two months after the strike, Guttenberg became the first senior government official to admit publicly that civilians had died.
