Germany formally offered NATO 14 Tornado aircraft yesterday for use in any military intervention in Kosovo.
The offer came as Social Democrat politicians, preparing to enter government after their election victory on Sunday, said any further escalation of the conflict could lead to military action without a United Nations mandate.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl's cabinet, performing one of its last major duties before it hands over power to Mr Gerhard Schroder and his SPD, made its offer of jets and soldiers in response to a request from the military alliance.
The Defence Minister, Mr Volker Ruhe, told reporters outside the cabinet meeting that he had informed the incoming SPD party of the state of preparations, but stressed the decision did not mean Germany was already planning to send troops into the area.
"Parliament must agree to any transfer of troops," he said. He added, however, that he hoped this decision sent a clear signal to the Yugoslav President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic.
"We have no time to lose. People's misery there is continuing," he said, describing as catastrophic the plight of the hundreds of thousands of Kosovans displaced by the conflict.
Chancellor-elect Schroder said on Tuesday the consensus among international powers remained that action against Mr Milosevic should be sanctioned by the UN Security Council, where Russia has so far used its veto to block such action. He told ARD television, however, he would be "ready for discussions" if that consensus changed.
The SPD foreign affairs expert, Mr Gunter Verheugen, went further in a radio interview yesterday when he said: "One can imagine a situation in which the violence in Kosovo reaches such an extent that any decent person says, `Something's got to happen to end the murder'."
He added that if Russia continued to use its veto in such a turn of events it could be seen as an "abuse". He pointed out, however, that Russia had backed the UN resolution last week demanding Belgrade withdraw its forces from Kosovo.
The Yugoslav ambassador to Germany, Mr Zoran Jeremic, said in Bonn the German move to offer support for any military action was "illogical and illegal" and repeated Yugoslav denials that its forces had ever targeted civilians. (On Tuesday eyewitnesses spoke of Kosovo villagers, among them children, women and old people, found in woods with their throats cut, or shot through the head.)
He accused German politicians of "exerting huge effort" to convince their international partners to agree to military action.