Your job as an unarmed guard is to complement the alarm system with your eyes and ears, and if something is amiss, press the alarm button and get out of there. Which is what they did.
The article makes it sound like security was tight, but the museum was, according to news articles at the time, too stingy. If they had wanted to spend the money, they could have had armed guards, physical barriers other than simple glass cases and reinforced outer walls. But they were even too stingy for an insurance, and the insurer might have told them to up their security before taking the contract.
Armed guards would increase the risk that someone is killed. According to German law, a guard would only be entitled to use its weapon in self defense, not in defense of the things to be guarded. Using a weapon is only justified when no other means is sufficient to ward off the threat to one's own or someone else's life. Shooting and killing a thief can result in a murder charge against the shooter. It would also make the job of the guards far more dangerous, when burglars are expecting armed guards and would be tempted to use violence first.
Not quite. Weapon use would be possible as "Rechtfertigender Notstand", https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/34.html . This doesn't just include protection of ones own life, but also of property. However, the force used has to be suitable and proportionate, so shooting someone dead would not be justified. Injuring someone would usually be justified, but will always land in front of a judge to apply 20/20 hindsight. And no one wants to accept that risk.
Your job as an unarmed guard is to complement the alarm system with your eyes and ears, and if something is amiss, press the alarm button and get out of there. Which is what they did.
The article makes it sound like security was tight, but the museum was, according to news articles at the time, too stingy. If they had wanted to spend the money, they could have had armed guards, physical barriers other than simple glass cases and reinforced outer walls. But they were even too stingy for an insurance, and the insurer might have told them to up their security before taking the contract.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp2.handelsblatt.com/politik/d...