“The security of the state must be able to be controlled by the state,” Mr. de Maizière argued.

Despite the country’s growing preoccupation with Islamic terrorism, the suggestions from Mr. de Maizière met immediate resistance in a country left deeply wary of centralized power by its traumatizing history with totalitarian government, both fascist and communist.

Yet Mr. de Maizière’s call presented the latest challenge to the consensus and structures, including NATO and the European Union, developed to ensure security and stable and prosperous democracies across Europe after World War II.

Those systems are now groaning under the weight of globalization and international terrorism, as well as the right-wing populist and nationalist movements that have arisen in Europe and the United States in reaction to them.

But whether Germans are ready to take such a step is far from clear, even as they grow more anxious about security threats, especially after the attack on a Christmas market in Berlin last month that killed 12. The episode continues to reverberate: On Tuesday, federal prosecutors said they had searched the homes of two people suspected of possibly having been in contact with the attacker in the days before the rampage.

The notion of revamping the organization of the government, which was deliberately decentralized by the allied powers that defeated Germany during World War II specifically to prevent another Hitler from rising, has come up repeatedly since Germany’s reunification in 1990. Just as many times, it has been rejected.