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German Chancellor Angela Merkel painted a stark picture Saturday of the task her country's troops face battling insurgents in Afghanistan, saying that Germany hasn't experienced anything like it since World War II.

Merkel's comments came during an unannounced visit to German soldiers in northern Afghanistan. She thanked them for their "extremely dangerous" deployment in the NATO-led security force.

"If you look at the reality for our soldiers, it is the case that in the Kunduz region they stand in real combat - as soldiers do in a war," Merkel said in Mazar-i-Sharif, where Germany has a base.

"We haven't known something like this since the Second World War," she said. "We were told about it by our parents and grandparents."

Since the early 1990s, reunited Germany has emerged gradually from its postwar diplomatic and military shell - committing soldiers to missions from Kosovo to Congo.

Until this year, officials generally avoided using the word "war," a term with which postwar Germany has been uncomfortable in view of the militaristic past, to describe the unpopular mission in Afghanistan.

Merkel's visit came as parliament prepares for a vote expected in January on renewing the mission's mandate. Accompanied by her defense minister and the military's chief of staff, she started her visit in Kunduz - a regular flashpoint over the past year in a region that was long relatively calm.

"You are embroiled in battles of the kind one has in war," Merkel told troops. "That is an entirely new experience for us."

She later continued to Mazar-i-Sharif, where she met Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Germany currently has nearly 4,700 troops serving in the International Security Assistance Force in northern Afghanistan. It plans to start gradually withdrawing in late 2011.

The current parliamentary mandate allows for a maximum deployment of 5,350 German soldiers. All German deployments abroad require parliamentary approval, typically on a yearly basis, and its renewal is not expected to meet serious opposition.

Merkel told troops Saturday that "the population in part views this deployment skeptically, yet it is still proud of you."

Before meeting Karzai, she said she planned to discuss administration and corruption with the Afghan leader. "The progress here is not as we would envision," she said.

Separately, the German military said a 21-year-old soldier died Friday night after being found with a gunshot wound at a military post in Pul-e-Khumri. It said the wound appeared to have resulted from an accident, but the matter was being investigated.

He was the 45th German soldier to die on service in Afghanistan since the mission began nine years ago.