You kidding? A German university CS M.Sc. degree is very different from a Cisco certification.
Those "degree" sections are universally optional, they're always listed by I have never seen them honoured.
I'd put $20,000 down on the wager that I could get that job with only a Cisco certification (or even nothing at all).
But the criticism was that the job ad was not requiring knowledge of how to write code, and I was pointing out that the degree requirement (strict or not) indicates that that's not true.
If you don't have the required degree but can demonstrate equivalent skills, then that's fine. Kudos to the company about being flexible on the formalities side.
There is a line that is universally ignored in job ads. This is that line.
if I showed no ability to write a for loop or a linkedlist. I could still get that job.
I see it time and time again, it's like we must add that line to job descriptions, but it's never checked, never verified and ultimately it serves no purpose. There will be no difference between someone with a BSc in CompSci, an MSc in CompSci or no degree at all.
The thing that will get you that job, likely, is discussing how http works, how tcp works and perhaps something to do with exit codes.
Might not be true for this particular posting.
The only european country that takes titles even more serious is Austria. So without a M.Sc. in CS or a similar M.Sc. your chances may be quite low to even get an interview. Especially since university is basically free here so many people have a B.Sc. or M.Sc. in germany.
No BSc or MSc here.