German favorite promises permanent border controls after knife attack

Conservative opposition leader tipped to lead Germany after next month’s election promised sweeping changes to border and asylum rules after group of children were taken as target in deadly knife attack in Bavaria.

Friedrich Merz has in fact promised to close German borders to all irregular migrants, including those entitled to protection.

A two-year-old boy of Moroccan origin and a 41-year-old man were killed in Wednesday’s attack in Aschaffenburg, and several others were injured.

A 28-year-old Afghan man was due to appear in court on Thursday, charged with murder and grievous bodily harm.

Wednesday’s stabbing attack in Aschaffenburg is the latest in a series of violent and deadly attacks involving suspects seeking asylum in Germany.

Within hours, the stabbing attacks prompted a harsher tone from Chancellor Olaf Scholz as well as Merz, the center-right opposition leader.

Scholz promised swift action and called it an “act of terror” — although officials have not yet said they believe there was a terrorist motive.

Merz, whose Christian Democrats are leading the polls ahead of the February 23 federal election, refused to accept that the attacks in Mannheim last May, Solingen in August and Magdeburg last month were “the new normal.” .

The Afghan suspect in yesterday’s attack arrived in Germany in 2022 and was linked to three previous acts of violence, according to Bavarian officials. He agreed to leave Germany last month, but was still receiving psychiatric treatment and living in a reception center for asylum seekers.

An investigating judge will decide whether he should be placed in pre-trial detention or temporarily in a psychiatric hospital.

Merz said that on his first day as chancellor he would ask the Interior Ministry to take permanent control of Germany’s borders.

“We see before us the ruins of 10 years of misguided asylum and immigration policy in Germany,” he said. “We have reached the limit.”

Under the leadership of colleague Angela Merkel, Germany took in more than a million refugees during the 2015-2016 European migration crisis.

Criticizing EU asylum rules as “manifestly dysfunctional,” he said Germany should now “exercise its right to the primacy of national law.”

Germany has already reinstated border controls to combat illegal immigration, which are allowed temporarily under the EU’s borderless Schengen rules as a “last resort” measure, but not permanently.

Merz also said it was time to significantly increase the number of places available for pre-deportation detention.

The promise made by Merz to close the borders to illegal entries from the first day at the Berlin chancellery has Trumpian overtones.

The American president has pushed through a wave of decrees and actions to fight illegal immigration since his return to the White House this week.

In Germany, the center-left chancellor and Merz are aware that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, regularly second in the polls, has made immigration a flagship issue.

AfD leader Alice Weidel has called for a vote next week in the German parliament on closing Germany’s borders and pushing back irregular migrants. “The Aschaffenburg knife terror must have consequences now,” she said on social media.

Some critics will say that Scholz and Merz’s decision to take a tougher stance now comes too late. Others will say that a shift to the right by mainstream parties could simply strengthen the AfD’s arguments.

Regardless, German politics does not lend itself to a series of presidential-style decrees, given the need to form coalitions with other parties.

Liberal Democratic Party leader Christian Lindner said Merz would not be able to introduce such changes if he formed a coalition with the Social Democrats or the Greens.

Nancy Faeser, who is both interior minister and party colleague of Olaf Scholz, suggested that “some people are now putting forward arguments that are largely devoid of facts in election campaign mode.”

“I can only warn very clearly against the misuse of such a terrible act for the benefit of populism, which only benefits right-wing populists with their contempt for humanity,” she said .

The 41-year-old man who was killed in Wednesday’s stabbing attack has been praised, apparently for coming to the aid of the nursery school group and saving the lives of other children.

Another two-year-old girl, of Syrian origin, was injured in the neck by a knife.

A 72-year-old man was seriously stabbed and a kindergarten teacher had her arm broken.