A spate of violence
has put Germany on edge after four attacks, three of them involving refugees.
BERLIN — A profound sense of fear has gripped Germany after four attacks over the last week, three of them involving refugees. Now, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to voluntarily take in more than 1 million refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan last year is coming under renewed scrutiny.
Until this summer, Germany had been largely untouched by the wave of terror that hit France and Belgium in recent years. Then, on July 19, a teenage Afghan refugee attacked people with an ax on a suburban train in the southern state of Bavaria, injuring four. Islamic State later released a video purporting to show the attacker declaring himself “a soldier of the caliphate.”
Days afterward, a German-born 18-year-old of Iranian descent shot and killed nine people at a shopping center in Munich before turning the gun on himself.
Then, on Sunday, a 21year-old Syrian refugee stabbed a pregnant woman to death and injured two others with a machete in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.
Later that day, a 27-yearold Syrian refugee blew himself up near the entrance to an open-air concert in Bavaria, injuring 15. He was trying to enter the concert when the bomb detonated, sending the shrapnel in his backpack flying.
Officials said they believed he had hoped to kill many of the 2,000 concertgoers — even though he ended up killing only himself.
Bavarian state officials said Monday that they found a video on the suicide bomber’s cellphone in which he pledged allegiance to Islamic State. The group claimed responsibility for the attack through the Amaq news agency.
The bomber had been facing deportation to Bulgaria, where he first entered the European Union, after his application for asylum in Germany had twice been rejected. He arrived in Germany two years ago, well before the wave of 1 million arrived in late 2015.
Investigators found no link to terrorism in the Munich shooting, which was carried out by a German-Iranian dual citizen.
There were also no indications of terrorism in the machete attack. The victim and assailant were co-workers and had been having an argument.
But these details will likely make little difference to an anxious public.
“For the police or politicians it might make a difference if some of these attacks were caused by mentally disturbed people without a specific terror agenda, but that’s all irrelevant now for most of the people,” said Thomas Jaeger, a political scientist at Cologne University. “They’re afraid and fear it’s not safe to go out on the street.”
“And for most of the people it doesn’t matter if most of these attacks were caused by foreigners who’ve long lived in Germany or are refugees — they attribute this all to the refugees,” Jaeger said.
One poll published last Friday found more than three-quarters of Germans believe their country will soon be the target of terrorism. Seventy-seven percent expect an attack soon, up from 69 percent two weeks ago, according to the survey compiled by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen for broadcaster ZDF.
“I understand that many of us are feeling insecure at the moment,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Monday. He said he had ordered greater police presence across the country.
Support for Merkel’s open-door policies had already fallen after a wave of assaults on women in Cologne and four other cities on New Year’s Eve.
Hundreds of women filed complaints with police saying they were groped, molested or robbed by unruly mobs when New Year’s Eve street-party celebrations turned into wanton violence.
Most of the attackers caught by police were not recently arrived refugees from Syria but young men who had come to Germany before 2015 from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.