Germans on edge and Merkel on defensive after attacks

Many Bavarians' prime concerns at this time of the year are the length of the holiday traffic jams on the Autobahn to Italy, and the price of a litre of beer in the looming Oktoberfest.

But on Monday morning they – and indeed all 82 million Germans – were jolted by the latest violent episode in a surreal, waking nightmare.

First, last Monday, a 17-year-old axe-wielding man wounded four on a train; on Friday an 18-year-old gunman shot nine people dead. Sunday's fatal machete attack on a pregnant woman had left people almost too numb to absorb yesterday's news of the Ansbach nail bomb.

The axe and machete attacks were the work of refugees, from Afghanistan and Syria; the nail bomb was detonated by a failed Syrian asylum seeker facing a third deportation attempt.

As before, the oblique shadow of the Islamic State terrorist group hangs over the aftermath, tainting public discourse and leaving officials around German chancellor Angela Merkel on the defensive. The greatest danger for her now is that these attacks expose the fundamental, unresolved disagreement – in particular in Bavaria – over her unilateral refugee strategy.

A year ago the chancellor reassured doubtful Germans that “we can master this”, and welcomed over one million asylum seekers by year end. Merkel’s officials have in recent days been warning that no blanket suspicion can be cast over all asylum seekers because of a few isolated incidents.

But the anti-immigrant, far-right Alternative für Deutschland has remarked with ill-disguised glee that "Germany has seen quite a few such isolated incidents of late".

The populist party jumped to conclusions over Friday’s Munich shooting, blaming a non-political mass shooting by a troubled teenager on Merkel’s “import of Islamist violence”. But Ansbach puts the party back on track.

At the very least, the AfD can warn that among last year’s million arrivals are many people from very different cultural backgrounds, people who, in German asylum limbo, may be susceptible to streamlined Islamist propaganda.

At worst, they can reheat an argument shared by other critics of Merkel’s refugee strategy, including her Bavarian allies: that Germany has left a barn door swinging open to Islamic State extremists posing as asylum seekers.

Immigration hardliners already felt vindicated by the serial sexual assaults on women in Cologne on New Year's Eve, with many non-German nationals and some asylum seekers among the perpetrators. That diminished already dwindling German support for refugees and, faced with ongoing EU burden-sharing rows, Merkel pushed for an EU migrant-swap deal with Turkey.

Lucky escape

But that deal’s future is in doubt given the Turkish state of emergency following the recent coup attempt. Merkel will face political and moral disaster if that deal falls apart, particularly in parallel with another, bigger attack.

Though it may seem perverse, Sunday’s tragedy was another lucky escape for the German leader. The Ansbach nail bomb killed the 27-year-old perpetrator instantly. Had he got into the music festival – attended by 2,000 revellers – the carnage could have made yesterday a far blacker day in German history.

In Bavaria, nerves are on edge. The Oktoberfest is less than eight weeks away and Munich’s world-famous beer festival was rocked by a bomb attack once before, in 1980. This year is likely to see tight security and a ban on all rucksacks.

After a dark week, German politicians, like their European neighbours before them, are now scrambling to find a way to sugar-coat a bitter pill for voters: that there is no such thing as perfect security.

If these attacks are the new normal, the challenge facing Bavaria and Berlin is how to maintain authority and calm rather than egging on a panicked search for scapegoats.