The chancellor focused on two attacks committed by asylum seekers in Bavaria that officials say have a connection with Islamic State terrorism, in which one assailant blew himself up at a music festival and another was gunned down by police after he attacked people on a train with an ax.
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Three of the 4 attackers were asylum seekers, and two of the assaults were claimed by the Islamic State (ISIS) group.
The worst recent attack was in Munich on 22 July when nine people were killed by a German teenager of Iranian extraction.
Germany accepted more than 1 million refugees in 2015, and Merkel’s bold stance on the issue – at the same time as some European countries and some USA states have moved to bar refugees – won her the honor of Time’s Person of the Year in 2015.
“The terrorists want us to loose our oversight of the things we deem important and break our unity and sense of community”.
That came after PM Theresa May issued a thinly-veiled dig at Germany for not stopping the attacks.
Merkel’s press briefing was meant to respond to the internal and external accusations that her open-door immigration policy was allowing Muslim terrorists to take over Germany, after 15 Germans were killed since the start of the month by immigrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. “They see hatred and fear between religions”.
“We firmly reject this”, she said at a wide-ranging news conference.
The attacks brought Merkel fresh criticism for her decision past year to welcome refugees.
Since the influx of refugees in Germany, the country’s atmosphere has been tense.
Political pressure and criticism surrounding her absence from public debate after the attacks in Germany are among the reasons why Merkel interrupted this summer holiday and moved up the large press event she usually holds later in the summer. The perpetrators died in both cases after injuring others.
While the German political class has largely called for calm, opposition parties and rebels from Merkel’s own conservative bloc have accused her of exposing the country to an unacceptable level of risk without stricter controls on new arrivals. “Today people talk about the darknet”, Merkel said.
Mass arrests in the judiciary, army, university and media were a “worrying development”, she said, adding that “the principle of proportionality may not always be at the center” of actions by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Mrs Merkel said recent attacks in Germany and France aimed to spread division and suspicion.
The remarks were made following reported brutal attacks by refugees who had arrived in Germany as asylum-seekers.
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She announced that there must be an early alert system during the asylum process, adding the government must take the “challenge of integration very seriously”.
