On July 24, a Syrian national whose asylum application had been turned down and who was to be deported to Bulgaria after living in Germany for a year detonated a bomb in the Bavarian city of Ansbach, killing himself and injuring 15 bystanders.
The same day, another Syrian refugee killed a female colleague with a machete in the southern city of Reutlingen, near Stuttgart.
"The policy of open borders cannot be tolerated any more given that terrorists were using the [refugee] routes to enter Germany,” Seehofer said as quoted by The Guardian.
In a follow up to the Minister President's speech, Herrmann urged the deployment of the German army in a bid to deal with the attacks, saying “it can’t replace the police, but why can’t well-trained members of the army work alongside the police in the event of an attack?"
He also called for the refusal to admit any refugees who cannot prove their identity and for the deportation of those who committed crimes.
The European Union is currently struggling to manage a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people leaving conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa to escape violence and poverty and seeking asylum in Europe. In 2015, more than 1 million migrants and asylum seekers arrived in Germany.
