The German favorite has promised permanent border controls after the knife attack

The conservative opposition leader, tipped to lead Germany after next month’s election, has promised sweeping changes to border and asylum rules after a group of children were targeted in a deadly knife attack in Bavaria.

Friedrich Merz actually promised to close Germany’s borders to all illegal migrants, including those with protection rights.

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 in Aschaffenburg is the latest in a string of brutal and fatal attacks involving suspects who have sought asylum in Germany.

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

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

Merz, whose Christian Democrats are leading opinion 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 would be 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 authorities. He agreed to leave Germany last month, but was still receiving psychiatric treatment and living in asylums.

An investigating judge will decide whether he should be remanded in custody or temporarily placed in a psychiatric facility.

Merz said on his first day as chancellor he would instruct 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’ve reached the limit.”

Under the leadership of his party colleague Angela Merkel, Germany took in more than a million refugees during Europe’s 2015-16 migrant crisis.

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

Germany has already reinstated border checks to combat illegal immigration, which is allowed temporarily under the EU’s border-free Schengen rules as a “last resort” but not permanently.

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

Merz’s promise to close borders to illegal entry on his first day as chancellor in Berlin has echoes of Trump.

The President of the United States has pushed through a flurry of executive orders and actions to tackle illegal immigration since reentering the White House this week.

In Germany, both the center-left chancellor and Merz are aware that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has consistently come second in the polls, has made immigration a major issue.

AfD leader Alice Weidel has called for a vote in the German parliament next week to close Germany’s borders and return illegal migrants. “Knife terror in Aschaffenburg must have consequences now,” she said on social media.

Some critics will argue that the move by Scholz and Mertz to take a harder line now comes too late. Others will argue that a shift to the right of the mainstream parties may simply bolster the AfD’s arguments.

In any case, German politics does not lend itself to a set of presidential-style decrees, given the need to form coalitions with other parties.

The leader of the liberal Free Democratic Party, Christian Lindner, said Merz would not be able to introduce such changes if he entered into a coalition with the Social Democrats or the Green Party.

Nancy Feser, who is both the interior minister and a party colleague of Olaf Scholz, suggested that “some people are now making largely fact-free arguments in election campaign mode”.

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

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

Another two-year-old child of Syrian origin was stabbed in the neck.

A 72-year-old man has severe stab wounds, and a kindergarten teacher has a broken arm.