Getty Why Merkel changed her mind Germany basked in ‘September fairytale’ glow for welcoming refugees. Then reality set in.

BERLIN — Angela Merkel’s abrupt decision to reinstate controls on Germany’s border with Austria followed a hectic weekend during which the chancellor faced intense pressure from state and local officials expected to house and feed the growing wave of asylum seekers heading to the country.

Their message to the German leader: genug, enough.

Local governments have proved unable to cope with the large numbers. Now, they want Merkel to provide more support and pick up the bill.

On Tuesday night, following a four-hour meeting with state leaders, Merkel announced the federal government would provide more means and money. It will host 40,000 refugees on government property and deploy civilian army employees to help with the settlement.

State leaders want more. They expect at least double the €3 billion that Merkel had offered in financial help, Horst Seehofer, the powerful governor of Bavaria said.

“The mood is changing, and fast,” said a senior official from Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. At a meeting of the party’s executive committee on Monday, state and local representatives made it clear they were overwhelmed by the masses.

“Every mayor likes to be a good German, as long as the refugees are not put into his gym,” the source said.

The rapid-fire developments are forcing Merkel, a leader famous for biding her time before taking important decisions, to adopt an unfamiliar playbook. A physicist by training, Merkel normally examines every angle, be it on Greece or Ukraine, before settling on a strategy. Even then, she prefers to let the problem simmer, often for months. Her associates call it "leading from behind."

Instances where she's taken important decisions under intense pressure, such as her move to accelerate Germany's withdrawal from nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster, have often ended in regret. The nuclear decision assuaged the public's fear in the wake of the disaster, but placed an enormous burden on German industry by pushing electricity prices through the roof.

The refugee crisis, the greatest domestic challenge she has faced since then, appears to be taking a similar trajectory.

Merkel was being portrayed as the continent's warm-hearted matriarch.

Merkel’s decision last month to guarantee Syrian refugees safe passage triggered a mad scramble to reach Germany. The move was a humanitarian gesture, intended to help ease a bottleneck in Hungary, where many refugees were stranded in makeshift camps in sweltering conditions.

Back in Germany, state and local officials were “completely surprised” by Merkel’s move and given little time to prepare, Roger Lewentz, the president of Germany’s conference of state interior ministers, told German radio on Monday.

“That was a mistake and I think that Berlin now realizes that,” he said of the communication breakdown.

Out of control

The main reason local governments weren’t involved is that Berlin didn’t anticipate the massive response the announcement would have.

As soon as it became clear that the move had unleashed a torrent, Merkel and other government officials tried in vain to qualify the announcement, insisting that Europe's asylum rules, known as the Dublin system, were still in force. But once the refugees began to arrive in Munich and other cities where they were greeted by cheering Germans, it was clear there was no going back.

All of Germany appeared ready to lend a hand. Shelters were flooded with donations of food and clothing. Charities were overrun by prospective volunteers.

With much of the rest of Europe turning its backs on the refugees, Germans won respect around the world for welcoming them.

Though Merkel warned of the many challenges ahead, she too seemed to bask in the glow of what the German press dubbed the “September fairytale.” After months of being portrayed as Europe's scold for her hard line in dealing with Greece, Merkel was being portrayed as the continent's warm-hearted matriarch.

Then reality set in.

The first signs that the mood was shifting came on Friday, when senior officials from the Bavarian wing of Merkel’s center-right coalition publicly criticized her refugee policy.

“Soon, we will be in a state of emergency that we can’t control,” warned Seehofer.

Merkel remained defiant Tuesday, telling reporters in Berlin that she didn’t regret the decision. “If we start to apologize for showing a friendly face in an emergency, then that’s not my country.”

But by Sunday, nearly 20,000 refugees had arrived at Munich’s main train station, pushing the infrastructure there to the brink.

As refugees crowded the station, officials rushed to erect tents in a nearby park. In the end, authorities found enough beds and the tents remained empty, but it was clear that Munich was close to the breaking point.

Million migrants

Local businesses had begun to grumble about the impact the crisis would have on Munich’s annual Oktoberfest, which gets underway next week. Bavarian politicians were nervous.

But Bavaria, considered Germany’s conservative heartland, wasn’t alone. States and communities across Germany were complaining to Berlin that they couldn’t handle the influx.

Under Germany’s decentralized federal system, responsibility for dealing with the refugees falls on the states. Every day, thousands of new arrivals are sent to Germany’s 16 states and then allocated to local communities.

By the weekend, that system faced collapse. A number of states refused to accept more refugees from Bavaria.

Under pressure from Seehofer, Merkel agreed late Saturday to reintroduce border controls. The strategy was to present the move as a "signal to Europe," a tactical decision meant to nudge other countries into taking more refugees. In reality, according to officials who described the deliberations among the country's leaders this weekend, Germany simply couldn't cope with the situation.

Before Merkel's decision to relax the regulations, Berlin expected to take in 800,000 refugees, already a fourfold increase over 2014. On Monday, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said the number could top one million, underscoring the massive resonance of Merkel’s decision has had.

'Clueless'

Germany is trying to convince other European countries to bear more of the burden, an effort that so far has met only limited success. At a meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels on Monday, officials agreed to distribute 40,000 refugees now in Greece and Italy across the EU.

But the resistance to a bigger commitment remains strong. Many capitals, in particular those in Eastern Europe, blame Berlin for encouraging more refugees to come and don’t want to take in more than a token number.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker wants member states to share the burden by introducing binding national quotas. But the plan would only involve 120,000 refugees. With Germany alone now expecting up to one million, a forecast that could well be revised upward, it’s unlikely the quota plan would have significant impact.

Austria, meanwhile, said it expects Germany to honor its promise to take in the thousands of refugees now stranded there amid the tightened border security. It responded to Germany’s decision by introducing controls on its eastern and southern borders in an effort to stem the flow of refugees.

At meetings of senior officials from Merkel’s CDU on Monday, there was consensus that the government needed to devise a more coordinated approach to the crisis, according to people who took part.

While they agreed to consider proposals for a new citizenship law, something the party has so far resisted, they struggled to come up with more immediate ways to resolve the crisis.

“We’re all clueless as of today,” one official said. “No one knows what to do to solve this massive problem.”