Two consecutive nights of violence force police to seal off shelter near Dresden as Germany prepares for biggest influx of asylum seekers since second world war

Neo-Nazi protesters gathered to demonstrate against the arrival of migrants at a newly opened shelter in eastern Germany have clashed violently with police in a sign of growing tension over the record influx of asylum seekers expected this year.

The two consecutive nights of violence over the weekend came at the end of a week in which the interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, said Germany could expect to receive as many as 800,000 asylum seekers in 2015, the biggest influx since the second world war.

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On Sunday, Angela Merkel’s deputy, Sigmar Gabriel, called the issue Germany’s biggest challenge since reunification 25 years ago.

Police in the town of Heidenau, near Dresden, were forced to seal off the shelter, which has been set up in a disused DIY store, as demonstrators hurled abuse at arriving migrants and bombarded police with stones, bottles and firecrackers.

Police responded by firing teargas and pepper spray in an effort to secure the entrance road to the shelter, which has been built to accommodate 600 people. Thirty-one officers were injured, a spokesman said.

Saxony’s interior minister, Markus Ulbig, was quick to issue a condemnation, telling German media on Sunday: “This renewed excessive violence is outrageous and unacceptable”.

He said police would be better able to spot “potential violent criminals” by erecting a security barrier around the shelter and asking everyone who approached to identify themselves.

De Maizière said perpetrators of racist violence would feel the full strength of the law. Jürgen Opitz, the mayor of Heidenau, urged the town’s 16,000 residents to show solidarity towards the migrants.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Asylum seekers stand on the steps of the new shelter in Heidenau, set up in a disused DIY store. Photograph: Matthias Rietschel/Getty Images

“Humanity is required. No one is being asked to sacrifice anything,” he said, adding that Saxony was in a strong position to help the large numbers of migrants coming to Germany and Heidenau was fully behind the effort.

The confrontations add to the record number of reported attacks on asylum seekers’ homes this year, which was already more than twice as high as in 2014 by the end of June. Police say the real number of attacks is probably much higher.

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Most of the hostility is in towns and villages in the former communist east, a fact that is casting a huge shadow over the region in the runup to the 25th anniversary of German reunification in October.

Far-right groups across Germany have been encouraging people to report the whereabouts of every new home under their “no refugee camps in my neighbourhood” campaign. Last month, Google responded to the protests and deleted a map run by the campaign group which detailed their location in what amounted to an open invitation to attack them.

Some shelters, such as the one in Freital, Saxony, have been subject to arson attacks and a barrage of abuse by far-right protesters gathered outside.

Polls show that 58% of Germans support the number of migrants coming to Germany and believe the country has the resources to cope. That image is reinforced by volunteers who have come out in unprecedented numbers across the country to help feed and shelter the newcomers.

Migrants are being housed in everything from tents in makeshift camps and metal containers to schools empty over the summer holidays. With term due to start soon, however, a frantic effort is on to find more suitable long-term accommodation.

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On Sunday, the Social Democrat prime minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hannelore Kraft joined in increasing calls for an EU-wide asylum policy, arguing that many countries were failing to contribute enough to the crisis. The government has already warned that border controls may have to be introduced if a distribution system is not introduced.

“When North Rhine-Westphalia is taking in more refugees than France, then something is not quite right,” Kraft told Deutschlandfunk radio.

She said she believed the number of asylum seekers expected this year may well be much higher than the 800,000 estimated De Maizière. She also urged the federal government to cut the average time of seven months it currently takes to process asylum applications.

De Maizière announced this weekend that thousands of civil servants were being brought out of retirement to help speed up the process and an appeal has also gone out for others to delay their retirement.

Gabriel and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the heads of the Social Democrats, who are junior partners in the governing coalition, also back the idea of an EU-wide policy. They have released a paper on the crisis in which they say the “reaction until now of many EU members does not match the aspirations that Europe should have of itself”.

They say Europe is facing “a challenge that would affect generations” and which requires the introduction of a fair system of distribution of migrants across the EU.

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Some argue for a similar system to that currently in place in Germany, under which migrants are distributed across the country according to the size of a region’s population and its tax revenues per head.

As calls from across the political spectrum for Merkel’s government to finally introduce an immigration law grow louder, industry bosses have begun to wade into the debate. The head of the chemicals company Evonik, Klaus Engel, has said that, at a time when Germany is crying out for skilled workers, asylum seekers whose applications have been turned down should have the chance to prove whether they have skills to offer before being sent home.

“No one is checking the refugees’ qualifications and capabilities in order to establish whether they are able to enrich our country. That is just wrong,” Engel wrote in a commentary for the Bild am Sonntag. He criticised the fact that applying for asylum was currently the only way in which people who wanted to come to Germany and find work had any chance of getting in.

“Because we have no proper immigration law, people are forced to apply for asylum,” he said, comparing the process to getting through the eye of a needle.

Demographic experts have said that in order to have any chance of plugging the huge imbalance between births and deaths, Germany, which currently has the lowest birthrate in the world, needs to welcome about 533,000 immigrants every year.

A recent poll showed that 76% of Germans are in favour of an immigration law.



