Security staff try to keep migrants in line at the State Office of Health and Social Affairs in Berlin | KAY NIETFELD/AFP/Getty Images Germany changes its tune on refugees Growing public unease prompts tough talk and harsher measures from Berlin.

Call it the Aufwiedersehen culture.

Just weeks after Germans surprised the world, and themselves, by embracing the challenge of taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees, Germany’s leaders are rolling up the welcome mat.

In a primetime appearance on German television on Thursday, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière lashed out at the “many” refugees he accused of not following Germany’s rules.

“There are many refugees who believe that they can just allocate themselves,” he said. “They leave the facilities and order a taxi — and then, surprisingly, they have the money to drive hundreds of kilometers across Germany. They strike because they don't like the way they're accommodated, they create trouble because they don't like the food, or they get into fist fights in the refugee centers."

De Maizière, whose comments recall populist stereotypes of asylum seekers, wasn’t alone. Spooked by signs of waning public support for the government’s refugee strategy in polls, senior officials from both left- and right-of-center parties have begun calling for tougher measures in recent days.

"In Germany, we are rapidly getting close to the limits of our possibilities," Sigmar Gabriel, Germany's economic minister and vice chancellor, told Spiegel Online in an interview published Friday. “While the asylum law doesn’t have a ceiling, there are real limits to how much pressure we can put on our cities and towns.”

Germany expects somewhere between 800,000 and one million refugees this year, substantially more than the rest of Europe combined. The influx has forced local communities to convert everything from school gyms to parking lots into refugee camps.

The rhetorical shift, officials say, is part of a concerted effort to show a tougher face to the refugees to discourage more from coming. But the comments appear aimed more at shoring up domestic support by reassuring the Germans the government is still in control of the situation.

For the first time since the crisis began, a majority of Germans said the number of refugees coming to Germany “scared” them, according to a poll for state broadcaster ARD released on Friday. The country appears split down the middle, with 51 percent expressing fear, while 47 percent said they weren't afraid. Back in September, just 38 percent said that they were scared, while 59 percent said that they weren't.

In the same poll, 54 percent of the respondents said they were satisfied with Angela Merkel's performance — her lowest rating in nearly four years.

The widening criticism of the government’s handling of the crisis is putting some of those in charge on the defensive.

“Everyone is making every damned effort — there’s just no other way at the moment,” de Maizière told the Bundestag on Thursday, adding that the country’s leaders had to make tough decisions when confronted with the largest influx of refugees in many years.

“It’s easier to take selfies with refugees than to get tough” — German MP

“In September, more refugees came to Germany than in any other month during the last couple of decades,” he said. About 280,000 arrived in September.

Much of the pressure on Merkel’s government is coming from its backbench, especially the more conservative Bavarian wing of the party. This group has been outspoken in criticizing the chancellor and is pushing for harsher rules.

“It’s easier to take selfies with refugees than to get tough,” said one MP, a reference to the widely circulated photos of Merkel with asylum seekers.

'The unthinkables'

In response to such pressures, the government introduced new legislation this week to make it easier to deport asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected. Such measures would have been impossible to push through the Bundestag just a few months ago. Now, the growing public unease is forcing the government to put what some here call “the unthinkables” on the table.

The asylum bill, which is expected to be rushed through for implementation on November 1, would reduce incentives for so-called economic migrants by switching from cash benefits for refugees to allowances in-kind.

The legislation would also add Albania, Kosovo and Serbia to a list of "safe countries of origin," meaning asylum applications from those nationalities, which are almost always rejected, could be processed much more quickly than at present.

Refugee advocates have criticized the measures, saying they will complicate life for asylum seekers while doing little to slow the flow of new arrivals. Even after the changes go into effect, refugees, regardless of their origin, will be afforded broad rights to appeal. Critics say neither the application process nor deportations will be accelerated and dismiss the effort as a political ploy aimed at calming the public.

“The planned government actions are a disappointment,” said Werner Schiffauer from Frankfurt's Viadrina University. “They will neither accelerate the application processes, nor will they create a deterrent effect that the interior minister is after."

The trouble for Berlin is that more substantial changes to the asylum rules would require amending Germany’s constitution, a complicated process that would require a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament.

Faced with a large influx of refugees from the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, the government took that step, but now those reformed rules are viewed as out of date.

Some migration experts say further reforms to the law are inevitable if the crisis doesn’t ease soon. For now, the government insists it has no such plans.