AS THE New Year’s fireworks went up in German cities, a brief panic seized Munich, which had information about planned terrorist attacks at two railway stations. Those never occurred. But, much less noticed at first, a different sort of crime was occurring in Cologne and, to a lesser extent, in Hamburg and Stuttgart.

While partiers gathered on the square between Cologne’s cathedral and railway station, a large group of young men, later described by the police as “looking North African or Arabic”, also massed there. Some threw fireworks into the crowd to cause panic. Then the men formed rings around individual women, so that police and onlookers could not see inside each huddle. According to over 100 women who subsequently filed complaints, the men groped the women sexually, while others stole their mobile phones, wallets or purses. One woman was raped.

Oddly, the Cologne police reported the following day that the festivities had been relaxed and peaceful. Only after scores of women came forward did the country react with rage. The interior and justice ministers promised to bring down the full force of the law—even as the police had to admit that they as yet had no information to make individual arrests. Angela Merkel, the chancellor, called the assaults “disgusting” and demanded justice “without regard to origin or background”.

The assaults tapped into deep fears at a tense time, as Germany struggles with record numbers of refugees—more than 1m in 2015, largely from Arab countries. Populist politicians were quick to infer a connection. Frauke Petry, boss of the xenophobic Alternative for Germany, blamed the outrage on the “terrible consequences of a catastrophic asylum and migration policy”.

There is no evidence yet that any of the criminals were refugees, as Cologne’s mayor, Henriette Reker, emphasised. Ms Reker personifies the conflicts straining German society. She ran for office as a non-partisan candidate with a liberal and welcoming stance toward migrants. For that, a neo-Nazi extremist stabbed her at a campaign event in October. (She was elected the next day, while still in a coma.) If it is confirmed that some of the muggers, molesters and rapists were asylum-seekers, the damage to what is left of Germany’s Willkommenskultur could be severe.