German Chancellor Angela Merkel points during an electoral meeting of the Christian Democtaric Union (CDU) | Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images ‘Get lost’ yell opponents, but Merkel remains defiant Ahead of elections in Berlin, chancellor tells refugees they must integrate.

BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday defended her open-door response to last year’s refugee crisis ahead of regional elections this weekend, but told asylum seekers to adapt to Western ways.

“We want to help those who’d like to stay with us in the long term to integrate and to learn the language,” Merkel said during a campaign event for her Christian Democrats (CDU) in a Berlin suburb, addressing a crowd of around 2,000 supporters. Anti-Merkel protesters were out in force too, yelling “Merkel muss weg.” ("Merkel has to go.")

“We also tell them: Germany is such a beautiful country and such a strong country because we have a constitution that protects the dignity of every person, and at the same time it demands tolerance,” the chancellor said.

Ahead of national elections in the fall of 2017, Merkel finds herself under mounting pressure, with German media describing a looming Kanzlerdämmerung — a reference to a Wagner opera about the twilight of the Gods.

On Sunday, roughly 2.5 million people in the German capital, which counts as one of Germany’s 16 federal states, will elect a new regional parliament. Two weeks ago, the CDU suffered a crushing defeat in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, falling for the first time behind the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD). Many blamed the defeat on Merkel's refugee policy.

There was a slight recovery in the CDU's fortunes a week later, when it stayed as the largest party in Lower Saxony, well ahead of the AfD, which finished fourth.

On Wednesday, Merkel repeated her plan to toughen up on deportations of failed asylum seekers, stressing that the number of arrivals to the country had decreased significantly from last year, and adding that, “We can only fulfill our humanitarian responsibility … if we tell those who have no right to stay that they have to leave our country.”

Polls suggest that in cosmopolitan Berlin, any AfD gains will be relatively small, but the projected outcome for both Merkel’s conservatives and the Social Democrats (SPD) does not look good, with both at all-time lows.

The SPD is down to 21 percent, followed by the Green Party with 19 percent and Merkel’s conservatives with 17 percent. The far-left Die Linke is at 16 percent, while the AfD polls at around 13 percent.

Berlin is currently governed by a "grand coalition" of CDU and SPD, with the Social Democrats appointing the state premier. If the polls are correct, the two main parties would likely need a third partner to join a coalition.

“This is about whether the far-right or far-left will dominate our future, or whether the political center continues to have a strong voice in Berlin,” Frank Henkel, the CDU’s top candidate and state interior minister, said just before Merkel spoke on Wednesday evening.

Pointing at the anti-Merkel demonstrators in the crowd, who were holding up red cards and yelling “get lost,” Henkel said: “What we can see back there, this gives us a foretaste of what we would expect if we left Berlin to the far-left or far-right mob.”