Ms Merkel chose to answer growing criticism of policies which have allowed an estimated 300,000 refugees to enter Germany over the past month, by appearing as the sole guest on a political chat show chaired by Germany’s ARD television channel journalist Anne Will. Nearly one in two Germans (48 percent) believe that Merkel’s decision to open the country’s doors to those fleeing war was wrong. “If the requirements of the EU’s Schengen and Dublin agreements can not be promptly implemented again then the Federal Republic of Germany should send refugees back from the border”.

“We cannot permanently take in and integrate more than 1 million refugees each year”, as they wrote in a joint contribution to German news magazine Spiegel on Friday.

Seehofer’s intervention came as Germany’s interior minister said there have been 490 attacks on refugee shelters across the country so far this year, a threefold increase on 2014. Merkel has also pledged support from her party for the scandal-lade industry, which has been hurt by VW’s admission it had rigged U.S. diesel emissions tests and possibly also in Europe. He accepted that transit zones and faster asylum procedures, meaning those who aren’t accepted can be deported faster, are federal concerns – out of his remit as a state leader.

“We need to take emergency measures to stem the flow of refugees, for example turning them back at the Austrian border or sending asylum seekers immediately on into other German states”, Bavaria’s minister president Horst Seehofer told the Bild newspaper.

Her critics’ biggest complaint is that Merkel – by broadcasting her stance worldwide with statements and selfies with refugees – has turned Germany into a magnet for ever-more refugees.

By 2019 more than 3,700 jobs are to be created in the fields of judiciary, police, administration and education to address a few of the administrative challenges posed by the incoming refugees and migrants.

“We need a limit to immigration to maintain our internal security,” he said. When the flood of Middle Eastern refugees arriving in Europe finally ebbs and asylum-seekers settle down in their new homes, Germany could unexpectedly find itself housing the continent’s largest Muslim minority. “I want to control and limit them”, he explained.

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“We can not close the borders”, she said. Merkel has made clear she will not introduce a refugee cap.