BAMF migrant scandal tied to Merkel

Suddenly voices within the governing Union and SPD want to see such a committee too.

In recent days, new disclosures have heightened the scandal even further. This brings the Chancellor herself into the picture. Initially, Angela Merkel looked confident that she would be able to unload the mess onto Interior Minister Horst Seehofer.

Speaking to German tabloid Bild, SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil however called on Merkel to immediately disclose “what she knew about the problems at the BAMF and when she knew them”.

The many clues already lead to the Chancellery. Finally, shortly after opening the border in September 2015, Merkel had her head of the chancellery, Peter Altmaier, appointed as the official “refugee coordinator”, the main personality tying the strands of the BAMF scandal to Merkel.

The ex-head of Germany’s refugee agency Frank-Jürgen Weise says he told Merkel directly about the excessive demands placed on BAMF staff. Weise told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that he not only had face-to-face discussions with Merkel, but wrote two reports on the terrible state of the BAMF.

According to Bild am Sonntag, Weise said he had “never witnessed a government agency in such a bad state of affairs”.

The scandal brought revelations to the fore about the Bremer field office, in which a noticeable number of positive decisions were issued. As a result, new evidence leaked daily shows that the federal government headed by Merkel had pushed for a veritable assembly line of fast-track decisions.

Parallel to the open borders, the asylum procedure had become a bureaucratic laughing stock.

While the chancellor tried to sedate ordinary Germans with her “we can do it” slogans, not only did the borders collapse from September 2015 onwards, but the control systems also collapsed during the asylum procedure.

At the time, the British political scientist Anthony Glees had noted in relation to the policy of the Merkel government, that Germany was pretending to be a “hippie state, which is guided only by feelings”.

Jörg Radek, deputy chief of the police union, soberly remarked that the BAMF “anchor centers” were in fact not even needed. “The federal police must finally do their core task of border protection and refuse refugees at the border.”