BERLIN — With Germany welcoming more than a million refugees from the Middle East and North Africa last year, the country now faces a dilemma as it struggles to handle the fallout of its "open-door" policy: how to continue to meet humanitarian needs while making sure that no Paris-style attacks occur in the homeland?

For months, Germans have stepped up volunteering activities to help refugees, and there has been widespread support for the newcomers. But growing concern over accommodating so many people, and fears over extremists slipping in, is dampening the welcome.

Since Chancellor Angela Merkel renewed Germany's invitation for refugees to come last fall, the government has at the same time moved to tighten laws on who gets in and what benefits they receive. This is because the country's leadership recognizes the issue is dangerously dividing the country; politicians lately are tilting to the right as the power of the fringe (and not only those affiliated with neo-Nazi groups) grows, with attacks against foreigners, politicians, journalists and others deemed opponents of “Das Volk” now on the rise.

In fact, “Das Volk,” which means the German people, and “Volksverräter,” a term for traitors, are some of the Nazi-era catchphrases heard frequently at anti-refugee demonstrations that now take place daily in Germany.

According to Free University sociologist Carsten Koschmieder, speaking to Occupy.com in Berlin, the rightwing rallies have become breeding grounds for violent attacks like the nonfatal stabbing of pro-refugee Cologne Mayor Henriette Racer in October.

There have also been around 800 criminal acts carried out in places where refugees were housed last year, according to figures from the German Federal Criminal Police Office. More than double the amount of last year's attacks, the violence included more than 220 cases of arson and other severe crimes.

Although few of the demonstrations — with the exception of neo-Nazi rallies — openly encourage violence, Koschmieder said incendiary language and fearmongering at the events often inspire demonstrators to put their thoughts into actions.

“If you constantly hear that politicians are Volksverräter and letting refugees in that will kill us and destroy the country, it is not a large logical leap for people to take violent action,” Koschmieder said. “You can see at demonstrations, in media and conversations that people in certain areas feel the need to ‘save Germany’ by getting rid of the foreigners.”

Support for right-wing groups is stronger in the former East Germany, which more than 25 years after reunification still suffers from higher unemployment and lower income than the former West Germany, Koschmieder added.

Easterners aren’t the only ones inspiring violence, however. West Germans have also raised alarms about refugees who require humanitarian aid that many believe only Germans should receive. Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer, whose Christian Social Union is the sister party of Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, recently said he would “fight to the last bullet to prevent immigrants from entering the social system,” and that he would have to take “emergency measures” if refugees keep coming into Germany at the current rate.

“Even a prime minister and a respected centrist politician is advocating the use of emergency measures, meaning that in a state of emergency one can use violence if threatened,” Koschmieder said.

Seehofer’s comments reflect how a xenophobic mentality is taking hold of mainstream Germans, Koschmieder added. The majority of attacks on refugee homes are not coming from members of rightwing organizations, neo-Nazis with police records or other known criminals.

Furthermore, a recent investigation by the German newspaper Die Zeit revealed that police found suspects who were accused of violence against refugees for only 25 percent of the recorded incidents. Charges were brought against alleged attacks in only 5 percent of the incidents. The reason, according to the newspaper, is that police have trouble finding witnesses who are willing to come forward and point fingers at those who perpetrated violence against refugees. In Koschmieder's words: “People are not against it.”

A well-known hotbed of xenophobia is the Berlin suburb of Weissensee. In the past, anti-Semites vandalized the district’s Jewish cemetery, the largest in Europe. More recently, muggings of refugees and other foreigners have been reported.

The climate in Weissensee is dangerous, according to Berit Schroeder, who works at the German refugee aid organization Pankow Hilft. Not only refugees, but Germans helping refugees or anti-fascist group members, should tread carefully there, he said.

“You get a strong sense from the locals that people who are not from there area are regarded as enemies,” Schroeder said. “It is difficult to talk to these people and create an open dialogue. A lot of people there are not of the opinion that all people should have a right to public space.”

People's fears of terrorists entering Europe with the influx of refugees have increased since the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. But Germans are more concerned that the government is unprepared to handle other challenges associated with accepting such large numbers of migrants, said Joerg Forbrig of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think tank.

“Nobody is naïve enough to think this isn’t a challenge for the country and society,” Forbrig said. “The sheer number of refugees provides a host of problems such as their accommodations and placement in German society and integration in language terms, the labor market, and the school system.”

Xenophobes, he said, are exploiting that anxiety.

“If they see the government struggling to handle this situation, then you have an open gate for demagogues who propose simple solutions,” Forbig added. “They will try to use this space to push increasingly radical proposals and ever more urgent appeals to Germans to defend themselves against people from foreign cultures, religions and terrorists.”

While Forbrig maintains that the German government and the majority of the population feel a responsibility to help refugees, he predicts that parties that appeal to the radical right, such as Alternative for Germany (AfD), will win more seats in local elections in mid-March, with recent polls showing as much as 15 percent support for AfD.

Still, he does not see the AfD gaining as many votes as France’s far-right party Le Front National after the Paris attacks. The AfD had been steadily gaining in polls until a few weeks ago, when Merkel and others became more aggressive in their rhetoric condemning hate and assuring the public that the government could help refugees without undercutting services for German citizens.

Since then, support for the anti-immigrant party has plateaued – a sign, said Forbrig, that determination can overcome hate. “Support for the AfD does not seem to be growing anymore," he added, and "this can be attributed to how the government and civil society is visibly getting the refugee situation under control.”