Migrants who commit crimes should lose their right to asylum, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday, toughening her tone as police in Cologne confronted right-wing protesters venting their anger at mass assaults on women on New Year's Eve.
In response to these attacks, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas warned that if anyone seeking asylum is convicted of such crimes, then they would be deported.
Federal police said they had identified 31 suspects over offences from theft to physical attacks, though not sexual assaults.
The state government of North Rhine-Westphalia said on Friday it was sending Wolfgang Albers into early retirement, and the 60-year-old commander said he understood the reasons why.
Out of the 34, 21 were asylum seekers - and the majority of those, police said, had arrived past year.
Police said Saturday that some 1,700 protesters from the anti-Islam PEGIDA movement were kept apart from 1,300 counter demonstrators in simultaneous protests outside the city's main train station.
According to witnesses women on their own and in groups were "circled" by the men who openly groped them.
Two suspects - aged 16 and 23 and of North African origin - were arrested early yesterday but were later released due to lack of evidence, according to authorities in Cologne.
They say they quizzed nine Algerians, eight Moroccans, four Syrians, five Iranians, one Iraqi, one Serbian, and one U.S. citizen following reports on the night.
The spate of assaults has inflamed a heated public debate about Germany's ability to integrate the almost 1.1 million asylum seekers it took in a year ago.
Refugees were among those that police took the details of during the night in question, but it is not yet clear whether they are linked to any crime.
Swedish police said that at least 15 young women reported being groped by groups of men on New Year's Eve in the city of Kalmar.
Merkel has steadfastly refused to agree to establish a cap on newcomers, but the CDU proposal did note that "a continuation of the current influx would overwhelm the state and society even in a country like Germany in the long run", the dpa news agency reported.
Three were related to sexual assaults, although police had no names tied to these acts.
We must do this for us - and for the many refugees who were not part of the events in Cologne.
On Friday, Cologne police chief Wolfgang Albers, who had been heavily criticism for his handling of the violence and police communications afterwards, was dismissed.
A woman walks in front of the main railway station in Cologne, Germany, January 7, 2016, near the cathedral where women were attacked by gangs of men on New Year's Eve.
Mr Plate said authorities were investigating possible links to similar sexual assaults in other cities to see whether there had been any co-ordination.
Government spokesman Georg Streiter said the chancellor wants "the whole truth" about the events in Cologne and that "nothing should be held back and nothing should be glossed over".
