With their anti-migrant tirades, the establishment parties are pursuing two goals: two goals: dividing the working class and building a police state.

BERLIN (AP) — Government officials and local residents attended a solemn Mass Sunday to honor a child and a man killed in a knife attack in Germany, an assault that amplified the debate about migration ahead of the Feb. 23 general election.

Responding to the killing of a child, the poll-leading Christian Democrats are pushing to overhaul migration laws — possibly with votes from the Alternative for Germany.

German police say two people, including a two-year-old boy, were killed and two others were severely injured in a stabbing attack in Bavaria.

Berlin blames Bavaria. Bavaria blames Berlin. With migrants suspected in several deadly attacks, German politicians are jostling for position with calls to reform migration ahead of February's federal election.

A 28-year-old man from Afghanistan was arrested following a knife attack on Wednesday in a park in the German city of Aschaffenburg in which two people were killed, including a toddler, police and the state health minister said.

Police identified the suspect as an Afghan man. Politicians gearing up for an election responded with comments about migration and law and order.

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the growing influence of Germany's far right at a rally in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on Saturday evening. The protesters used lamps and their mobile phones to form what organizers described as a "sea of lights" directed against the Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Germany's opposition leader says his party will bring motions to toughen migration policy to parliament next week in one of its last sessions before the country's election.

Germany's opposition leader has vowed to bar people from entering the country without proper papers and to step up deportations if he is elected as chancellor next month, as a knife attack by a rejected asylum-seeker spills over into an election campaign in which he is the front-runner.

Tens of thousands of Germans have protested in Berlin and other cities against the rise of the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party ahead of the Feb. 23 election

Two people, including a child, were killed and two others were severely injured in a stabbing attack in Bavaria on Wednesday, German police said. Police said a suspect was detained in the knife attack,