Bavaria's state premier Tuesday blasted Austria for waving on thousands of migrants to Germany without informing local authorities and called on Chancellor Angela Merkel to intervene.

"Austria's behavior is hurting our neighborly relations. We cannot and should not deal with each other this way," Horst Seehofer told the Passauer Neue Presse in an interview.

Crimes targeting refugee centers in Germany have risen sharply, police said Thursday, cautioning that the European migrant crisis was also fueling the risk of attacks on politicians by far-right extremists.

The warning by Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) comes after a mayoral candidate in the eastern city of Cologne was stabbed in the neck in an attack apparently motivated by her work with refugees.

As the thermometer dips towards zero in Germany, thousands of asylum seekers spending their nights in tents are pleading for authorities to find them alternative housing.

"They say they are going to do something, but they are not telling us what. Maybe we are all going to turn to ice," said a 25-year-old Afghan who went by the name Hussein, and who has been living in one of several tent cities set up by authorities in the northern city of Hamburg.

Germany's PEGIDA movement holds an anti-migrant rally Monday a year on from its formation, highlighting a European backlash towards a massive influx that has heaped pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The demonstration comes a day after Swiss voters returned a historically strong result for a populist party known for its virulent campaigns against immigrants and Islam, and following a knife attack on a German mayoral candidate who championed refugee issues.

Germany's real estate sector is riding a wave of mergers and acquisitions, as market players seek to take advantage of low interest rates and the relative lag in property prices compared with those in neighboring countries.

This week, the sector's number one Vonovia threw its hat into the ring, announcing it was prepared to stump up as much as 14 billion euros ($16 billion) for rival Deutsche Wohnen if it failed to tie the knot with the number three, LEG Immobilien.

German prosecutors Tuesday said they were investigating after Islamophobic PEGIDA protesters at an anti-refugee rally displayed a miniature gallows with the names of Chancellor Angela Merkel and her deputy.

The probe against persons unknown was on suspicion of public incitement to commit criminal acts and disturbing the peace, charges which carry up to five years jail, said prosecutors in the eastern city of Dresden.

Germany, facing a record migrant influx, will extend temporary border controls until the end of October, with a special focus on the Austrian border, the interior ministry said Tuesday.

Berlin, which started to implement the controls on September 13, has told the European Commission it will maintain them until October 31 as "the situation at the border is such that we cannot do without them", a ministry spokeswoman told AFP.

Backing for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party has fallen to its lowest point in two years, a survey published Sunday showed, as dissatisfaction over a record refugee influx spreads.

Support for her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has dropped two percentage points to 38 percent -- its lowest since the last parliamentary election in September 2013, according to the latest weekly polls by newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

Under growing domestic pressure over her open-door policy on refugees, Germany's Angela Merkel has come out swinging, insisting "we will manage" the crisis set to define her nearly decade-old chancellorship.

Usually calm and measured if not dull, Merkel spoke passionately in an hour-long TV interview late Wednesday on one of Germany's most popular talk shows.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday described as "obsolete" European Union asylum rules that put the onus on EU states where migrants first arrive to process their refugee claims.

"Let's be frank. The Dublin process, in its current form, is obsolete," Merkel said in a joint speech to the European Parliament with French President Francois Hollande.