BERLIN – She faced down a euro crisis that turned into an existential crossroads for the European Union. She confronted a Russian land grab in Ukraine. Virtually alone among her peers, she welcomed into her country roughly a million migrants who flooded across Europe’s borders.
Having made that fateful decision, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany now faces what nearly all here are calling the toughest passage of her 11 years in power, after a terrorist attack on Dec. 21 in Berlin left 12 people dead. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility, and the authorities are searching for a Tunisian man with Salafist ties.
