“What will happen when the German public realizes that it has been deceived by its leaders?” That’s what Trumpet columnist Brad Macdonald wrote, complete with small caps, two weeks ago in his article “Germany, Migrants and Angela Merkel’s Big Lie.” The German people were being lied to about the problems involved with mass migration, he explained, which could lead to a dangerous explosion once they wake up.

That wake-up began in Cologne, Germany, on New Year’s Eve. That night, a mob of around 1,000 people gathered outside Cologne central train station and began molesting, robbing and even raping passersby. At the time of this writing, over 500 crimes have been reported to Cologne police from that evening, and that number continues to climb. At least 200 reports were sexual assaults.

A leaked police report stated that “[w]omen literally had to run the gauntlet through the mass of drunk men, in a way you can’t describe.” One person talked about how he arrived at the station and saw “countless weeping women.” German news media has been full of women tearfully recounting their story.

Cologne was the worst affected city, but not the only one. Over 100 crimes have been reported for the same evening in Hamburg. Women in Frankfurt, Helsinki, Zurich and Salzburg suffered a similar fate, albeit on a smaller scale.

Yet the first instinct of authorities was to cover up everything. The day after the attacks, the Cologne police described their city on New Year’s Eve as having “a joyful, party atmosphere.”

“As in years past, we are looking back at a mostly peaceful New Year’s celebration,” they wrote. “Reasons to intervene were mostly physical assault and disturbance of the peace.”

There was nothing in the media either. The attacks occurred Thursday night, but the next day and all weekend almost all of the national news media was silent.

Why? The men committing this assault had been described as “North African” or “Arab” looking.

They were migrants. The government, the police and the media were afraid of an anti-migrant backlash, so they tried to cover up the mass sexual assault of hundreds of women.

“Almost as great a scandal as the attacks themselves has been the failure of national newspapers and public broadcasters to report on them until days after the event,” wrote The Local.zdf, a German public broadcaster, was forced to apologize for being so slow to cover the story.

Of course, something so big could not be kept secret. But even toward the end of last week, once the truth was out, government officials still tried to cover up part of the story. They insisted that there was no evidence that recent migrants or asylum seekers were involved in the attacks—while leaked police reports and police officers’ statements to the media revealed the exact opposite.

That lie has also completely collapsed. “Those in the focus of criminal police investigations are mostly people from North African countries,” said the police. “The majority of them are asylum seekers and people who are in Germany illegally.”

With the truth revealed, the outrage is growing.

Both police officers and politicians have said what happened in Cologne is a “completely new dimension of crime.”

“The pressure built up by the images and stories from Cologne make it virtually impossible to continue on as before,” wrote Spiegel Online. Their article was titled “How New Year’s Eve in Cologne Has Changed Germany.”

“Cologne has changed everything; people now are doubting,” said the vice president of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, Volker Bouffier.

“Europe in Crisis Over Sex Attacks by Migrants Amid Calls for Emergency EU Meeting” was the Telegraph’s headline.

As that title says, the repercussions go beyond Germany. “The idea of multicultural Europe has failed,” said Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, as he called for an emergency European Union summit to discuss the attacks. “The migrants cannot be integrated, it’s simply impossible,” he said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called for a complete stop of all immigration. Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło said the attack “should shake up public opinion at last.”

As all those quotes expose, these events are triggering a backlash against immigrants similar in scale to the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris. But the backlash also goes further than that.

Germany’s entire political establishment has failed. Politicians have consistently played down the problems posed by the arrival of over a million migrants last year. The media refused to report on Cologne until forced to do so. The police did not prevent the mob sexual assault; they did not defend the women that night; and they tried to cover it up the next day. Many victims have spoken out about their frustration toward the police. The migrants defiled them with complete impunity.

The police haven’t even punished the attackers. So far only one or two dozen, out of around 1,000, have been arrested—around 98 percent have gotten away with it. Some, or even all, of those arrested may well be let go and simply disappear. Local Police Union Chief Rainer Wendt said, “It is highly uncertain whether in the case of the Cologne attacks even one conviction will be made.” The vast majority of these attackers are unpunished, at large, and could try the same thing again.

No wonder Germans are angry. Much of that anger is directed at German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “The aftershocks spreading from allegations of New Year’s Eve assaults by migrants in German cities have provoked the biggest challenge to Chancellor Angela Merkel since she threw open Germany’s borders to refugees last summer,” wrote theWall Street Journal.

“For all who have supported Merkel’s immigration policies, New Year’s Eve is the worst-case scenario,” wrote Speigel.

“Even Merkel’s most ardent supporters were finding it hard to defend the generosity toward refugees that only a few months ago had been a source of intense German pride,” wrote the Times in an article titled “Sex Mob Sparks Revolt Against Mama Merkel.”

But Germans have been let down by more than just Ms. Merkel. Germany’s entire political system, its entire establishment, is being brought into disrepute by its handling of the crisis.

As Brad Macdonald wrote in his article, a growing number of Germans are becoming disillusioned, not just with Ms. Merkel but with mainstream politics. He wrote:

They are regular, sound-thinking, rational people, many of whom have terrific empathy for those suffering in Syria and elsewhere. These people are simply concerned about the impact millions of migrants will have on their nation, its institutions, its infrastructure, its economy, its culture, and on the German people. They are concerned about Germany’s future. But Angela Merkel refuses to give too much serious attention to these concerns and refuses to tell the truth about the impact the migrants are having and will have on the German nation.If she continues to do this, Germany’s chancellor risks transforming the German people—and Germany itself—into something very different and much more frightening than the democratic, peaceful, friendly, nation Germany is today. …The more disillusioned, frustrated and angry the German people become, the more vulnerable they will be to radical politics and radical leaders with radical solutions. Even now, all that’s needed is a match, some sort of catalyst to ignite the national frustration and fury.

Watch the news coming from Germany to see if Cologne will provide that catalyst. To understand what is building in Germany, go back and read “Germany, Migrants and Angela Merkel’s Big Lie.”