German authorities said a Syrian suspect was intending “to kill Jews” when he stabbed a tourist in Berlin on Friday, the latest in a string of attacks by refugees and asylum seekers ahead of a crucial election on Sunday.

A Syrian refugee arrested over the stabbing of a tourist at Berlin's Holocaust memorial had been planning "to kill Jews", prosecutors said on Saturday, the day before an election which is expected to see a surge in support for the anti-migrant AfD.

The police said they had detained a suspect in the assault, which occurred among the labyrinth of concrete slabs at one of the German capital’s most sacrosanct sites.