Quotes of the Day

Last may Angela Teusch walked into Duisburg's central train station, where she works as a cleaner, to find her co-workers slack-jawed with incredulity. They were staring at a fresh crop of campaign posters plastered on the station's walls. They portrayed her husband, Wolfgang, a steelworker and union shop steward at ThyssenKrupp Stahl, in his silver blast-furnace smock and hard hat. The real surprise was not the larger-than-life apparition of Herr Teusch and his frayed walrus moustache, but the poster's message: an endorsement from this lifelong Social Democrat of the opposition Christian Democratic Union (cdu). "Did you see the poster? How can anyone who works at Thyssen join that party?" Angela says, recalling the outrage of her colleagues that day. As she draws on a cigarette in her sparsely furnished kitchen, the wiry redhead repeats her response: "I told them, I don't need to see the poster. I've got the original at home."

Wolfgang may be the original, but he's by no means the only steelworker to convert to the cdu. The spd lags behind the cdu in the run-up to next week's state elections; the most recent poll gives the cdu a six-point lead in a region where the spd has reigned supreme for nearly 40 years. And if more people like Wolfgang make the switch, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's fragile spd–Green coalition could fall apart at next year's national vote. "People here are just frustrated and want to see new faces," says Wolfgang, sniffing a pinch of red tobacco. "My grandpa used to say that the spd gave us prosperity after the war. That may be true, but they can't do it anymore."

In the past, North Rhine–Westphalia, in which Duisburg is located, has been an spd stronghold, where no-nonsense blue-collar workers like Teusch rebuilt the city from the bombed-out ruins of World War II, turning it into Europe's biggest steel producer. But now Duisburg is a shadow of the boomtown it once was. A light smell of sulphur still fills the air, recalling times when steel mills lined the edge of the city. But today, many mills have shut down. Last year, the number of steelworkers in Germany plunged to 78,000 — nearly half of whom live in Duisburg — from 297,000 in 1960. Unemployment runs at 18%, well above the national average of 11.8%.

The spd blames ruthless capitalists; party chairman Franz Müntefering accused foreign investors of stripping assets and ignoring the human cost in jobs and livelihoods (see sidebar). North Rhine–Westphalia's spd governor Peer Steinbrück joined the chorus during a debate with his rival, cdu candidate Jürgen Rüttgers: "I expect companies that are making record profits to create jobs." But locals blame the spd. When Müntefering addressed around 1,000 Duisburg workers on May Day, they pelted him with eggs as he stood behind a line of policemen protecting him with riot shields. "This campaign is really fun," the cdu's Rüttgers told a rally last week. "It's nice to have a tailwind for once." A cdu victory in North Rhine–Westphalia could be the clearest sign yet that Germans are ready for a change of leadership in Berlin.

The spd swept to national power in 1998, promising economic reforms without social hardship. But unemployment has risen dramatically, and the government has cut unemployment benefits, even as it cut taxes for corporations. That has angered unions and spd rank and file, who've vented their frustrations in a string of recent state elections. The spd lost in Saxony-Anhalt in 2002 and in Lower Saxony — Schröder's home state — in 2003. In April, it was forced into a grand coalition with the cdu in Schleswig-Holstein. The state polls are key to Germany's federal system because the states are represented in the Bundesrat, or upper house of parliament, which must approve about two-thirds of legislation passed by the Bundestag, or lower house. "The election in North Rhine–Westphalia is an extremely important decision," Economy Minister Wolfgang Clement, a former governor of the state, told Time. "With our reform policies, we've had to impose a lot on people. The problem is that people no longer believe that we can solve their problems. North Rhine–Westphalia is the biggest state, so it clearly has significance for the broader political climate and battle of political forces."

Wolfgang Teusch first soured on the Social Democrats back in 2002, when he joined the cdu and voted for Edmund Stoiber, Schröder's conservative rival for the chancellery in the last federal contest. Until then, he had always voted spd. Thomas Mahlberg is looking to capitalize on the disaffection of voters like Teusch. A stocky man with rosy cheeks, Mahlberg is one of the city's four candidates for the state parliament. Last week, the campaign trail took him to a local Schützenfest (marksmen's festival), an annual three-day beer-gulping celebration in which the local shooting club chooses a new king of marksmen. As is customary, about 70 marksmen dressed up in green uniforms, and a brass band with glockenspiel and drums accompanied them on a little parade through the city. They then formed a half-circle in front of the beer tent and intoned the Lord's Prayer before compelling Mahlberg to try to shoot the golden crown off a wooden bird.

In the not-too-distant past, Mahlberg might reasonably have expected to come under fire himself in such an spd heartland. Instead, the reception is warm. The outgoing king of marksmen, Detlev Wilms, 57, who works in the blast furnace at Hüttenwerke Krupp Mannesmann, explains that he's a union man and for years voted spd. But, he says, the quality of life in his community has deteriorated. "The spd isn't socially responsible anymore," he gripes. "They're not looking after the needs of the common worker."

The Christian Democrats are not the only alternative, though. At a national level, the Greens are doing well in opinion polls even though they are in coalition with the spd. Doris Janicke, the Green party mayor in the Duisburg city council, is instead working in coalition with the cdu. The two parties agree on the importance of protecting the environment, and even on some economic issues, says Janicke. She too took aim at the wooden bird — and missed. "As a young girl, I was told by my parents: We are union and spd," she says. "But since we've lost steel and coal as our only industries, both big employers are disappearing. That means you're not born conservative or left wing anymore."

That trend holds true nationally, where membership in both mainstream political parties is in decline. Elections are increasingly won by the party that can mobilize swing voters with no formal party ties. Union membership is also dwindling. IG Metall, the metalworkers' union, has lost around 25% of its members in the past decade. In Duisburg, the last big test came in 1987, when steelmaker Krupp (which has since merged with former rival Thyssen) decided to shut down its plant in the Rheinhausen section of the city. For almost six months, steelworkers — joined by local students, miners, shopkeepers and police officers — demonstrated to save the plant. The workers lost and Krupp sold the plant to China.

• WILLIAM BOSTON | Duisburg
• Why Germany's Social Democrats might well lose a longtime industrial stronghold