Quotes of the Day

Angela Merkel's earliest political memory is of the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, when she was just 7. Merkel and her family had been vacationing in Bavaria and on Aug. 11 were returning to their home in Templin, a small town set amid sparkling lakes and lush forests about 80 km north of Berlin. Merkel's father, a Lutheran minister, sensed something was wrong; he'd seen bushels of barbed wire stacked in the woods on the drive back. The erection of the Wall started the next night. "Everybody was crying" at that Sunday's church service, Merkel recalled in a 2004 book of interviews called My Way. "Everyone was stunned."

If, as polls suggest, Merkel, the leader of the Christian Democrats, becomes Germany's first female Chancellor — and its first from the country's east — after Sunday's general election, she will have to start tearing down some walls of her own. Merkel has already promised to chip away at the barriers to economic growth that have left millions without jobs; Germany's unemployment rate of 11.6% is the highest it's been since World War II. And she might also take a whack at the continuing divide between east and west Germans. In a survey conducted earlier this year, 24% of west Germans (Wessis) said that they want the Wall put back up, compared with 12% 10 years ago; 12% of east Germans (Ossis) want the Wall back, too. Wessis resent the €90 billion in subsidies sent to the east every year; Ossis scorn Wessis' alleged arrogance — and their higher wages. Then there's the growing sense of cynicism that cuts off voters from politicians. Only 21% of Germans believe a Christian Democrat-led government would make a difference to their lives, according to a recent poll conducted by the Forsa polling agency. "Germans," says Manfred Güllner, head of Forsa, "are running out of patience with their politicians. They have heard it all before. The new government will have to prove itself immediately. They don't have much time."

Since the start of campaigning, Merkel's Christian Democratic Party (cdu) and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (csu) have consistently polled ahead of Gerhard Schröder's Social Democratic Party (spd). Last week, Merkel's forces were running at 42% to the spd's 34%. But the gap was closing by the day. The spd gained two percentage points in the week following a televised debate in which a tanned and earnest-looking Schröder edged the less telegenic Merkel. Sensing a momentum shift, the Chancellor hastily penciled in additional, last-minute campaign stops. The narrowing of the race increases the chances that the cdu, together with its preferred coalition partner, the Free Democrats (fdp), will fail to secure the majority it needs to form a government and instead will be forced into a grand coalition with the spd. "We've always said that the election will be decided in the two final weeks," Kajo Wasserhövel, spd campaign manager told Time.

Both parties have used the last days of the campaign to sharpen their attacks. "For seven years you have made empty promises," Merkel scolded Schröder, her fist pounding the air, during the last parliamentary session before the vote. "You are a man who has failed in regard to his party, himself and his perception of reality." Joschka Fischer, the Green Party chief and Foreign Minister, meanwhile warned of the cdu "taking a chainsaw to our social security system and ... hitting the poorest people the hardest." By the week's end the language was getting apocalyptic. angela is our katrina!, screamed a placard at the Friedrichstrasse train station in central Berlin, in a reference to the hurricane that devastated New Orleans. It went on: she will bring the neoconservatives to germany. soon we will have a catastrophe like in louisiana!

In its election platform, the cdu promises to reform the labor code, cut taxes and streamline social programs. But the party's campaign has stressed less its own pledges than the apparent failures of its opponents. five million without work, declared one poster in ominous spd red. a bankruptcy every 15 minutes! germany needs a change, read another. "The coalition of the spd and Green Party relied heavily on the state to solve problems," Christian Wulff, 46, the Governor of Lower Saxony and a leading member of Merkel's inner circle, told Time. "We put more faith in private industry. We believe that there should be more personal responsibility, not that the state can provide social security from cradle to grave."

The spd campaign, by contrast, has stressed Schröder's experience — he has been Chancellor since 1998 — and the alleged dangers posed by a "heartless" cdu. Party officials say the spd hopes to capitalize on the Chancellor's superior popularity ratings. It has also sought to galvanize stay-at-home voters and those considering other left-wing parties by warning that Germany is in danger of swinging violently to the right. "It is now perfectly clear how little substance there is in political conservatism today," Franz Müntefering, the pugnacious spd leader, said, sipping sparkling wine and smoking a cigarillo after the TV debate. "Mrs. Merkel talks about the problems of the millionaires and not about those of the simple worker. That's not the politics we would conduct."

The truly depressing thing about the election is this: whoever wins Sunday's vote, expectations are not high that much will change. A Time/cnn poll last week found that just 30% of Germans surveyed thought Merkel would be more effective at tackling unemployment than Schröder has been. "We will continue to be plagued by high unemployment and an economic growth rate of not more than 1.5%, no matter who runs the country," says Stefan Bach, a tax policy expert at the German Institute of Economic Research in Berlin. "That's the trend we're looking at, and we have to react with much more drastic changes than have been implemented so far."

"This country is up a creek without a paddle," sighs Marc Bepler, 33, a system administrator, as he savors an iced tea after a game of badminton on the outskirts of Bonn. Bepler says he'll vote cdu, but doubts the party will be able to realize needed reforms. Christoph Zink, a 34-year-old Green supporter, agrees: "The cdu will win and try to push through what they consider to be the right reforms. But they will antagonize voters and lose the [next] local elections. The vote will swing left again."

And that, perhaps, encapsulates the biggest risk of all — that far from ameliorating political and social rifts in Germany, the election may exacerbate them. For the first time since reunification in 1990, a hard-left party is set to make substantial gains in an election: the Left Party, formerly known as the Party of Democratic Socialism (pds). "There's not a single party remaining in the Bundestag that represents the interests of the public," says Oskar Lafontaine, 62, of the Linksbündnis, an alliance he helped cobble together between disaffected spd members and the Left Party after Schröder called snap elections in May. "Only we offer an alternative to the all-pervading neoliberalism." Lafontaine's alternative: "Reducing taxes on low-income earners while increasing them on the well-to-do, the introduction of a minimum wage of €1,400 [per month] as well as a minimum pension of €800 [per month]." All that, plus higher payments for families with children; Lafontaine proposes increasing monthly child allowances from €154 to €250 and making kindergarten spaces free. "We're not talking about unbelievable election promises here," he says during a campaign stop in Saarbrücken. "We are the only political party to offer a sound financial policy."

If the Left Party does well, it could derail Merkel's drive for a workable majority in the Bundestag. National polls put the party's support at around 9%, easily enough to secure plenty of seats in parliament. In the ailing eastern states, where the pds had its power base, the Left Party could get 27% of the vote, according to the Leipzig Institute for Market Research.

No surprise about why that might be. Among easterners, disappointment with the development of Germany since reunification is growing fast. "The politicians don't have a clue what to do," says Jana Hensel, 29, author of After the Wall (titled Zonenkinder in Germany), a best-selling book about growing up in the east. Hensel believes the problems of eastern Germany, including worsening unemployment, high crime rates and a constant flow of emigration to the west, "are so severe that if they are not solved in 10 years there will be an unimaginable wave of social upheaval." Meinhard Miegel, head of the Bonn-based Institute for Economy and Society, warns that "the divide between eastern and western Germany is growing again. A permanent downward spiral could drag the whole country down."

How a cdu-led government would deal with that prospect is unclear. Merkel herself, though an Ossi, says she wants to represent "both east and west," and in the TV debate said, "I am proud to be a politician for all Germany with east German roots." By contrast, Gregor Gysi, the Left Party's co-leader, told Time recently that the east did not trust Merkel precisely because "she denied her eastern roots." Last month she tasked Dieter Althaus, 47, the Governor of Thuringia, with overseeing policy toward the east. At present, subsidies to modernize infrastructure, bail out companies and create jobs are spread thinly across the region; Althaus says the cdu would target them on industries and regions with greater potential. He calls charges that the costs of reunification amount to "a brake" on the economy "nonsense": "The east gets the blame, but in fact we need to reform the whole economy."

Support for the Left Party, though it appears to have trailed off as voting day approaches, is one reason why the election could still be close. So is a loosening of the bonds that once ensured that most people voted for the same party for life. Far more voters are inclined to switch parties today than they were 30 or 40 years ago, when churches and the trade unions helped get out the vote. Young people, too, have changed the way they approach politics. According to public opinion polls, their concerns now focus less on the environment, equal rights and social justice — those quintessential issues of the 1960s and 1970s — and more on jobs and economics. That shift may take young votes from the Greens and benefit the pro-business fdp. The bulk of the Greens' support used to be among those in their 20s and 30s; now their core supporters are over 50. And now more than 60% of fdp supporters are younger than 40.

Indeed, German politics could be in the midst of a generational shift, with Merkel and her colleagues representing a new kind of German politician. The Greens and the spd still speak for those who led the liberalization of German society that began 40 years ago. "Whether in opposition or in government, we've achieved massive reform," says Renate Künast, the Green Minister for Agriculture and Consumer Protection. "We've opened up society in terms of the relationship between men and women and the equality of homosexual and lesbian couples." But Merkel's team is now the younger one. "This is a new, straightforward generation that doesn't try to paint a rosy picture but tries to solve problems," Wulff says. "We have to convince people that they will benefit more from economic growth if we introduce more personal freedom into our social market economy." John Kornblum, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany and now head of investment bank Lazard & Co. in Berlin, says the new cdu élite "are less sentimental, less emotional and less ideological ... not conservative in the American sense, but pragmatic."

A bitterly divided Germany is not preordained. Indeed, one of the oddest aspects of the campaign has been the anger that voters seem to feel at Schröder's economic reforms — given that Merkel vows to implement the same changes, but more so. "Everyone agrees on what the country needs; the only question is how to get it done," says Günter Verheugen, a former spd government official and now European Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry. Policies now being mooted by Merkel are not substantially different from those Schröder has tried. But Merkel will be more aggressive in her pursuit of some labor-market reforms, intensely opposed by trade unions and the spd, and potentially radical tax programs (see next story). A grand coalition of cdu and spd, however, would make even marginal reforms hard to push through. Last week, Paul Kirchhof, Merkel's shadow finance minister, said he saw no point in joining a government with the spd because the party would make changes in the tax code nearly impossible.

But the next Chancellor might also get some running room. Germany is not an economic basket case. High-tech industries in east Berlin and Dresden are performing relatively well, and the eastern manufacturing sector registered 9.6% growth last year, compared with a national average of 5.1%. Blue-chip companies such as Deutsche Post World Net, BMW and SAP are recording strong earnings in the face of tough international competition. "The economy is not in bad shape," says Kornblum. "What's in bad shape is the society from which the economy springs." Germans, argues Kornblum, are still recovering from the shock of reunification and the end of communism. "They are befuddled and don't know where they are. The world has changed since 1989, and Germany has yet to find its place."

Merkel would argue that her party — which is led by a close-knit group of young, conservative professionals who share a pro-business worldview — are precisely the sort of people who recognize the need for change. But the economic reforms that Germany needs can only be implemented in conditions of a broad national consensus. Sixteen years ago this fall, Germany was witness to blissful scenes of unity between young and old, East and West, as the Wall came down. That mood, perhaps, cannot be captured again. The outpouring of emotion then was too specific to time and place. But whoever wins the election will pray that something at least passingly similar to the spirit of 1989 descends on Germany soon, lest the divisions still haunting the nation fester and corrupt. Germany is too big a place for that.

• ANDREW PURVIS
• A still-divided Germany heads to the polls. Whoever wins will have a lot of work to do