Both political camps push proposed solutions, but they largely amount to tinkering. Neither candidate is suggesting a radical reform. Stability and status quo are part of the postwar German psyche. So is guilt. Even half a century after the war, when the country makes news, it often contains background noise from the Big Bang that was Hitler.
Skinheads make headlines by beating up immigrants and torching refugee homes.
Holocaust survivors accuse Germany's most respected companies of profiting from forced labor during the Nazi era. A wiretap law prompts comparisons with an authoritarian past. And towns with ugly reputations turn to public relations firms for a makeover. The winner of the September 27 vote will have the honor of packing up the government in Bonn and moving it to bustling Berlin next year. Gerhard Schroeder opposes it.