At the end of a speech in which Martin Schulz had summarised social democracy’s birth after the industrial revolution, evoked his party’s heroic lone stand against Hitler in 1933 and brought Kaiserslautern’s Fruchthalle concert hall to its feet with a rousing attack on contemporary rightwing populism, it took a gift from his hosts to drag the man challenging Angela Merkel for the top spot in Europe’s biggest economy back down to earth.

The party branch of Schulz’s Social Democrats (SPD) presented their candidate for chancellor with a figurine of local hero Fritz Walter, who had captained Germany to their comeback victory in the 1954 World Cup final. “Walter knew a thing or two about coming from behind,” said the local councillor, with all the enthusiasm he could muster.

A month from Germany’s federal election on 24 September, Schulz, who aspired to become a professional footballer in his youth until he was knocked back by a knee injury, desperately needs to remember how to stage a dramatic turnaround.

As recently as February this year the 61-year-old had looked like the man who could at last restore the glamour of the world’s oldest social democratic party, which last won an election in 2002. After Schulz had announced that he would leave his post as president of the European parliament to head his party’s campaign, the SPD overtook Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in polls for the first time in over a decade.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/27/schulz-no-match-for-merkel...

This year's general election in Germany has been heralded as an epochal shift. Merkel's "grand coalition," pairing her conservatives with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), was voted out of office and the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) became Germany's third-strongest party. In the search for reasons for the shift, the language of politics is a good place to start. The AfD professed to be clear and decisive, their language was explicit -- and voters rewarded them for it. The chancellor, by contrast, sought to avoid discussions and to completely ignore major issues focused on by the populists: foreign migrants and German uneasiness. Merkel's political style, which is characterized by avoiding clashes, was punished to the greatest possible degree.

Read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-s-slide-to-the-right...

Picture above by Gus Leonisky, Berlin...

The pro-business Free Democratic Party abruptly announced its exit from three-way talks to form the German government on Sunday, citing a lack of common ground. The setback may see Germany hold new elections, challenging Merkel’s all but secured chancellorship.

The chances for a so-called “Jamaica coalition” of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU), the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens have worsened after the FDP slammed the door on exploratory talks late Sunday, with its chairman, Christian Lindner, saying that the party would rather not be in the government than agree with the terms of the proposed coalition accord.

"Today there was no progress but rather there were setbacks, while the achieved compromises were questioned,” Lindner said, following marathon 12-hour talks.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/410358-coalition-talks-fail-fdp-new-elections/