he eyelash victory of German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s left coalition government in the September 22 parliamentary elections was motored in more ways than one by the Green Party’s leader, Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor Joschka Fischer, the most popular politician in opinion polls.

Both Schröder’s Social Democrats (SPD) and the affiliated conservative parties (the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian arm, the Christian Social Union) polled 38.5 percent of the vote; indeed, the SPD-Green coalition’s victory margin was just 8,000 votes. In an election that was decided in a thimble—and with the SPD’s score falling 2.4 percent from the last elections—the Greens’ increase of their vote from 6.7 percent to 8.6 percent provided the winning difference, and made them the third-largest party in the country.

Fischer is the man who tamed the Greens’ fundamentalist pacifism and engineered the sending of German troops to the Balkans and Afghanistan. But armed with polls showing the U.S.-planned war on Iraq overwhelmingly unpopular, he got credit for persuading the ever poll-sensitive Schröder to make German refusal to participate in any military operation against Iraq a central theme of the campaign—an issue that dominated the campaign’s final weeks to Schröder’s advantage. And when devastating floods ravaged Germany in August, it was the Greens—with a record of warnings about flood dangers—whose control of the Environment Ministry gave the government credibility in its response.

Schröder, a consummate political showman, gussied himself up in rubber knee-boots and rainslicker and dominated the TV news for days with hasty trips to the hardest-hit areas—while his conservative opponent, the austere Edmund Stoiber, lollygagged on vacation. (When Stoiber—who notably had no environmental adviser in his kitchen cabinet—belatedly showed up in water-logged Dresden, he provoked derision by wearing loafers). The floods, combined with a rapid government bailout to preserve the 5,000 jobs at stake in the telecommunications firm MobilCom (threatened with bankruptcy when its partner—state-run France Telecom—withdrew its support in August), allowed Schröder to pose as Germany’s premier Krisenmanager (crisis manager).

In their first four years in government, the Greens were able to deliver on a raft of popular issues that Schröder and Fischer advantageously took to the country, including the legalization of gay marriage; a major boost for organic farming; and an agreement to phase out nuclear power—combined with a new tax on fossil fuels, a reduction of polluting carbon dioxide emissions, and a massive investment in wind power.

But the Schröder-Fischer victory was, as Franco-German Green leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit has pointed out, as much a “cultural” victory as a political one. Stoiber, whose spindly- legged photos in lederhosen were maliciously used by the governing parties, could never shake off his origins as a pure product of Bavaria—known for its reactionary, nationalist politics, its ultramontane Catholicism, and its censorious cultural conservatism—and as a protégé of Nazi-coddling former CSU leader Franz-Josef Strauss.

One of the most effective Green TV spots in their unconventional, humor-filled campaign was a wordless portrayal of Fischer, listening disconsolately to an off-screen traditional Bavarian brass band, becoming increasingly discomfited, and finally—with a very pained grimace—putting his hands over his ears to shut out the “oom-pah-pahs.” With posters featuring his photo and the simple slogan “Vote for Joschka” everywhere, Fischer’s dynamic, country-wide campaign was a literal marathon: He jogged his way through the major TV media markets. And his constant presence on the stump was crucial in bringing out disillusioned left voters.

he bon vivant Schröder’s campaign slogan, “A Modern Chancellor for a Modern Germany,” drove home the portrayal of Stoiber as too old-fashioned for the 21st century. And in the first-ever TV debates between the candidates for chancellor, Schröder’s carefully dyed hair and facility with the crisp sound-bite came across better than the older Stoiber’s snow-white mane and long, fustian sentences that often left viewers perplexed. The show-biz and rock stars who entertained at the Schröder-Fischer rallies also gave their campaign a younger feel.

At the same time, the CDU made critical strategic errors. As Stoiber’s year-long lead in the polls began to evaporate in the final weeks, his handlers tried to re-energize the traditional conservative electorate. Stoiber, who had toned down his acid nationalism, returned to race-baiting and anti-immigrant sloganeering. But his move backfired when it was denounced by the principal business federation and major Catholic and Protestant religious leaders. Then disgraced former Chancellor Helmut Kohl was enlisted for a campaign tour of major West German cities—but this only reminded voters of the massive corruption scandals that had ruined the CDU’s reputation and driven Kohl from public life.

More desperate end-of-campaign flailing: After having been all over the lot on the Iraq issue, Stoiber’s last-minute attacks on Schröder for destroying the German-American relationship didn’t play with voters, including some nationalists who prefer that Berlin not slavishly follow Washington’s lead. His pro-war posturing undoubtedly hurt in the former East Germany, which Stoiber had once hoped to carry on the unemployment issue. The CDU got just 28 percent to the SPD’s 40 percent in the East, where the Party of Democratic Socialism (the ex-Communists) also lost 33 parliamentary seats, largely to Schröder’s benefit, after PDS leader Gregor Gysi was ousted from office in a corruption scandal. Finally, the flirtation with anti-Semitism by the right-wing Free Democrats (FDP), CDU’s projected coalition partner, helped hold the FDP’s gains to just 1.2 percent for a total of 7.4 percent—far short of the 18 percent the party had loudly proclaimed as its goal.

With 55 seats in the 603-seat Bundestag, the Greens now have increased leverage to keep the opportunistic Schröder on an anti-war track; to try to bury once and for all the impotent policies of the centrist “third way” (shelved by Schröder during the campaign), which failed to stop still-rising unemployment while weakening the social safety net; and to reinforce their image as a party that deserves to be in government. But, given the razor-thin margin of their win and the profound economic problems facing the country, the Schröder-Fischer team will have a tough four years ahead of them.