But Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg is not in charge of foreign affairs -- a position usually associated with voter popularity. He is defence minister.

Already nicknamed "the other foreign minister", the 37-year-old Guttenberg, a conservative former economy minister who cut his teeth on foreign policy, has won praise for his fluency in English, his directness and his ability to outshine more powerful counterparts on the international stage.

Watching the aristocratic AC/DC fan from the sidelines has been the new foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, whom newspapers have mocked for adopting a cautious, defensive approach that critics say is more redolent of, well, a German defence minister.

In fact, Westerwelle, 47, has already travelled thousands of miles further than his predecessor Frank-Walter Steinmeier over the same period. By the time the first month in office has passed he will have journeyed to some 15 states, including Israel, Afghanistan and the United States. Steinmeier managed only 10 and did not get beyond Europe in that time, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Germany might be the winner if its diplomatic duel helps it towards a more assertive foreign policy -- something it has struggled to achieve in the long shadow of the Nazis.

But it could also find itself giving mixed messages to the outside world, to say nothing of potential tensions within the new coalition. Guttenberg belongs to the Bavarian CSU and Westerwelle heads the pro-business FDP -- parties that have clashed on a range of policies in the past.

PHOTO: German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (R) chats with Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg during a session of the German lower house of parliament Bundestag in Berlin, November 11, 2009. REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz

 Four years on, Clement is urging the public to vote for one of the centre-left SPD’s most bitter rivals, the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP).

 In a newspaper advertisment on Friday, Clement said he was backing FDP leader Guido Westerwelle in Sunday’s federal election.

 An admirer of Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, Westerwelle has branded the SPD socialists, and wants to end their 11 years in office to form a centre-right coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives.

Though Clement had long had a fractious relationship with the left of the SPD, the endorsement was unprecedented, said Josef Schmid, a political scientist at the University of Tuebingen.

 "The man is no fool but to act like this is just idiotic," he said of Clement, a former journalist who spent nearly 40 years in the party. "I can remember nothing like it."

 The 69-year-old Clement left the SPD last November after a row blew up over his criticism of the party in the state of Hesse.

 Yet despite overtures from the FDP, he said he would remain a "Social Democrat without party membership."

 In the advert in Bonn’s General-Anzeiger, Clement said a vote for the FDP was a vote for economic prosperity and against the "irresponsible populism" of die Linke or Left Party, a far-left grouping led by ex-SPD chairman Oskar Lafontaine that has eaten into the Social Democrats' traditional base.

 Uwe Andersen, a political scientist at the University of Bochum, said the move by Clement, who presided over the biggest postwar cuts to German jobless benefits, was symptomatic of lingering divisions between the left and centrist wings of the SPD.

 "This is a real coup for the FDP though, and Westerwelle will try to make the most of it. It could spirit centrist voters away from the SPD. Then again, it could encourage some people who might have stayed at home to go out and vote for the SPD," he said.

 Andersen said Clement’s decision was particularly shocking in a country where political allegiances have traditionally been set in stone.

 "The ties here are more of a marriage for life than in the United States. But young people are getting fed up with it," he said. "That’s why party membership of the main parties has been falling so dramatically."

IMAGE:Outgoing German Economic Minister Wolfgang Clement of the Social Democrats (SPD) gestures during the inauguration of his successor Michael Glos of Bavaria's Christian Social Union (CSU) in Berlin November 23, 2005. Clement handed over his duties to Glos following the inauguration of Angela Merkel as Germany's first female chancellor on November 22. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

This week, a member of Germany's indigenous Slavic minority won a state election for the first time. Stanislaw Tillich’s victory puts him firmly in control of Saxony, the most populous eastern state - and looks likely to catapult the 50-year-old to the front ranks of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU).

“It was a historic day for the Sorbs,” Alfons Wicaz-Lehmann, deputy editor-in-chief of Serbske Nowiny, the country’s only Sorbian language daily, said of Tillich’s win. “It also shows that members of a minority really can rise to such a high office in this democracy.”

Although they now number only 60,000 and have lived in eastern Germany for well over 1,000 years, Sorbs have retained a distinctive culture and language, despite efforts to suppress them under Prussian domination and then Nazi oppression. Partly because of this they have kept a relatively low profile in Germany, a country whose ageing population and low birth rates could leave it heavily dependent on immigration in the years ahead.

A father of two, Tillich knew only Sorbian until he was "about five" but alongside German, the former member of the European parliament today also speaks Czech, Polish, French and English. Though he inherited the post of state premier last year when his predecessor resigned, Tillich had never faced the Saxon electorate for the job before.

Despite being dogged by media reports linking him to communist East Germany’s secret police, the Stasi, he was the only CDU premier to emerge from the three state elections on Sunday with his reputation enhanced. While the CDU’s share of the vote slumped in Thuringia and Saarland - prompting the resignation of Thuringia's premier Dieter Althaus on Thursday - it held above 40 percent in Saxony as Tillich secured a five year mandate to rule.

“His victory was very important and helps to make the Sorbs better known - because very little is know about us in Germany,” said Wicaz-Lehmann.

With Tillich in charge of a state about as populous as New Zealand, more and more people should start to realise that Germany must see itself as a multicultural society, he added.

“Unfortunately though, a lot of people here still have a problem with that. So there’s a plenty to do yet,” said Wicaz-Lehmann.

More than 18 percent of Germany’s population, or some 15.1 million people, are classified as of migrant origin, i.e. people who moved to Germany since 1950 and their offspring. The number is rising, but is not yet reflected in political representation. Among the 612 members of Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, only a handful are of foreign extraction.

Outside the Bundestag, however, change has been more apparent.

One of the rising stars of the CDU is David McAllister, a 38-year-old born in Berlin to a Scottish father who heads the party in the 8-million strong state of Lower Saxony. On the other side of the political spectrum, the Green party is now led by Cem Özdemir, the son of Turkish immigrants, who make up one of the biggest ethnic minorities in Germany.

Though their way of life has had to contend with the threat of destruction by mining companies as well as political apathy in recent years, Sorbs are not seeking independence. But they are now looking forward to better days, said Wicaz-Lehmann.

“In the past our people had to duck and steer clear of trouble for historical reasons,” he said. “But I think we’ve now reached the time when the Sorb feels he can bang his fist on the table and demand his rights as well.”

PHOTO: Stanislaw Tillich, state premier of the German state of Saxony, casts his vote at the village of Panschwitz-Kuckau in a regional election on August 30. REUTERS/Petr Josek.

As if by magic, industry has become all upbeat about the prospects for the German economy – just in case anyone had the impression companies were about to start firing workers en masse after an upcoming federal election.

This was the tone of a German newspaper editorial this week which said “what a coincidence” it was that sentiment had shot up in the weeks before the Sept. 27 vote.

“Some pronouncements give rise to suspicion that interest groups are trying to pacify the electorate ahead of the ballot box,” the Neue Westfälische daily wrote. “The motto seems to be: don’t draw any more conclusions from the crisis, it really wasn’t that bad after all.”

Just two months ago, a number of leading think tanks said a forecast by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government that the economy would contract by six percent this year was not pessimistic enough.

Now surveys show German business morale is now at its highest level in nearly a year, financial market analysts’ expectations for the economy have climbed to a 40-month peak, and an increasing number of bank economists have forecast Germany will bounce back from the crisis strongly next year.

Are firms and analysts clubbing together to pull the wool over people’s eyes?

“The recession has been cancelled,” wrote the Schwäbische Zeitung daily. “But you’re left wondering: how is it possible for a lumbering economic tanker to perform such a rapid 180 degree turn?”

Thanks in part to a state subsidy that encourages firms to cut working hours instead of firing staff, German job losses have been relatively slight – even though the government’s forecast sees gross domestic product (GDP) contracting nearly seven times more sharply this year than in any since the war.

This has sparked reports that German bosses have made a tacit agreement not to cut jobs until after the election to counter the risk of voters returning a left-leaning government that could prove hostile to big business.

Beneath the scepticism are lingering suspicions about the banking industry.

“In autumn and winter, a lot of companies are going to be on the brink financially. Then we’ll have to see whether the banks thank the taxpayer for being rescued by offering sensible loans," the Neue Westfälische wrote. "However, given that morality isn’t a category in the business, this hope is likely to be disappointed."

Has German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck finally said what many world leaders think but are afraid to say? That the British government won't sign up to meaningful reform of financial markets because it is too worried about what it would mean for the country’s most famous cash cow, the City of London.

The City, which accounts for around 35 percent of global foreign exchange turnover, has been a popular target for critics of capitalism for years. But it has rarely been singled out so bluntly as a problem by one of Britain’s close allies.

Even for a man not known for holding his tongue, Steinbrueck’s remark on Wednesday that Downing Street was impeding reform because it had “practically aligned” its interests with the City, was unusually undiplomatic. Just days before global leaders meet at a Group of Eight summit in Italy, Steinbrueck suggested the British government was plotting a “restoration” of the pre-crisis order to protect its own interests. The United States, by contrast, was now open to reform, he said.

Rather than attempting to smooth ruffled feathers when she addressed parliament on Thursday, Chancellor Angela Merkel picked up the thread, saying she would not tolerate efforts to stall reform at the G8 summit, though she did not name Britain.

Steinbrueck’s comments generated a strong response on German websites. Though he belongs to the centre-left Social Democrats, many readers of conservative daily Die Welt wrote in to praise him. “Finally the truth”, “genius” and “backbone” were some of the remarks his stance provoked. Across the channel, the most popular reader’s comment posted online in an article by Eurosceptic British newspaper the Daily Mail also backed the 62-year-old. “I’m with the German finance minister,” it begins.

Whether one agrees with his approach or not, Steinbrueck knows he is not talking into a vacuum. Large swathes of the commentariat believe not enough has been done to stabilise financial markets over the long term. Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, wrote on Wednesday that without radical changes, another banking crisis is inevitable.

PHOTO: German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck addresses a news conference in Berlin, May 13, 2009. Steinbrueck said on Wednesday Germany's interbank lending sector was still suffering from weak confidence. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

Has German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck finally said what many world leaders think but are afraid to say? That the British government won't sign up to meaningful reform of financial markets because it is too worried about what it would mean for the country’s most famous cash cow, the City of London.

The City, which accounts for around 35 percent of global foreign exchange turnover, has been a popular target for critics of capitalism for years. But it has rarely been singled out so bluntly as a problem by one of Britain’s close allies.

Even for a man not known for holding his tongue, Steinbrueck’s remark on Wednesday that Downing Street was impeding reform because it had “practically aligned” its interests with the City, was unusually undiplomatic. Just days before global leaders meet at a Group of Eight summit in Italy, Steinbrueck suggested the British government was plotting a “restoration” of the pre-crisis order to protect its own interests. The United States, by contrast, was now open to reform, he said.

Rather than attempting to smooth ruffled feathers when she addressed parliament on Thursday, Chancellor Angela Merkel picked up the thread, saying she would not tolerate efforts to stall reform at the G8 summit, though she did not name Britain.

Steinbrueck’s comments generated a strong response on German websites. Though he belongs to the centre-left Social Democrats, many readers of conservative daily Die Welt wrote in to praise him. “Finally the truth”, “genius” and “backbone” were some of the remarks his stance provoked. Across the channel, the most popular reader’s comment posted online in an article by Eurosceptic British newspaper the Daily Mail also backed the 62-year-old. “I’m with the German finance minister,” it begins.

Whether one agrees with his approach or not, Steinbrueck knows he is not talking into a vacuum. Large swathes of the commentariat believe not enough has been done to stabilise financial markets over the long term. Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, wrote on Wednesday that without radical changes, another banking crisis is inevitable.

PHOTO: German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck addresses a news conference in Berlin, May 13, 2009. Steinbrueck said on Wednesday Germany's interbank lending sector was still suffering from weak confidence. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch