But at home in Germany, Merkel has been surprisingly timid on many key issues – especially when they involve her conservative Christian Democrats. Her tendency to avoid clear positions has driven her coalition partners mad. Merkel might be a lion when she's on foreign stages but she tends to be a lamb at home. One of her favourite sayings is: "If you try to beat your head into a wall, the wall will usually win."

Merkel’s latest evasive action centres on another woman in her party, Erika Steinbach. Ostensibly, it’s a relatively minor issue about a seat on the board of a new museum about the plight of German World War Two refugees. But in reality it is an issue that reverberates deeply in Merkel’s conservative party as well as across Germany’s eastern border in Poland. 

The League of Expellees, a powerful force in Merkel’s party, wants their leader Steinbach, who is a conservative member of parliament, on the museum’s board. Merkel’s past and present coalition partners have vetoed Steinbach (pictured above with Merkel) because of Poland’s objections to the woman with controversial views in the past on the German-Poland border and Poland’s membership in the European Union.    

So what does Merkel do?  She sits it all out and puts off any decision. That was her strategy when the issue came up earlier and this is now the sequel to the earlier round of the unfinished business.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a leader in the opposition Social Democrats who was Merkel’s foreign minister for the last four years, understands well her reluctance to take a stance on controversial issues at home. In a German TV interview on Thursday he put the finger in the wound and said: “Mrs. Merkel has to make up her mind."

The situation is turning into a farce. Both Merkel and the League say it is the other side that has to make a decision.

There have been a number of other occasions where Merkel's voice went oddly silent. She calls on other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions but ducks questions about introducing a speed limit on Germany's motorways that could cut emissions by 5-10 percent overnight. She first agreed to introduce a minimum wage in Germany with her Social Democrat coalition partners but did a quick U-turn when her party refused to go along.

 A year ago as the financial crisis was engulfing Europe and the world, Merkel faced withering criticism for her overly cautious response initially. Der Spiegel called her "Angela Mutlos" (Angela Faint-hearted) and acussed her of "dangerous dithering". It wrote: "Merkel has always been quiet, reticent, cautious. Merkel has failed to lead her country through a time of uncertainty." At the time she also first refused to consider cutting taxes to stimulate growth but reversed course under pressure from powerful barons in her party with a series of small steps and was suddenly in favour of tax cuts a few weeks later.

Last month, in coalition talks for a new centre-right government, Merkel kept going out the back door to avoid journalists each evening and remained silent when a controversy erupted over her government's short-lived proposal to create a shadow budget to borrow 50 billion euros. This week Der Spiegel published a story on her powerful Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who said that Merkel's weakness is she likes to surround herself with yes men.

So is Merkel really the world's most powerful woman?

The burly minister, who was elected leader of Germany's struggling centre-left SPD party on Friday, had clearly lost weight on his summer holiday that had just ended so, while my colleagues were still streaming into the conference room, I asked: “You’ve lost some weight, haven’t you?”

Gabriel smiled briefly. Colleagues later told me they were horrified that I had asked him about his weight. It was merely an attempt to break the ice. There was, after all, another German political leader a few years ago who was once even heavier and lost more than 50 kg with an intensive jogging and diet programme that began one summer: Joschka Fischer of the Greens.

“Yeah, I did,” Gabriel said. “I got some exercise on my holiday. But I won’t be able to keep it off if people keep putting things like this in front of me like you’ve done here,” he added with a laugh as he munched on some cookies.

Gabriel soon regained the few kilos he had lost – so did so did Fischer.

Gabriel, who even then was clearly one of the most ambitious politicians of his generation, has a bigger worry right now.

How do you save Germany’s oldest party? The SPD won just 23 percent of the vote in the September election and left government after an 11-year run. That was down 11 points from four years ago and a staggering 18 points off the 41 percent they won when winning the chancellery in 1998. About 10 million voters who backed the SPD in 1998 have abandoned the party.

“We’ve lost half of our voters since 1998,” Gabriel, 50, told the party congress in a two-hour speech. “We’ve lost them in all directions: some don’t vote any more, some went to the conservatives, some to the Free Democrats, some to the Left party and some to the Greens. What’s clear is that a party that loses its support like that has lost its profile.”

So why did Gabriel take on this job? There wasn't a long list of candidates which, considering the way the party has treated its leaders the past two decades, is understandable. The SPD leadership job has turned into an ejection seat. The party had just three different chairmen between 1950 and 1990 but there have been 11 different leaders since 1990 and an incredible six since 2004. Many have left involuntarily. Gabriel ran unopposed.

“That’s not healthy for our party,” said Gabriel when asked about the rapid changes in leadership. “One delegate came up to me and said he had a Christmas wish: that I’d be the party chairman for at least the next two years. I told him I also had a Christmas wish: that in a year he would have the same Christmas wish.”

Gabriel, once a school teacher whose mother was a nurse, was in the second tier of his party’s leadership before the September election debacle and an environment minister who courted controversy with environmental groups at times. He was ambitious and long had his eye on the job of one day becoming parliamentary floor leader, a top-tier job in the SPD hierarchy. Outside Germany, he was probably best known for adopting Knut, the polar bear born in Berlin's Zoo.

Gabriel’s brusque humour and prickly nature had rubbed many in the SPD the wrong way. We’ve heard others in the SPD leadership -– in similar off-the-record comments in meetings in the Reuters office -– tell us they believed there was no way Gabriel would get the top job.

Now, in a single leap, he’s skipped the intermediate step and clinched the party’s top job. A television journalist told him: "Six months ago I never would have dreamt you'd be the SPD chairman now."

"Neither did I," said Gabriel. "Neither did I."

But it's also intriguing to Germans and German media. Why isn't Obama here? Berlin loves (most) American presidents -- going back to John F. Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech. Is there more than meets the eye to Obama's decision not to come?

Obama, of course, wanted to speak at the Brandenburg Gate in July 2008, when he was only the Democratic candidate. Merkel intervened to prevent that from happening -- he ended up giving the speech a few km away at the Victory Column. Tomorrow, Obama could have spoken at the Brandenburg Gate.

Obama did come back to Berlin after that speech in front of 200,000 spectators as presidential candidate (www.reuters.com) last year -- but only as a wax figure at Madame Tussauds (photo) The life-like creation was included at Madame Tussauds in Berlin, just a few blocks east of the Brandenburg Gate, in January.

So what do you think? Should Obama have come to Berlin?

Take part in our poll and look for results and more information on our Berlin Wall live blog: http://blogs.reuters.com/global/2009/11/04/the-berlin-wall-20/

Who would have thought that's how the Berlin Wall would go out? Berlin's long division was the result of World War Two. The Wall was the focal point of the Cold War -- Soviet and American tanks faced off almost barrel-to-barrel at Checkpoint Charlie. Not surprisingly, many people thought that the stalemate would only be changed by another war. But instead on Nov. 9, 1989 there was no bang, no blood. Just a lot of celebrating. And a lot of tears.

That's for me probably the most fascinating thing about the sudden implosion of the Communist East German regime -- it went out so peacefully. And that's one of the themes that has been touched upon in the myriad of German media accounts in recent weeks ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Wall's fall on Nov. 9.

It's also an issue that's been explored by Reuters correspondents in Berlin past and present -- in a series of  stories that you can read on this special page . 

The collapse of the Wall was for Reuters a special occasion -- not only because it was both the first to report the news to the world that the Wall had fallen but also because it was the first to report it was being built 28 years earlier, as my German language service colleague Volker Warkentin notes in his illumating story (click here) about the famous press conference on Nov. 9, 1989 that led to the Wall bursting open in the hours that followed.

Guenter Schabowski, a Politburo member, had inadverently announced at the very end of that otherwise dull hour-long news conference that East Germans would be allowed to travel directly to the West from now on.  Schabowski was asked when the new rules took effect and stammered: "That comes into effect...according to my information.... immediately, without delay," he said, shuffling through the papers spread in front of him as he sought in vain for more information. It later emerged the announcement was not supposed to be released until 4 a.m. the next morning and it was supposed to include instructions for an orderly process of applying for visas first -- not the mad dash to the border that he caused.

Tom Heneghan, the bureau chief for Germany at the time, was in East Berlin writing many of the stories on that famous evening when the Wall burst open. But as the American journalist notes in his intriguing story  (click here) there was so much going on that many of the details of the action only came to be known later.  "What we only found out much later was that Schabowski silently asked himself: 'I wonder if this has been cleared with the Soviets.' He didn't know!", Heneghan writes. "Later that evening, as the world's eyes zeroed in on the partying at the Wall, East Germany's communist leader Egon Krenz was pacing the long corridors of the Central Committee headquarters alone mumbling 'What should I do now?'  What a gem that would have been in our story that night."

Douglas Hamilton, who came to Berlin from Paris to reinforce the bureau, was out on the streets on that night and describes the scene here. Paul Taylor, who later came to Berlin from Jerusalem, steps back here to look at Germany's relations neighbours then and now. Ralph Boulton, who worked for many years in East Berlin for Reuters, recalls some of his experiences here in this post.

Fabrizio Bensch, who was in his last year of high school in West Berlin, grabbed his camera and went to Checkpoint Charlie when he heard on the news the Wall was opening. But it took another hour or so before the first East Germans came through. "It changed my life," said Bensch, who decided on that night he wanted to be a photojournalist. Here's his story.

Perhaps the most moving story is Peter Jebautzke's. He grew up in East Germany and always dreamed of climbing in the Alps. But the Berlin Wall (3.5 metres high) kept him away from the 4,000 metre high peaks -- until Nov. 9. Here's what Jebautzke did when the Wall finally opened. 

There are many theories about what led to the Wall's opening in 1989 -- my personal favourite story is that Bruce Springsteen may have helped let the genie out of the bottle a year earlier when he held a concert in front of 160,000 people in East Berlin and said: "I came here to play rock 'n' roll for you East Berliners in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down."

But colleagues currently working in Berlin have also weighed in with interesting examinations of what's going on now, 20 years later.  Paul Carrel writes that the economy in formerly Communist East Germany has recovered in the last two decades in this story even if it's not quite the "flourishing landscapes" everywhere that then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl had promised.

And Madeline Chambers shows that thousands of former workers at the loathed Stasi security police still have no remorse for the repressive regime they so ruthlessly kept in power. Here's her story.

The German media have also had a lot of great stories. The ARD network had a fascinating documentary "Schabowskis Zettel" (Schabowski's note) that ends with the head of the border guards at the first crossing point to open the Wall, Harald Jaeger, getting home early in the morning of Nov. 10 and telling his wife: "Honey, I just opened the Wall last night." And then she said: "Erzaehl nicht so dummes Zeug" (Don't come in here with rubbish like that).

A dozen Reuters reporters, photographers and television crew will be covering the event, one of the pop world's biggest nights. From the news conference on Wednesday to the after-show party on Thursday we'll bring you the highlights and low-lights. We're using the #mtv as the hashtag if you want to follow us on Twitter:

However, rather than smooth sailing with her new, more like-minded coalition partners, it’s turned out to be one turf battle after another between Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, on the one side and the Free Democrats on the other.

Weeks of unseemly arguing over tax cuts, healthcare, conscription and other issues in coalition talks has earned the new coalition the nickname Fehlstart” (false start) in the German media.

That awkward beginning was confirmed in a most embarrassing fashion for Merkel on Wednesday when at least nine deputies in her own coalition withheld their support.

Merkel was easily re-elected chancellor with 323 votes in the 622-seat parliament, 11 more than she needed. The nine deputies who either abstained or voted against her in the secret ballot served as a tangible reminder that the CDU/CSU and FDP might not be the marriage made in heaven some had expected. It was a political kick in the shins that Merkel did not need.

Four years ago she got 397 of the 612 votes, 51 less than the CDU/CSU and SPD had together. That, however, was not surprising because the grand coalition had an enormous majority in parliament and because the two camps had long been such arch enemies. This time around it was nine deputies in her own preferred coalition who stabbed her in the back. Is that a harbinger of things to come?

“Let’s try forget about this,” said Volker Kauder, CDU parliamentary floor leader. Several conservatives are already picking holes in the coalition deal, which is only a few days old. Kauder said he was sure all the CDU/CSU deputies voted for Merkel. The FDP’s parliamentary floor leader, Birgit Homburger, said the same of her party.

At least one of them was wrong. 

PHOTO: Merkel reacts after her re-election on Wednesday by a narrower than expected margin in parliament. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

And in this box you will be able to follow the latest twists and turns throughout the weekend. We're using #germanelection as the hashtag if you want to follow us on Twitter.

Here is a glimpse of the Reuters office in Berlin that will be delivering the story to Germany and the world.

Has this been dullest German election campaign in decades or the most exciting?  Has the battle for power in Berlin between Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier that concludes with Sunday's election been a memorable showdown or a forgettably boring contest?

Many journalists, pundits and voters have complained it's all been a merciless bore compared to the high-octane battles of the past with little action and precious few highlights.

But I would argue that in many ways it has been one of the most interesting campaigns in decades. Why? Because the outcome is so uncertain and there are more different government possibilities that could result from it than at any time in Germany's post-war history.

Instead of the usual centre-right or centre-left choice that German voters had for the last 60 years, there are options galore this time -- at least in theory.

There could be a centre-right government, another grand coalition or several three-way coalitions that could include the Free Democrats, the Greens and from a purely  mathematical point of view even the Left party that have never been tried before at the federal level.

On top of that, the opinion polls have once again tracked a dramatic narrowing in the lead that Merkel's preferred centre-right coalition (Conservative  Christian Democrats  and Free Democrats) have over the three other parties -- Social Democrats, Greens and Left party .

In late August Merkel's centre-right had a 6-7 point lead and now, three days before the election, the final published polls on Wednesday showed their lead all but evaporated to just 1-2 points. Pollsters estimate that about 20 percent of the electorate has not yet made up their minds who they'll vote for -- how can  a completely uncertain outcome on Sunday not be considered exciting?

And yet Sunday's election could also be historic for another reason -- it might be the first time two parties take power despite failing to win a majority of regular seats in parliament.

Thanks to a quirk in the German election law, the conservatives could possibly win up as many as 20 extra "overhang" seats that could help them turn a deficit as wide as three percentage points into a parliamentary majority.

Whether such a government would be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the opposition and public remains to be seen.

Admittedly, there's been few memorable verbal clashes between the main candidates this time around. This is the sixth election I've covered in Germany and I can't remember seeing rivals for the chancellery ever behave with so much civility towards each other as his time around. But

I guess that should have been expected -- they've shared power as Chancellor and Vice Chancellor in the grand coalition for the last four years. To suddenly start bashing each other probably would not have gone down well with voters and in the midst of the country's worst post-war crisis I doubt there is much appetite  among the German Buerger  for mudslinging.

Both parties also warned us all along that the race would be concentrated into the final weeks  due to the growing number of late-deciders and undecideds -- especially after the conservatives saw big leads disappear at the very end of the campaign in 2002 and 2005.

Der Spiegel nevertheless had an unusual theory -- Merkel is deliberately trying to bore the voters to hold voter turnout down because she thinks it will help her. Few would disagree that she is not the most gifted campaigner Germany has ever had.

Certainly, there's been none of the great "war and peace" battles of past elections that stirred voters against the backdrop of a Cold War, a Berlin Wall, and then a looming war in Iraq. In 2002 then-SPD chancellor Gerhard Schroeder shrewdly managed to turn his doomed campaign around by running against German involvement in the looming U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Frightened Germans turned to him in huge numbers and he pulled off an improbable comeback after being given up for dead just a month before. And who could forget the SPD's next comeback in 2005 when Schroeder turned a humble professor from the University of Heidelberg into an unlikely villian after Merkel picked him as her shadow Finance Minister for his academic-sounding ideas on simplifying the tax code.  But turnout will nevertheless still be close to 80 percent.

This year's election has also had its lighter moments.

One CDU candidate with little hope of winning her constituency in Berlin tried out the slogan "sex sells" by putting out a poster of herself and Angela Merkel highlighting their cleavage, a SPD minister had her official limousine stolen while she was on a holiday in Spain and it watched in horror as it erupted into a major issue, and a comedian who instantly became more popular than some of the smaller parties.

So who will win Sunday's election? We couldn't even venture a guess here. But we will keep you well informed of all the twists and turns on Sunday.

It will likely be a cliffhanger right up until moment the first exit polls are announced at 6 p.m. on Sunday and perhaps beyond. We'll be posting live updates right here on the Global News blog all day and all night Sunday.

That was German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s message during a 90-minute grilling in Berlin by journalists at her last major news conference before the Sept. 27 election. Even though opinion polls show a narrowing in her re-election campaign and amid a growing nervousness in her conservative party, Merkel was a picture of tranquillity.

Although some of her conservative party allies are pushing for her to raise the volume and intensity of what has been an exceedingly cautious campaign, Merkel made it abundantly clear that she is not at all worried. Perhaps it was all a good bit of acting. But she answered even the most surly of questions from the pack of 100 journalists with a nationwide TV audience watching with smiles and jokes along with the usual assortment of evasive answers.

Like she has so often in the last four years, Merkel managed to find a shimmer of optimism in just about every query hurled her way. She turned each question about opinion polls showing the lead of her preferred centre-right alliance narrowing upside down by pointing out the centre-right still has a lead.

“The opinion polls are quite encouraging for us,” Merkel said even though the centre-right’s lead over a trio of left-leaning parties has shrunk to just two points in two polls and disappeared into a dead heat in a third. Two weeks ago, the centre-right had a six- to eight-point lead in those same polls over the Social Democrats, Greens and Left party. Four years ago, Merkel’s centre-right alliance also had a big lead before the election that evaporated on election day. The conservatives are particularly nervous after having seen their support plunge in the final days of the last two campaigns in 2002 and 2005.

Merkel also skated over questions about her shaky performance in a TV debate on Sunday against her rival Frank-Walter Steinmeier, her decision to go on a long summer vacation last month rather than campaign and her trip to Pittsburgh late next week just before the vote to attend a G20 summit.

“I treated myself to a two-week holiday because I felt it was appropriate and important – so that I could be happy and available right up to the end of the election campaign,” she said at one point. “I actually was quite satisfied with my performance in the TV debate,” Merkel said, disagreeing with the view of even many in her party that Steinmeier got the upper hand because she took such a cautious approach.

“It’s pretty much always the case that there is certain unrest and tension in a party as the election nears," she said, adding a somewhat ominous warning to those in her party who are causing a commotion: "I’m going keeping a close eye on what everyone’s been saying.“

PHOTO: Angela Merkel smiles during a news conference in Berlin. REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz