This year the summer lull in Berlin will be short and, in just a few weeks, the city and the rest of Germany could be a different place.

The early general election called by Gerhard Schröder, the chancellor, after his Social Democratic party was trounced at a regional poll means Germany faces its most intense electoral battle in more than two decades. As the SPD and Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, its main rival and clear front-runner in opinion polls, have published radically different manifestos, it should also be among the most polarised contests in recent memory.