WAHLKAMPF AGAIN. Perhaps you recall former German justice minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin's comparison between Bush and Hitler last September. If not, you can refresh your memories with a Guardian article here. In an ill-judged (but well-documented) aside at a party event, Däubler-Gmelin claimed that Bush was beating the war drums in order to divert attention from domestic issues, and that "Hitler did this as well." Rebukes followed on this side of the Atlantic, from the talking (or typing heads) such as Jonah Goldberg, from members of Congress such as Jesse Helms, and from the Bush administration itself. Däubler-Gmelin resigned after her party won the election.

A story in today's Sueddeutsche Zeitung on a campaign row that is developing in Lower Saxony and Hessen reminds us that German politicians don't just use Nazi comparisons on outsiders.

Hessen and Lower Saxony will hold regional elections in February. Hessian minister Roland Koch (CDU) has created an uproar by invoking the holocaust in a recent debate over tax policy. According to the Sueddeutsche, Koch criticized union leader Frank Bsirske for naming publicly several wealthy Germans. Presumably Bsirske was attempting to bolster a point about the need for a tax hike on the rich. According to Koch, though, the listing was "another form of star on your chest." Critics nailed him for his wildly inappropriate comparison and Koch apologized.

But wait, there's more!

Yesterday, in the legislature of Lower Saxony, the leader of the ruling SPD accused Koch of "calculated misuse of the Holocaust" for partisan purposes, and nearly all of the CDU faction walked out of the building in protest.

As I noted earlier, the SPD won the national elections this fall, but now the mood in Germany is grim, and the SPD looks vulnerable. The regional elections are the first chance for the opposition CDU to cash in on widespread political discontent in the German public. A lot is at stake for both parties. It remains to be seen how the spat in Lower Saxony will affect electoral outcomes.