ONE WEEK ago the leaders of Germany’s mainstream parties solemnly pledged to wage a fair-minded campaign in the run-up to the election due on February 23rd, triggered by last month’s premature collapse of the three-party coalition. Days later, they were tearing each other to shreds. Olaf Scholz, the chancellor and candidate for the Social Democrats (spd), said his opponents lacked “moral maturity”. Deploying the demotic of his home town of Hamburg, he dismissed Friedrich Merz, his rival from the conservative Christian Democrats (cdu), as “Fritze, who likes to talk Tünkram [nonsense]”.