Germans glimpse life after Kohl and feel the thrill of change

THE cheers are still echoing round the pubs. There are plenty of hang-overs but few regrets. The two-thirds of Germans who could not bear the thought of another four years of Helmut Kohl finally have cause to celebrate.

On Sunday Schroder confounded the Cassandras, emerging with renewed strength from the fight considered the most difficult of his long campaign.Bild, the country's biggest tabloid, has unceremoniously ditched the Chancellor and appointed itself cheer-leader for the Opposition.

The Schroder bandwagon is on a roll, opponents and sceptics of yesterday are clamouring to get aboard. He might not be Herr Blair, but Herr Schroder has a similar ability to win over doubters. Some of the gloom which has enveloped Germany has lifted,: the romantically inclined might say that the Rhine is swelling with hope. Victory is now his for the taking. People in the streets, the shops, and the trams talk of little else.

The Kohl era is almost certainly drawing to a close. As in Britain when Labour won the 1997 election, a generation has grown up in Germany with no first-hand knowledge of a different government in Bonn. The great names of Helmut Schmidt and Willy Brandt belong to a different, distant era.

A generation is bowing out: the last to be shaped by the war and its aftermath. Life after Helmut is hard to imagine. Comedians will lose a fertile source of jokes about his size and appetite. The international implications of his departure will be considerable. When 67-year old Kohl is gone, there will be a new Germany, led by people unencumbered by memories of the Third Reich and corresponding dreams to build a united Europe in its ashes. Mr Kohl's "war or peace" vision has been the driving force of the various pan-European projects of recent years. His successors will not assume that any minor disagreement among neighbours must inevitably lead to conflagration . They will be EMU-friendly - but for more pragmatic reasons that Chancellor Kohl and they will be more understanding of those who have reservations

Consequently, the "special relationship" with France will lose some of its meaning. Post-Kohl foreign policy will pay more heed to British opinions, and slightly less attention to the whims of the Elysee. Schroder has already indicated that he wants to bring London to the European top table.

In the country shaped in Mr Kohl's image, society is set to undergo its greatest transformation since the war. Like his mentor Adenauer before him, Kohl embodies the values that have made Germany what it is today: stodgy, corporate, predictable and utterly boring. The country builds great cars and the trains do run on time, but in the fields of its former glory - science and the arts - it has produced little of international note in decades. The German media must rank among the dullest in the world. The art of effervescent conversation appears to have fizzled out, and German has become the language in which 80 per cent of the world's handbooks on tax are published.

Chancellor Kohl is proud of these qualities, and for the stability he has created. For decades he has taken the same holiday at the same time of the year at the same Austrian resort. He always wears the same sober suit, and is never a minute late for work.

And now along comes a challenger who disdains the Old Guard's efforts to turn the former powerhouse of Europe into a geriatric ward. They want to do the things people in other countries are allowed to do: make a little noise, go to the shops at their convenience, and be able to get a haircut - even on Mondays and at lunchtime. There are new buzzwords the old guard do not understand: competition, enterprise, service. Five million Germans are on the dole, yet you cannot get your tyre changed on a Saturday afternoon, let alone Sunday. It is time for a change.

Can Germany rid itself of its preoccupation with stability at the level of the lowest common denominator? Is there an equivalent of Prozac for a nation suffering from 50 years of Angst? Herr Schroder promises to unshackle "the creative energies of Germans", liberating them from the drudgery - and comfort - of their daily lives with a dose market economics. He promises to cut taxes to encourage job-creation - something Mr Kohl's conservatives never achieved. He threatens to drive the chronically work- shy off the dole, and proposes to throw the service sector open to free competition. He also talks of the need for "sensible wages", a very strange concept for the trade-union bound Social Democrat.

Here on the Rhine, we are rubbing our eyes in disbelief.. The newcomer is an undependable man - currently on his fourth marriage. He promises upheaval. His politics will be unprdictable. He appears to be making up his economics on the hoof. It remains to be seen whether in this drama, his role will be restricted to that of a blind agent of destruction, a Siegfried in contemporary Wagnerian setting. Or he could become the great moderniser ushering in a new and more dynamic German age. Either way, he is set to do us all a great service by drumming his country out of its torpor. The Berlin Republic, which begins on the eve of the millennium, promises to be a lot more fun than the era of Bonn provincialism it replaces.