Germans See Pain but No Gain as Schröder's Star Dims

While Mr. Schröder did his best to rev up the crowd, reminding them that his Social Democratic Party fights for German workers, a small group of disaffected voters gathered in a house across town to lament how the chancellor's party had abandoned its most sacred principles.

''The party just doesn't stand for the same things anymore,'' said Karl-Heinz Schneckenberger, a land surveyor, who recently resigned his membership in the Social Democrats after 34 years.

He now supports the new Left Party, an amalgam of dissident Social Democrats, independents and former Communists from eastern Germany. Though just a few months old, it may leach enough votes from the chancellor's party to force his center-left coalition out of power.

Mr. Schröder acknowledges that his efforts to overhaul the German economy have made life hard for Germans by cutting unemployment benefits. That is particularly true for the autoworkers in Rüsselsheim, who are facing painful job cuts at the sprawling Opel assembly plant, the town's mainstay employer.

''Nobody knows the meaning of globalization better than you who work here in Rüsselsheim,'' Mr. Schröder declared Thursday, his distinctive smoky baritone dropping to an empathetic rumble.

As tough as the last few years have been, he warned that things would be much worse under a conservative government led by his challenger, Angela Merkel, and her party, the Christian Democratic Union.

With an economic adviser who advocates a flat tax, Mr. Schröder said, Mrs. Merkel would treat millionaires the same as Opel workers. That, he said, would destroy Germany's cherished model of social justice.

''People are not objects,'' he said. ''The link between economic development and social justice must be maintained.''

Applause reverberated through the sports hall, from a crowd of students, retirees and workers from the nearby plant. There is evidence that Mr. Schröder's jabs at Mrs. Merkel have raised the odds that his party, if not he personally, could emerge from the vote with a role in a new coalition government.

Yet critics say it is precisely the public's perception of a trade-off between economic efficiency and social equity -- and Mr. Schröder's inability to reconcile the two in his policies -- that has weakened his base and very likely doomed the governing coalition his party has formed with the Green Party. The chancellor, they said, promised pain followed by gain, but delivered only pain.

Despite stringent new labor rules intended to prod people into looking for jobs, 4.7 million people are out of work in Germany -- close to a record for the post-World War II period.

''Schröder's reforms hurt a lot of people, they cost a lot of money and they did not significantly raise the incentives for Germans to join the workforce,'' said Dennis Snower, the president of the Kiel Institute for World Economics, one of Germany's most respected research centers.

It is a measure of how little Mr. Schröder has been able to offer his supporters that when he mentioned a meeting that day with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, a woman cried, ''Thank you for the pipeline.'' (Mr. Schröder and Mr. Putin signed a deal to build a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, ensuring Germany's supply of natural gas.)

''You're welcome,'' the chancellor replied, looking amused at what passes for a crowd pleaser in German politics today.

People in this town of 60,000 have little else to cheer. General Motors, which owns Opel, is cutting 10,000 jobs in Germany, many of them at the factory here. Union leaders consider it a victory -- and a tribute to Germany's tradition of worker protection -- that G.M. agreed to voluntary buyouts and early retirements, instead of forced layoffs.

Mrs. Merkel, they point out, proposes to curb the power of unions to negotiate industry-wide labor contracts with big employers, and would make it easier for smaller companies to dismiss workers.

''We know we're not at the end of this process,'' said Hans Reitinger, a worker representative at Opel and a Social Democrat. ''We don't want a change in the government because we would lose our influence.''

Not all members of the rank and file agree. Heinz-Jürgen Krug, a union leader who works for one of Opel's suppliers, estimates that perhaps 15 percent of the members of the powerful steelworkers union, IG Metall, are angry enough to vote for the Left Party.

After peaking at 12 percent in opinion surveys, the Left Party's support has settled at about 9 percent (the Social Democrats have 34 percent; the Christian Democrats, 41 percent).

''They're extremely strong in homes with less than 1,500 euros a month in income, and that was a genuine S.P.D. stronghold,'' said Reinhard Schlinkert, the founder of Dimap, a polling firm in Bonn.

In this blue-collar town, membership in the Social Democratic Party, or S.P.D., has fallen to 500 from 600 in the past three years. The local party boss, Olaf Kleinböhl , attributes most of the defections to disenchantment with Mr. Schröder's overhaul of labor laws.

For all his woes, the chancellor remains a popular figure. He received a rock star's reception here as he bounded to the stage in shirtsleeves, grabbing outstretched hands. Mr. Kleinböhl is hoping for a miracle, pointing to Mr. Schröder's vigorous performance in a recent televised debate with Mrs. Merkel, which nudged up the party's poll numbers.

At this point in the 2002 election, Mr. Schröder remarked, his last conservative challenger was putting Champagne on ice. Days later, a calamitous flood in eastern Germany and his opposition to war in Iraq enabled Mr. Schröder to come from behind and cling to power.

This time, though, the suspense is mainly over the margin of victory for the other side. Either Mrs. Merkel will form a governing coalition with her preferred partner, the Free Democratic Party, or settle for a ''grand coalition'' with the Social Democrats. Either way, Mr. Schröder is likely to resign.

After his speech, a small crowd gathered outside to say ''auf wiedersehen'' as the chancellor ducked into his Volkswagen limousine. For one of Germany's most resilient politicians, it felt like a last goodbye.

Photo: Gerhard Schröder with an aide, Sigrid Krampitz, on Friday. Whatever the outcome of elections next Sunday, his coalition appears doomed. (Photo by Michael Dalder/Reuters)