The hottest summer in a century is looking a lot like Christmas in Germany. Everywhere you go, red stockings are hanging - on the campaign posters of Chancellor Helmut Kohl's conservative party.
"Rote Socken" or "Red stockings," a staple Cold War expression that could be translated as "old Commies," has made a comeback that matches that of the former East German Communists themselves.The Party of Democratic Socialism, or PDS, built from the ruins of the East German Communist party in 1990, won 20 to 25 percent of votes in the eastern states in recent local, state and European parliament elections.
The party did so well in Saxony-Anhalt on June 26 that the Social Democrats and Alliance 90/The Greens were only able to build a leftist coalition government in the state with the tacit agreement of the PDS.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl saw the cooperation with the PDS as scandalous, and his conservative Christian Democrats launched a red-stocking campaign, despite complaints that it has further polarized east-west German relations.
A Christian Democrat campaign poster slapped up around Germany shows a red sock hanging from a clothesline. "Onward into the future," it says. "But not in red stockings!"
On Tuesday, the chancellor's Bavarian allies unveiled a poster with an even broader message: A portrait of Karl Marx with the words, "I'm back! Thanks to the Social Democrats."
Striking back, the Social Democrats put up posters of Kohl with his arm around the late East German President Erich Honecker. PDS members hung little red stockings on their lapels.
The success of the PDS, led by former human rights lawyer Gregor Gysi, among many easterners seems due to feelings that western politicians lack understanding for their experience.
Economic instability and 16 percent unemployment have led to some nostalgia for the Communist days.