BERLIN: German elections on Sunday are too close to call with polls giving a slim lead to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder amid doubts over the impact of a cabinet minister’s alleged comparison of US President George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler.

After trailing all year, Schroeder has surged ahead with his assured handling of Germany’s flood crisis last month and an outspoken campaign against a United States war on Iraq.

Chancellor Schroeder tells voters at every rally the election is about “war or peace” and that he would never send German troops to fight Baghdad.

This has left conservative challenger Edmund Stoiber flailing. Stoiber first indicated he would support a war if it was covered by a new United Nations mandate, but then began backing off and now stresses no troops can be sent because German forces are overstretched.

In a live TV debate, Schroeder put Stoiber on the spot. Troops for Iraq, he asked the candidate: “Yes or no?” In reply, Stoiber launched into a fatal monologue.

Schroeder has also cast doubt over President Bush’s foreign policy intellect in a campaign which news weekly Der Spiegel says panders to “anti-American” sentiments on Germany’s left.

Such sentiments bubbled over Thursday when Schroeder’s justice minister, Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, allegedly compared Bush to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler at a meeting with trade unionists.

Under opposition pressure to resign, Daeubler-Gmelin denied having made the comments but, as several newspapers pointed out, statements issued by her ministry appeared evasive.

According to the report, Daeubler-Gmelin heaped further criticism on Bush, saying that if current American laws aimed at insider trading had been in force in 1980s when the president worked in the oil sector: “Bush would be sitting in prison today.”

American officials bristled over the remarks which White House spokesman Ari Fleischer termed “outrageous and inexplicable.”

US Senator Jesse Helms said if Schroeder was re-elected Washington would have to consider withdrawing its tens of thousands of troops stationed in Germany.

With up to 17 per cent of voters still saying they are undecided it is unclear how the alleged Bush comparison with Hitler and furious US reaction will impact on voters.

Schroeder’s Social Democrats (SPD) are between 37 per cent and 40 per cent while conservative challenger Edmund Stoiber’s Christian Democratic alliance (CDU/CSU) is between 36 per cent and 38 per cent, according to Germany’s top five polling agencies.—dpa