GERHARD SCHRÖDER, a triumphant election winner only two months ago, has once more been bombarded by criticism from Left and Right, home and abroad, and pensioners and businessmen as his popularity plumbs new depths.

The crisis in confidence, say well-placed sources in Berlin, could persuade the German Chancellor to step down as early as next spring. “He feels as if the nation has punched him in the stomach,” a media adviser to his team said.

Oskar Lafontaine, Germany’s self-appointed left-wing conscience, thrust the knife deeper into his fellow Social Democrat this week by comparing Herr Schröder’s rule with the last days of the Weimar Republic, which were blighted by wage cuts, dropping prices and rising unemployment.

The failure of government then, as now, led to the rise of the far Right, Herr Lafontaine, who served as Finance Minister in the Chancellor’s first Government, said. “Haider, Le Pen, Fortuyn and (Ronald) Schill gathered support precisely because ordinary people no longer felt represented.”

It was time, he wrote in Monday’s mass-circulation Bild newspaper, to name the people betraying society: “The enemy of the people wear diamonds, live in tax exile and fake their balance sheets.”

The attack fits the climate of gathering unrest. Even Arnulf Baring, the 70-year-old conservative historian, has called on Germans to take to the streets to protest against a Government that is raising taxes after promising the opposite.

On Monday big German companies were threatening to withdraw from Germany. “Conditions here are simply too bad,” Ludwig Georg Braun, chairman of the German Chamber of Commerce, said.

Lufthansa, the German national airline, is giving a warning that it will move the administration of its Frequent Flyers programme outside Germany because of Herr Schröder’s intention to impose a 15 per cent tax on bonus miles. Bosch, the car supplier, is planning to shift one factory to Budapest. Goldpfeil, which makes high-quality luggage, is moving production to the Czech Republic and China.

The critical front against the Chancellor includes American politicians, union chieftains — a public service strike is looming — and young people, who are being told that they will have to pay more now for a diminished pension later.

The Government is sagging under its own contradictions. A new comprehensive scheme to reduce unemployment will allow people made redundant in their early 50s to draw their state pension ahead of time rather than struggle back on to the labour market. But another scheme drawn up by the Social Welfare Ministry suggests that 67, not 65, should become the new starting point for retirement.

Support for the Social Democrats has dropped to 30 per cent, down 8.5 per cent in eight weeks, and is still in freefall. The opposition Christian Democrats are surging ahead and now boast about 43 per cent support.

The Chancellor’s wife, Doris, has railed against Herr Lafontaine for his “historically irresponsible” comparison with Weimar Germany, and others who have spoken out. “My worry is that all this verbal abuse will turn physical,” she said. Indeed, the Chancellor’s bodyguard unit is contemplating increasing its numbers.

For the most part the Chancellor is staying silent, with no attempt at his usual banter.

The critical moment comes in February, when there are regional elections in the states of Hesse and Lower Saxony, where Sigmar Gabriel, the Prime Minister, could well be beaten. If that happens, the Christian Democrats will have a two-thirds majority in the Upper House and that will make government almost impossible for the Chancellor, who has only a shaky nine-seat majority in the Lower House.

Even if the Social Democrats cling on in Lower Saxony, their time is running out. The Chancellor will be drawn more and more into cooperative deals with the Christian Democrats, while the Greens, now the junior coalition partner, will be neglected. And sooner rather than later the Government will buckle under the strain.

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