Volkswacht Bodensee - Germans vote under shadow of far-right surge, Trump

Polling stations opened at 8:00 am (0700 GMT) with more than 59 million Germans eligible to vote and first estimates based on exit polls expected after polls close at 6:00 pm (1700 GMT).

Frontrunner Friedrich Merz has vowed a tough rightward shift if elected to win back voters from the far-right anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is eyeing a record result after a string of deadly attacks blamed on asylum seekers.

If he takes over from embattled centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz, as widely predicted given a yawning poll gap, the CDU leader has promised a "strong voice" in Europe at a time of chaotic disruption.

The high-stakes vote in the European Union's biggest economy comes amid tectonic upheaval in US-Europe ties sparked by Trump's direct outreach to Russian President Vladimir Putin over their heads to end the Ukraine war.

Across Europe, NATO allies worry about the future of the alliance, nowhere more than in Germany which grew prosperous under the US-led security umbrella.

However, it may take Merz many weeks to negotiate a coalition government, spelling yet more political paralysis in Berlin during such fraught times.

In a strange twist to the polarised campaign, the AfD has basked in the glowing support lavished on it by Trump's entourage, with billionaire Elon Musk touting it as the only party to "save Germany".

Trump, asked about the elections in Germany, which he has berated over its trade, migration and defence policies, said dismissively that "I wish them luck, we got our own problems".

Merz, in his final CDU/CSU campaign event in Munich on Saturday, said Europe needed to walk tall to be able to "sit at the main table" of the world powers.

Voicing strong confidence, the 69-year-old former investment lawyer told supporters that "we will win the elections and then the nightmare of this government will be over".

"There is no left majority and no left politics anymore in Germany," Merz told a raucous beer hall, promising to tighten border controls and revive flagging Germany Inc.

- Trade war feared -

For the next German leader, more threats loom from the United States, long its bedrock ally, if Trump sparks a trade war that could hammer Germany's recession-hit economy.

Scholz will stay in charge as caretaker until any new multi-party government takes shape -- a task which Merz has already said he hopes to achieve by Easter in two months.

Up to 30 percent of voters remained undecided last week, among them Sylvia Otto, 66, who said that "I still find it difficult to make a decision this time".

Speaking in Berlin, she said she wanted "a change -- but now a change to the right. That's very important to me".

At an AfD rally elsewhere in Berlin, a 49-year-old engineer, who gave his name only as Christian, praised the party's leader Alice Weidel as a "tough woman, stepping on the toes of the other parties".

These, he said, "are now adopting the AfD's programmes and passing them off as their own. So she is doing something right."

- Spate of attacks -

Germany's political crisis was sparked when Scholz's unhappy coalition collapsed on November 6, the day Trump was re-elected.

Scholz's SPD, the Greens and the liberal FDP had long quarrelled over tight finances.

The SPD's historically low polls ratings of around 15 percent suggest Scholz paid the price for policy gridlock and Germany's parlous economic performance at a time the Ukraine war sent energy prices through the roof.

Frustration with the leadership fuelled the rise of the AfD, which has been polling at 20 percent but looks set to stay in opposition as all other parties have vowed to keep it out of power.

The AfD, strongest in the ex-communist east, is on track for its best-ever result after Germany was shocked by a series of high-profile attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers.

In December a car-ramming through a Christmas market crowd killed six people and wounded hundreds, with a Saudi man arrested at the scene.

More deadly attacks followed, both blamed on Afghan asylum seekers: a stabbing spree targeting kindergarten children and another car-ramming attack in Munich.

On Friday, a Syrian man who police said wanted to "kill Jews" was arrested after a Spanish tourist was stabbed in the neck at Berlin's Holocaust memorial.

While Merz has vowed to shutter German borders and lock up those awaiting deportation, the AfD has argued that Germans will "vote for the original".

T.Germann--VB