Low black cloud, swirling mists and neglected bleak landscapes gave way to blue sky, sunshine and groomed fields that positively glistened with autumnal green and gold.

The obvious differences between the former people's paradise and the rolling green prosperity of the west are slowly disappearing. But it is taking much longer than anyone expected in 1990 -- yet it is surprising too that anyone expected anything to change fast in Germany. Solid, stolid and conservative are still cardinal virtues. Beneath the green and pleasant landscapes, however, something is stirring this week, and the color too is Green.

Before long, we may see a German on the world stage like no other German we have seen in such a position.

To a T

He may be 50, but he's as cool as a Rolling Stone. He is boyishly handsome with a Clinton hairstyle. He campaigns in a smart gray jacket slung over a black T-shirt. He packs the campaign halls with stomping, clapping teens and weens too young to vote. His speeches rise from soft to rolling German thunder no conservative politician would dare to use. He has the timing, the jokes, a growling imitation of Kohl that a stand-up comic would kill for.

Next month, this former student leader may be the foreign minister of the Federal Republic of Germany, and when the country takes over the European Union presidency next year, he would effectively be the foreign minister of Europe.

His name is Joseph Fischer, but nobody calls him anything but Joscha, and he is the head of the Green Party faction in the Bundestag (parliament).

In several days spent criss-crossing Germany on the campaign trail, I have met no one who does not like him personally, though conservatives of course shudder at the prospect of the Greens and their former student revolutionary leader heading up German foreign policy.

If, as appears increasingly likely, Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats topple Kohl's government on Sunday, they are committed to a "red-green" coalition with Alliance 90/The Greens.

Baroque, baby

This small town of Fulda in Hesse is almost dead center in Germany, on the crossover routes between Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, and Frankfurt. Dead is a good word. The town is picturesque, with a classic baroque cathedral and an ancient history. It is gleamingly clean and modern too, obviously prosperous and utterly bourgeois.

As we strolled up the cobbled streets we wondered who in Fulda's name would turn out on a Tuesday night to see a minority bunch of lefty long-hairs in sandals coming to explain away their great election blunder -- a pledge to raise the price of gasoline to 13 dollars to save energy.

The hall was a youth culture center, painted black inside with high tiered wooden benches along the walls and banks of disco lights hanging from the ceiling. It was empty, 20 minutes to the scheduled hour. Ten minutes later the audience began to arrive in droves, pouring in until the place was packed to the seams. They might be Green, but when it comes to precision punctuality, they are still Germans.

At a meeting of Kohl's Christian Democrats we attended the previous day in Neuenhagen, a gray town east of Berlin, the average age of the 200 or so audience was 55, the average gender male, the average suit brown and old, the average mood somber. They looked pretty representative of the town's spirit.

Here in Fulda, the average age was 18 -- though there was a good crowd of baby-boomers as wells as sweet sixteens, the genders were together and holding hands, the mood was bright as buttons and there was no average dress.

A speech too far

At eight, Fischer and a few aides strolled. He was handed a white plastic bucket filled with sunflowers, and after a brief introduction (most un-Germanic) from the local Green candidate (who stands no chance) and off he went in a voice hoarse from campaigning, but which gradually settled down.

He admitted himself taken aback by the crowd in Fulda -- he had never seen such a gathering of youth there, he said. Most of them had known nothing but Kohl in their lifetimes, he said to loud laughter, implying an average age of 16. "Kohl has his place in history, but it's time to go. Now all he represents is stagnation."

Even the economic problems have stagnated, said Joscha to more laughter -- they are the same as they were in 1982. "Do you want 16 more years of the same New Year speeches?" he growled in a perfect Kohl imitation -- an in-joke, for a few years ago state television broadcast by accident a previously aired Kohl New Year address -- and nobody noticed.

Fischer quickly zeroed in on the same problems as every other party in this campaign -- jobs, pensions, welfare, fighting xenophobia. He is clearly one former woolly, lefty who has moved on to serious political and economic uplands.

And he seems to be one of the few who can explain it to generally cynical youngsters -- there are 3.3 million new voters this year. He received thunderous applause for his promise to make environment a key issue in government, and a standing ovation for a passionate defense of the much-maligned foreign immigrants, whom he said have enriched German society with their presence and their culture.

At Tutzing in the heartland of ultra-conservative Bavaria, I asked Heinrich Oberreuter, director of Academy for Political Education, what Germans make of Fischer and Greens who may now come into government. "I must say, Greens voters are highly intelligent," he said, with a faint sniff. "It's the opposite with their policies."