German Greens under fire over 19th-century folk song in election ad

Greens go for wide appeal with reworked campfire song with no mention of devastating floods

Germany's Green party has been accused of attempting to revive its hippyish origins rather than tackle the challenges of the present with the release of a campaign ad for next month's federal election that revives a 19th-century folk song.

Five weeks before a general election, in which at one point the party was leading in the polls, the one-minute-long commercial is being seen by some critics as a deliberate and last-ditch attempt to appeal to as wide a constituency as possible as it battles for second place against the resurgent Social Democrats.