This Sunday the hot phase of this unusual election campaign begins.

The three candidates for chancellor meet on RTL and n-tv for an almost two-hour long discussion.

The moderators will be Peter Kloeppel and Pinar Atalay.

In a press conference they provided information in advance about the upcoming “Triell”.

The candidates will sit together with the moderators, among other things, in a round, so it was learned.

That doesn't sound too exciting, but it shows the difference to previous election campaigns.

In 2017, for example, four moderators from the most important German television stations faced the two candidates like schoolchildren in order to get rid of their prepared questions.

A discussion could not even develop.

That was also the aim of the exercise: Angela Merkel always interpreted the chancellor bonus in such a way that she did not even meet her social democratic opponent on an equal footing.

To refuse the rendezvous altogether, not even her could afford.

Tough preparation

The preparations for these unique duels for the participating broadcasters were correspondingly tough.

This is different on this Sunday: for the first time, RTL is hosting such an event exclusively.

The expectations are correspondingly high, not least when it comes to the ratings: four years ago, the only duel saw more than sixteen million viewers.

Will that be the case now?

The three candidates hardly missed an opportunity to present themselves to voters through media appearances.

Nobody is to be accused of refusal, the election campaign managers saw it as an opportunity for their candidates to distinguish themselves.

However, in the spring no one suspected how badly this would fail in two cases.

Now the candidates are asked in terms of content, it must be “combative”, said Pinar Atalay.

But how is that supposed to work when Annalena Baerbock, Armin Laschet and Olaf Scholz consider each other as potential coalition partners at the same time?

That could limit the controversy.

The viewers will see how the moderators react to this.

The expectations of this first triall are shaped by the uncertainty that characterizes this election campaign. As for the composition of the round, Pinar Atalay said: “If it stays that way.” What should that mean?

When asked, she wanted it to be understood as a joke.

It would actually be if Olaf Scholz let his party chairman Saskia Esken go first.

It is doubtful that the Union and the Greens are joking.

We'll know more on Sunday evening at 10 p.m.