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I don't think the 'austerity' narrative is as strong in Germany as over here, although they have been cutting public funding for all sorts of things, too.
Germany's immense economic imbalance is connected more strongly in public awareness with Schröder's social 'reforms', encapsulated in the term 'Hartz IV', in which he basically did the work of a conservative government. This lost the SPD a lot of voters and continues to be a main reason why the party's seen as a lame duck and unable to stand up for much of their traditional base.
In doing all that they were very much like New Labour, but Germany didn't have an idiot like George Osborne in charge of the public finances later. While Schäuble is not exactly a paragon of justice and certainly bears a large share of the responsibility for many of the worst things about European politics in recent times, in Germany he would have been out of office very quickly if he'd tried on the same kind of claptrap as Osborne. Germany's problems are many, from the unhealthy export surplus to the problematic history, especially in the East, of 'reunification'. I've just read that the AfD was the largest party in Sachsen, with a bigger share of the vote than the CDU, which is really shocking.
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Oliver Schick
It's funny how with protest votes nobody seems to think "oh the Greens are an anti austerity party" no let's go with the Afd...
My cynical side says it's because the Greens are unwilling to victimize minorities / don't offer good old traditional values like gays are unnatural/women should be behind the sink, but perhaps I missed something? :)