The anti-U.S. sentiment coursing through the German election campaign quickened Thursday when Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's justice minister said that President George W. Bush's "method" in pursing a confrontation with Iraq was similar to tactics employed by Hitler because both wished to divert attention from domestic problems, according to press reports of the remarks.

The comments by Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, who did not know there was a reporter in the room Wednesday when she spoke to a group of trade unionists, infuriated a Bush administration already bristling at Schroeder's strident rejection of even a United Nations-mandated attack on Iraq.

"The United States and Germany have a very long and valuable relationship," said the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, "and relations between the people of the United States and Germany are very important to Americans. But this statement by the justice minister is outrageous and inexplicable."

In advance of the parliamentary elections Sunday, Schroeder's anti-war stance has become the dominant campaign issue, which, coincidentally, has diverted attention from Germany's economic problems and helped the chancellor bounce back in the polls.

Addressing a group of trade unionists in the western city of Tuebingen, Daeubler-Gmelin began by saying that Bush did not want to wage war because of oil.

"The Americans have enough oil," said Daeubler-Gmelin in remarks quoted Thursday in Schwaebische Tageblatt, a local newspaper in the area. "Bush wants to distract attention from his domestic problems. This is a popular method. Hitler also used it."

Even the hint of a comparison to Hitler is a blistering insult in public discourse in Germany, and there was a murmuring of dissent in the audience, according to news reports here.

"I did not equate Bush with Hitler," the minister hastily added.

The opposition immediately jumped on the remark and demanded that Schroeder dismiss Daeubler-Gmelin, who, like the chancellor, is a Social Democrat. "Those who compare Bush with Hitler and then say he's a criminal do great damage to Germany," said Michael Glos, parliamentary leader of the opposition Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of the Christian Democratic Union.

The Justice Ministry, in a press release Thursday, said the original report on the meeting was "absurd and far-fetched." But the ministry did not deny that Daeubler-Gmelin had mentioned Bush and Hitler in the same remarks and compared their "method."

"I would deeply regret that this matter would cast even a shadow on my respect for the president of the United States," Daeubler-Gmelin said in a statement Thursday.

But, according to the newspaper, the justice minister, known for her sharp tongue, did not limit her criticisms of Bush to Iraq.

She said that the United States had "a lousy legal system," adding that if current American laws against insider trading had been on the books when the president worked in the oil industry in Texas, "Bush would be sitting in prison today."

Previously, Daeubler-Gmelin has criticized the use of the death penalty in the United States. Last month she said that Germany would not hand over documentary evidence for the trial of the Sept. 11 suspect Zacarias Moussaoui if the evidence could help secure a capital conviction. The matter has not been resolved.

Schroeder had made no comment Thursday night on Daeubler-Gmelin's remarks. But his firm opposition to a U.S. attack on Iraq has resurrected a candidacy that was trailing badly some weeks ago.

Four of five of the leading polling agencies now place Schroeder's Social Democrats narrowly ahead of the conservatives, a turnaround from a 5-point deficit just a month ago, when the chancellor first seized on Iraq as an issue.

The German magazine Der Spiegel said in an analysis this week that "Schroeder's clear position, skillfully mixed with anti-American sentiments," was attracting leftists, nationalist rightists and especially people in the formerly communist East Germany.

And it has befuddled the campaign of Edmund Stoiber, the conservative candidate for chancellor and the governor of Bavaria. Stoiber said he opposed unilateral action by the United States, but he added that he could not rule out participation in a conflict if there was a UN Security Council mandate endorsing an attack on Iraq.

"In a way Stoiber reacted more responsibly," said Juergen Falter, a professor of political science at the University of Mainz. "But for the electorate his message was too differentiated: 'We don't want to but if it's necessary and it must be done and the UN says okay.' Too complicated compared to Schroeder's 'No!'"

In an effort to carve out his own position, Stoiber said Thursday that he would not allow U.S. bases on German soil to be used for a unilateral attack on Iraq. Answering a question on television about the United States using Germany as a staging ground, Stoiber said, "Certainly never if the Americans go it alone."

Stoiber also rejected the goal of "regime change" in Baghdad as a motive for invading Iraq. "Now the aim is to destroy weapons of mass destruction, not the toppling of a dictator," Stoiber told the Chemnitzer Freie Presse newspaper Thursday. "The monopoly of action lies not with the Americans, but with the United Nations."