* Merkel slams bankers on Lehman anniversary
* Reassures voters Germany is heading out of crisis
By Andreas Moeser
KOBLENZ, Germany, Sept 15 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel lashed out at bankers during a campaign stop on Tuesday, tapping into popular resentment at those blamed for the crisis on the anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.
Merkel has won plaudits at home for her handling of the crisis and her conservatives (CDU/CSU) enjoy a double-digit lead over their Social Democrat (SPD) rivals, less than two weeks before a federal election.
"We must make sure that the bankers of this world can never again get up to such things at our cost," Merkel told reporters in Koblenz, one of several stops on a cross-country train ride in honour of Germany's first post-war chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, who was elected 60 years ago.
Her criticism of bankers, which she did not repeat later when she passed through Germany's financial capital Frankfurt, came amid protests across Europe to mark the first anniversary of the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers.
Merkel vowed to push for the adoption of "clear rules" to prevent bankers from burdening the economy again when she travels to Pittsburgh later this month for a meeting of the Group of 20 economic powers.
She said the Germany still had work to do to recover from its deepest recession since World War Two, but added: "The indicators show a light at the end of the tunnel".
Any weakening in support for Merkel's conservatives over the final weeks of the campaign could doom her chances of forming a centre-right government with her preferred partners, the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP).
Merkel had a similar lead in 2005, but saw it evaporate over the final stretch and beat the SPD by only one percentage point -- a result which forced the rival parties into an awkward "grand coalition" government together.
Her mixed performance in a televised debate with her SPD challenger Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Sunday has increased nervousness in her conservative camp that the same could happen this time around.
As she travelled through Germany aboard the slow-moving "Rheingold-Express" train Merkel tried to draw comparisons with Adenauer, the man who presided over Germany's economic miracle of the 1950s.
"Why are we taking this trip on this route? It's because Konrad Adenauer wasn't able to travel this route," she said in the eastern German city of Erfurt, in a reference to Germany's post-war division.
She addressed a crowd of around 500 people in Erfurt, where she also tucked into a Thuringia bratwurst, a favoured German sausage from the region.
Aboard the train, were dozens of journalists, top politicians from her Christian Democrats (CDU) and descendants of Adenauer, who ruled West Germany from 1949 to 1963.
Steinmeier is due to hold his own rally in Erfurt later on Tuesday. (Writing by Paul Carrel and Alexandra Hudson; Editing by Jon Boyle)