muhtemel yeni almanya cumhurbaşkanı, eski stasi avcısıymış

A protestant pastor who made his name hunting Stasi agents is set to become the next President of Germany after being nominated by Angela Merkel and the main Opposition parties last night.
The choice of Mr Gauck, 72, represents a hefty slice of humble pie for Ms Merkel who forced through her own candidate against him 18 months ago in a bruising political battle only to see Christian Wulff quit on Friday after a series of claims of impropriety.
But the German Chancellor has regained some of her surefootedness by agreeing so quickly to support the former East German anti-Communist crusader, avoiding another messy fight that would have sorely distracted her from her main focus of saving the euro.

Mr Gauck is not affiliated to any political party but was the popular choice of the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens in the previous presidential contest won by Mr Wulff, then a high-flier in Ms Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU).
Mr Wulff, 52, fell spectacularly from grace after the disclosure that he failed to declare a €500,000 home loan from the wife of a tycoon friend, an error compounded by revelations of other favours such as hotel stays and upgrades.
Mr Gauck served as first head of the Federal Commission for the Stasi Archives for a decade from 1990, exposing Communist crimes from the files of the East German secret police. Born in Rostock, he refused to join the Communist Party after seeing his father sent to a Soviet Gulag for three years. He became a pastor despite the pressure of continual surveillance from the authorities.
“Let us not forget that we have churchmen like Joachim Gauck to thank for the success of East Germany’s peaceful revolution,” said Mrs Merkel last night, herself the daughter of a protestant pastor who grew up in the German Democratic Republic.
Last night Mr Gauck said: “This is a special day. It really moves me, as a person who was born in the dark war and grew up for 50 years under a dictatorship, that such a man is now being called to be the head of the state.”
(kaynak: the times)