German President Christian Wulff makes a statement in the presidential Bellevue palace in Berlin on Dec 22, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]
Recently, German President Christian Wulff faced mounting pressure to step down for a home loan scandal and allegations that he tried to stifle a relevant newspaper report.
Though German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the ruling party tried their best to intercede for Wulff, there is no sign that the German media would let him off.
On Jan.4, 2012, German President Christian Wulff, after being silent for a few days, eventually admitted his mistake to the media. However, Wulff, regarded as a national moral model by the German, suffered a loss of prestige.
Germany is always regarded as a nation with strict rules.
Many people remembered German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to China in 2007 for she picked up a piece of bread off the ground and ate it. Such a “degrading behavior” would not have been noticed by outsiders had it not been for her insistence on staying in an ordinary business suite, and dinning at the restaurant open to all hotel guests during her stay in Nanjing. For some, that the head of state of the world’s fourth largest economy and second largest exporter had picked up a piece of bread from the ground on alien soil is something less than graceful.
Compared with the Chancellor, the German President appears a lot more casual. Among his troubles reported by the media, was the allegation that Christian Wulff enjoyed business-class services at economy-class prices when he went holidaying.The German newspaper Bild reported on Dec. 13 that Wulff had received a favorable loan at very low rates from the wife of a wealthy friend, Egon Geerkens, who was a businessman, during his term as premier of state of Lower Saxony in 2008. Then he repaid the 500,000-Euro loan from the friend with a bank loan.
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