Joachim Gauck :"Freedom is a Precious Asset".
Joachim Gauck, 72, already came close to becoming Germany's president once before. Back then, in the early summer of 2010, a veritable Gauck hysteria broke out in the country after the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Green Party presented him as their candidate for the country's highest office.
In the end, it took a full three rounds of voting in the Federal Assembly before Wulff was elected as president.
Between votes two and three, Gauck started to think for the first time that he might actually succeed in becoming president. When he ultimately lost, the pain was apparently far greater than he was ready to admit.
But Gauck lived in East Germany for long enough to know how to look at things in perspective. The pastor has long been separated from his wife, with whom he has four children. He and his partner, journalist Daniela Schadt, attended the 2010 presidential summer party to wish Christian Wulff and his wife Bettina all the best. Then he went on travelling across Germany, telling people about his struggle for freedom. He reminded them they also needed to do their part for the country -- that they needed to take responsibility.
Here is a great interview Gauck gave the NZZ in 2010 in German.Thank you Andres for the pointer.