German President Christian Wulff intervened personally to try to stop mass-circulation daily Bild from running a story last month about a private loan that has damaged his credibility and exposed him to criticism, German newspapers reported this week.
Wulff reportedly tried to contact Bild Editor in Chief Kai Diekmann on Dec. 12 by telephone to complain about an article the newspaper was planning to run the next day, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitungnewspapers reported on Sunday and Monday respectively.
Wulff only reached Diekmann's voice mail and left a message in which he angrily threatened a "final break" in relations with the Springer publishing house, which publishes Bild, Die Welt and other influential German newspapers, the reports said. The papers claim the president said that if Bild wanted to "wage war," he wanted to hold a meeting about it after his return from an official trip. Wulff was touring several Gulf states at the time Bild ran the story.
According to Bild, Wulff threatened to take legal action against the Bild journalists. Wulff apologized in a subsequent telephone call, Süddeutsche Zeitung added. » | cro/SPIEGEL | Monday, January 02, 2012
