Wulff, 54, resigned in February 2012 after just 598 days in office amid allegations he accepted an illegal loan from friends when he was state premier of Lower Saxony.
He was accused of lobbying for film producer David Groenewold after Groenewold paid his €800 hotel bill and costs at Munich’s Oktoberfest in 2008. Wulff was cleared of corruption in February this year.
Presenting the book on Tuesday in Berlin, the former president blamed Hanover state prosecutors who investigated the case for his resignation in 2012 and claimed the media and judiciary had overstepped the mark, thereby presenting a “serious threat to democracy”.
He describes in the book, called Ganz Oben Ganz Unten (At the very top, at the very bottom), how the last two years, in which he also split from his wife Bettina, were the worst of his life.
And he claimed on Tuesday he should still be president. “It would be right if I was still in office today,” he said.
Wulff said his party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), had not given him much political support during the scandal, but he added the party’s leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel had “always stood by me” and not put pressure on him to resign.
But he added he had no desire to return to politics.
His book was met with disdain by sections of the German press. Spiegel Online wrote: “He still hasn’t understood that his resignation was necessary.”
“Wulff still sees himself as someone suited to be a head of state,” Bild wrote.
But the Saarbrücker Zeitung came to Wulff’s defence. “Wulff’s analysis is largely fair,” it wrote. “The ex-president was wronged. His case, driven by a biased press and picked up by an overzealous prosecutor, has damaged the political culture in Germany.”
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