No wonder Mr Kohl is stomping the campaign trail alongside Mr Wulff with near-desperate energy.
They could weaken the chancellor, perhaps fatally, by turning against Mr Wulff to elect Mr Gauck.
No one is enthusiastic about Mrs Merkel's pick for the presidency, Christian Wulff, the stolid premier of Lower Saxony.
Mr Wulff ought to prevail in the Federal Assembly, which convenes on June 30th to elect a new president.
Hastily elected to the presidency in 2010 (with Mrs Merkel's backing), Mr Wulff has had little impact on German life.
ECONOMIST: The president tries to ride out a home-loan scandal
But if their quarrel persists, their parties could yet pick another candidate, such as Christian Wulff, the premier of Lower Saxony.
"Ladies and gentlemen, an eventful day has ended and Christian Wulff is the president of the Federal Republic of Germany, " she said.
BBC: Merkel candidate Wulff wins presidency on third attempt
Politicians from the CDU insisted that Mr Wulff had done a good job of trying to regain public trust in the interview.
ECONOMIST: The president tries to ride out a home-loan scandal
The state's premier, Christian Wulff, sees Porsche as an opportunistic would-be plunderer.
So far, even her most dangerous internal opponents Christian Wulff and Roland Koch, the premiers of Lower Saxony and Hesse respectively have stayed loyal.
But it is not clear that Mr Wulff has broken any laws.
ECONOMIST: The president tries to ride out a home-loan scandal
Mrs Merkel is backing Christian Wulff, the lacklustre premier of Lower Saxony.
At a ceremony at a former crossing-point, President Wulff said the wall had been "an expression of fear" of those who created it.
But this may change once Ms Merkel is chancellor, since both Mr Wulff and Mr Koch have their own designs on the job.
Mrs Merkel has no serious rivals within the CDU except Mr Wulff, who will be a failed would-be president if he is not elected.
Mr Wulff will succeed Horst Koehler, who resigned a month ago.
BBC: Merkel candidate Wulff wins presidency on third attempt
Mr Wulff appears to want to tough it out for now.
ECONOMIST: The president tries to ride out a home-loan scandal
And they are ready to form a coalition with the Christian Democrats under their young lawyer-leader, Christian Wulff (see article), who last time got 36.4%.
That institution happens to be the house bank of Porsche, part of the Volkswagen group, on whose supervisory board Mr Wulff sat during his Lower Saxony premiership.
ECONOMIST: The president tries to ride out a home-loan scandal
Newspapers have speculated that the bank was repaying a favour by taking on the loan: Mr Wulff enlisted help from Volkswagen to save Porsche from bankruptcy in 2009.
ECONOMIST: The president tries to ride out a home-loan scandal
Christian Wulff, the German president, is brazening out a scandal.
Guitarist Chris Wulff explains that the band is staying busy.
In a country with a population of 4.3m Muslims, that should not have been controversial, although some members of Mr Wulff's Christian Democratic Union found it hard to swallow.
ECONOMIST: The president tries to ride out a home-loan scandal
Although Mr Wulff apologised last month for not disclosing the details of the loan before becoming president, the details of his threatening phone calls have caused alarm in Germany.
Mr Wulff said he had called Bild's chief editor simply to ask for a day's delay before publication to enable him to return from an official trip to the Gulf.
Politicians and pundits from left and right are questioning Mr Wulff's ability to survive in his largely ceremonial role, in which he is meant to embody the conscience of the nation.
ECONOMIST: The president tries to ride out a home-loan scandal
Either way, Mr Wulff's lack of support is embarrassing.
ECONOMIST: The president tries to ride out a home-loan scandal
The BBC's Berlin correspondent, Stephen Evans, says that the allegation facing Mr Wulff is that by trying to bully Bild newspaper he was trying to tamper with the freedom of the press.
The Forum saw the participation also of the Qatari Deputy Prime Minister, Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Atiya, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister, Manuel Chavez, President of Austria, Heinz Fischer, President of Germany, Christian Wulff and a representative of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
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