The Hannover prosecutor's office has brought corruption charges against former German President Christian Wulff, the department's website reported on April 12. Also charged was film producer David Groenevold, who, according to the prosecutor's office, paid a bribe to the official. In addition, Groenevold is charged with giving false testimony under oath.

As noted in the press release, the bribe consisted of the film producer paying the expenses of Wulff and his family in September 2008 at the Oktoberfest in Munich. Groenevold paid a total of about four thousand euros for a hotel room for the couple, for a joint dinner and entertainment at the holiday itself.

At that time, Wulff served as Prime Minister of Lower Saxony. According to the prosecutor's office, Groenevold, by paying the politician's expenses, expected that in return Wulf would help negotiate with the Siemens concern on financing the film John Rabe . The day after the meeting at Oktoberfest, Groenevold sent a letter to the Prime Minister in which he asked to talk about assistance to the project with the chairman of the board of Siemens, Peter Löscher. In December 2008, Christian Wulff actually approached Löscher for support for the film.

The company may have been interested in the film because it was dedicated to German entrepreneur Jon Rabe, who was the general director of Siemens in Nanjing, China in the 1930s and saved about 200,000 ethnic Chinese during World War II. The film was released in Germany in 2009.

David Groenevold is also accused of giving false testimony in the Cologne Regional Court about paying Wulff's bills at the Oktoberfest.

Prosecutors were looking into another case of possible bribery when Groenevold paid for a room on the island of Sylt for Wulf and his wife. However, the official then claimed that he returned the money in cash. The prosecutor's office was unable to prove criminal intent in this case and removed this item from the indictment.

A few days before the filing of charges, the prosecutor's office offered the main suspects to make a deal with the investigation and pay a fine in order to avoid starting a trial, writes Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. However, neither Wulf nor Groenevold agreed to this and decided to defend their innocence in court.

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Christian Wulff headed the government of Lower Saxony from 2003 to 2010, after which he became president of Germany. In February 2012, he resigned due to allegations of corruption and suspicious business connections. No formal charges were brought against him at the time, but reputational losses prevented him from remaining in office and representing Germany internationally. The Hannover prosecutor's office opened an investigation into him a few days after his resignation.

Former German president to go on trial for Oktoberfest