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Thanks. His Wikipedia profile is sure encouraging, but there are some inherent conflicts there: “He was nominated as the candidate of the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance ‘90/The Greens for President of Germany in the 2010 election.” How to square that circle?

That can be explained, but it's kind of tricky. In 2010 when Koehler resigned, Merkel lobbied for Wulff to become president, also because he was one of her few remaining rivals within the Christian Democratic party. Him holding the ceremonial office of president would neutralize Wulff politically.

Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and its coalition partner the Free Democrats (FDP) had the necessary votes. So in a ploy to expose Merkel's machinations and create dissent in the CDU-FDP coalition, the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens nominated a conservative Lutheran with a free-market economic profile, basically the dream candidate for CDU and FDP voters, rather than the milquetoast Wulff.

When Wulff resigned, Greens and SPD were backed into a corner, they would have to nominate Gauck again or expose their own hypocrisy. And when the Free Democrats also called for Gauck, Merkel had to fall in line, although she probably would have preferred a candidate she could have controlled better, like Bishop Huber or the "green conservative" Toepfer.