Teen daughter to be German president's companion on Israel trip

Nov 26, 2010, 14:02 GMT

Berlin - Annalena Wulff, the 17-year-old daughter of German President Christian Wulff, will be his official accompaniment on a four-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, he said Friday.

Germany's insistence on teaching its children about the evils of the Holocaust guided the president's decision to take his schoolgirl daughter with him instead of his second wife Bettina.

'I'm firmly convinced that the cultivating our relationship is a task for all the generations,' he explained in Berlin.

Annalena, from Wulff's first marriage, lives and goes to school in the provincial city of Osnabrueck and is set to complete school in 2012. She has never been to Israel before.

She will be at her father's side when he visits the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem on Sunday. The trip concludes Tuesday with a visit to the West Bank Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Wulff was appointed to Germany's mainly ceremonial role of head of state five months ago.

The visit does not count as a state visit and Wulff is not scheduled to address the Israeli parliament, as had two previous German presidents, Johannes Rau in 2000 and Horst Koehler in 2005.

Read more about Germany Diplomacy

Read more about Israel