Nazi-hunter Beate Klarsfeld has been choosen by Die Linke (The Left) opposition party as a candidate for the German presidency in an election next month.
The 73-year-old Klarsfeld, who is the German-born wife of France's Nazi hunter and lawyer Serge Klarsfeld, will challenge former East German pro-democracy activist Joachim Gauck in the March 18 vote by a special parliamentary assembly.
Gauck is almost assured of being elected because the other four parties in Parliament support him.
Klarsfeld gained international prominence in 1968 when she slapped then-West German Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger, a former Nazi party member, at a conference of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party in Berlin.
Serge and Beate Klarsfeld devoted their lives to hunting down Nazis. Their most celebrated success was the locating of former Gestapo officer and so-called “Butcher of Lyon” Klaus Barbie, who was living in Bolivia under a false identity.
The new president will replace Christian Wulff, who resigned last month in a corruption scandal.