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Activist pastor Joachim Gauck took office as German president on Monday morning after being elected by an overwhelming majority, marking the first time someone from the former communist east acts as head of state.

Gauck, 72, claimed 991 votes out of 1,232 from a special assembly of MPs and other dignitaries who voted on Sunday – against prominent Nazi hunter Beate Klarsfeld, 73, who was nominated as a protest candidate by the socialist Left party.

“What a beautiful Sunday,” Gauck said to enthusiastic applause from the chamber of the glass-domed Reichstag parliament building in central Berlin after the vote.

It was the third presidential election in three years for Germany after the abrupt resignations of Gauck’s two predecessors.

Gauck helped drive the peaceful revolution that brought down communist East Germany and later fought to ensure that the public would be granted access to the vast stash of files left behind by the Stasi secret police after reunification in 1990. He oversaw the archive for the next decade.

In a short acceptance speech, he noted that his election fell on the 22nd anniversary of the first free elections in East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall the previous November.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who also grew up under communism, gave her backing to the plain-spoken Lutheran pastor in February after then president Christian Wulff stepped down amid a flurry of corruption allegations dating from his time as a state premier. Wulff only served 20 months of his five-year term in office.

He had replaced Horst Köhler, a former head of the International Monetary Fund who bowed out after an uproar over comments he made appearing to justify using the military to serve Germany’s economic interests.

Claudia Roth, co-leader of the opposition Greens party, which supported Gauck’s candidacy along with the rest of Germany’s mainstream parties, said the country was looking to Gauck to “give this badly damaged office dignity and respect again.”

Expectations are high for Gauck, who has won a reputation across the country as an inspiring public speaker.

But as a staunch Protestant he is also keen to remind Germans that their hard-won freedoms carry weighty responsibilities with them – a lifelong theme he has said he will take to the presidential palace.

He said he would seek to relieve Germans of some of their angst as Europe grapples with its sovereign debt crisis and to reach out to immigrant groups to foster integration.

Gauck looked set to go against tradition from the start, as his longtime girlfriend Daniela Schadt said he had no plans to divorce his estranged wife of more than 50 years and marry her.

“I see no reason to marry for reasons of protocol,” the 52-year-old journalist who is now Germany’s First Lady told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

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Germany’s borders brought in around 10 per cent more earnings for the federal government last year than in 2010, topping €123billion, while the ingenuity of those trying to avoid customs continues to amuse.

Announcing the figures last week, finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble said people will always try to avoid paying duties when bringing money into the country, and German customs officers last year seized €14million in cash.

Chocolate hiding places seem to have come into vogue, with some of the more creative hiding places displayed at Friday’s conference. One chocolate egg would have given any child looking for a plastic toy more than the advertised surprise – officers found €8,000 in cash inside.

Officers also found chocolate rabbits filled with money, while another would-be tax evader simply stuck his wedge of fifties into a tin of chocolate drink powder.

Drug smugglers lost around €150million worth of their wares in 2011, as customs officers confiscated 29 tonnes of drugs, two tonnes more than in the previous year.

The most valuable haul was a total of 1.6 tonnes of cocaine worth around €100million, said Schäuble. This was followed by 1.3 tonnes of marijuana, 1.2 tonnes of hashish and 357kg of heroine.

Around 160million smuggled cigarettes were seized, an increase of three million on 2010, he said.

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Germany faces the prospect of a major regional election after the government of North Rhine-Westphalia lost an important budget vote in the state assembly last week, bringing the coalition government to the brink of collapse after less than two years in office.

An election in Germany’s most populous state with 18 million inhabitants could have major implications for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition in Berlin because it could further weaken her ailing junior coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party.

North Rhine-Westphalia has been ruled for almost two years by a minority government made up of the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens.

State governor Hannelore Kraft has repeatedly said she cannot rule if her coalition can’t pass an important law like the budget, which opposition parties voted down on Wednesday.

Polls show the FDP may be ousted from the regional assembly in a snap election by slipping below the 5 per cent threshold needed for parliamentary representation. That would further weaken the party in the national government, and could seal the political fate of FDP leader and economy minister Philipp Rösler, who is under pressure for failing to halt a slide in support.

Opinion polls suggest that a new election might produce a clear majority for the Social Democrats and Greens.

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