Predecessors The history of
liberal parties in Germany dates back to 1861, when the
German Progress Party (DFP) was founded, being the first political party in the modern sense in Germany. From the establishment of the
National Liberal Party in 1867 until the demise of the
Weimar Republic in 1933, the liberal-democratic camp was divided into a
national-liberal and a
left-liberal line of tradition. After 1918, the national-liberal strain was represented by the
German People's Party (DVP), the left-liberal one by the
German Democratic Party (DDP, which merged into the
German State Party in 1930). Both parties played an important role in government during the Weimar Republic era, but successively lost votes during the rise of the
Nazi Party beginning in the late-1920s. After the
Nazi seizure of power, both liberal parties agreed to the
Enabling Act of 1933 and subsequently dissolved themselves. During the 12 years of Hitler's rule, some former liberals collaborated with the Nazis (e.g. economy minister
Hjalmar Schacht), while others resisted actively against Nazism, with some Liberal leaning members and former members of the military joining up with
Henning von Tresckow (e.g. the
Solf Circle). Soon after World War II, the Soviet Union pushed for the creation of licensed
anti-fascist parties in
its occupation zone in East Germany. In July 1945, former DDP politicians
Wilhelm Külz,
Eugen Schiffer, and
Waldemar Koch called for the establishment of a pan-German liberal party. Their
Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) was soon licensed by the
Soviet Military Administration in Germany, under the condition that the new party joined the pro-Soviet
Democratic Bloc. In September 1945, citizens in
Hamburg—including the anti-Nazi resistance circle Association Free Hamburg—established the
Party of Free Democrats (PFD) as a
bourgeois left-wing party and the first liberal Party in the Western occupation zones. The German Democratic Party was revived in some states of the Western occupation zones (in the Southwestern states of
Württemberg-Baden and
Württemberg-Hohenzollern under the name of
Democratic People's Party). Many former members of DDP and DVP however agreed to finally overcome the traditional split of German liberalism into a national-liberal and a left-liberal branch, aiming for the creation of a united liberal party. In October 1945 a liberal coalition party was founded in the state of
Bremen under the name of Bremen Democratic People's Party. In January 1946, liberal state parties of the
British occupation zone merged into the Free Democratic Party of the British Zone (FDP). A similar state party in
Hesse, called the Liberal Democratic Party, was licensed by the
U.S. military government in January 1946. In the state of Bavaria, a Free Democratic Party was founded in May 1946. In the first post-war state elections in 1946, liberal parties performed well in Württemberg-Baden (16.8%), Bremen (18.3%), Hamburg (18.2%) and Greater Berlin (still undivided; 9.3%). The LDP was especially strong in the October 1946 state elections of the Soviet zone—the last free parliamentary election in East Germany—obtaining an average of 24.6% (highest in Saxony-Anhalt, 29.9%, and Thuringia, 28.5%), thwarting an absolute majority of the
Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) that was favoured by the Soviet occupation power. This disappointment to the Communists led to a change of electoral laws in the Soviet zone, cutting the autonomy of non-socialist parties including the LDP and forcing it to join the SED-dominated
National Front, making it a dependent
bloc party. The
Democratic Party of Germany (DPD) was established in
Rothenburg ob der Tauber on 17 March 1947 as a pan-German party of liberals from all four occupation zones. Its leaders were
Theodor Heuss (representing the DVP of Württemberg-Baden in the American zone) and
Wilhelm Külz (representing the LDP of the Soviet zone). However, the project failed in January 1948 as a result of disputes over Külz's pro-Soviet direction.
Founding of the party The Free Democratic Party was established on 11–12 December 1948 in
Heppenheim, in
Hesse, as an association of all 13 liberal state parties in the three Western zones of occupation. As such, the party included former members of the pre-1933
German People's Party (DVP) which represented the more
conservative and
national tradition of
German liberalism and members from the
social liberal German Democratic Party (DDP). The proposed name, Liberal Democratic Party, was rejected by the delegates, who voted 64 to 25 in favour of the name Free Democratic Party (FDP). The party's first chairman was Theodor Heuss, a member of the Democratic People's Party in Württemberg-Baden; his deputy was
Franz Blücher of the FDP in the British Zone. The place for the party's foundation was chosen deliberately: the "
Heppenheim Assembly" was held at the Hotel
Halber Mond on 10 October 1847, a meeting of moderate liberals who were preparing for what would be, within a few months, the
German revolutions of 1848–1849.
1949–1969: reconstruction of Germany , disenfranchisement, disempowerment, second class citizenship" and for "equality of civil rights" In the
first elections to the Bundestag on 14 August 1949, the FDP won a vote share of 11.9 percent (with 12 direct mandates, particularly in Baden-Württemberg and Hesse), and thus obtained 52 of 402 seats. In September of the same year the FDP chairman
Theodor Heuss was elected the first
President of the
Federal Republic of Germany. In his
1954 re-election, he received the best election result to date of a President with 871 of 1018 votes (85.6 percent) of the
Federal Assembly. Adenauer was also elected on the proposal of the new German President with an extremely narrow majority as the first Chancellor. The FDP participated with the
CDU/CSU and the national-conservative
German Party (DP) in Adenauer's coalition cabinet; they had three ministers:
Franz Blücher (Vice-Chancellor),
Thomas Dehler (justice), and
Eberhard Wildermuth (housing). On the most important economic, social and
German national issues, the FDP agreed with their coalition partners, the CDU/CSU. However, the FDP offered to middle-class voters a secular party that refused the
religious schools and accused the opposition parties of clericalization. The FDP said they were known also as a consistent representative of the market economy, while the CDU was then dominated nominally from the Ahlen Programme, which allowed a
Third Way between
capitalism and
socialism.
Ludwig Erhard, the father of the
social market economy, had his followers in the early years of the Federal Republic in the CDU/CSU rather than in the FDP. The FDP won
Hesse's 1950 state election with 31.8 percent of the vote, the best result in its history, through appealing to East Germans displaced by the war by including them on their ticket. Up to the 1950s, several of the FDP's regional organizations were to the right of the CDU/CSU, particularly the
Hesse,
Lower Saxony, and
North Rhine-Westphalia branches where
Friedrich Middelhauve tried to foster a National Rally as a third bloc next to Social Democrats and Christian Democrats. This was criticized by the social liberals around
Theodor Heuss who distanced himself from the "Nazi FDP" branches. Under the influence of the party's right wing, the Free Democrats campaigned against West Germany's
denazification provisions and courted even former office-holders of the Third Reich with nationalist values. At their party conference in Munich in 1951, they demanded the release of all "so-called
war criminals" and welcomed the establishment of the "Association of German soldiers" of former
Wehrmacht and
SS members to advance the integration of the Nazi forces in democracy. These FDP members were seen as part of the
far-right extremist bloc, along with the
German Party in West Germany, by US intelligence officials. The 1953
Naumann Circle, named after
Werner Naumann, consisted of a group of former Nazis who tried to infiltrate the party. After the
British occupation authorities had arrested seven prominent members of the Naumann Circle, the FDP federal board installed a commission of inquiry, chaired by Thomas Dehler, which particularly sharply criticized the situation in the North Rhine-Westphalian FDP. In the following years, the right wing lost power, and the extreme right increasingly sought areas of activity outside the FDP. In the
1953 federal election, the FDP received 9.5 percent of the party votes, 10.8 percent of the primary vote (with 14 direct mandates, particularly in
Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Hesse,
Württemberg, and
Bavaria) and 48 of 487 seats. In the second term of the Bundestag, the South German Liberal Democrats gained influence in the party controlling the party leadership between 1954 and 1960. Thomas Dehler, a representative of a more social-liberal course from
Bavaria took over as party and parliamentary leader. The former Minister of Justice Dehler, who in 1933 suffered persecution by the Nazis, was known for his populist rhetorics and tried to emancipate the party from Adenauer's CDU/CSU. In the mid-1950s, there were some disagreements between Dehler and Adenauer over foreign policy issues, particularly the founding of the
European Defence Community and the
Saar statute. The FDP took an emphatically nationalist stance on both issues. In 1956, the infights between Dehler and Adenauer culminated in a government crisis: The FDP in North Rhine-Westphalia terminated their alliance with the Christian Democrats and formed a new state government with the
Social Democratic Party of Germany and the
German Center Party which led to a party split. 16 members of parliament, including former party leader
Franz Blücher and the four federal ministers from the FDP left their party and founded the short-lived
Free People's Party (FVP). Whilst the FVP continued the government coalition with Adenauer's CDU/CSU and merged with the right-wing German Party in 1957, the FDP took it to the opposition for the first time in its history. In the 1962
Spiegel affair, the FDP temporarily withdrew their ministers from the federal government forcing
Defence Minister Franz-Josef Strauß to resign. In accordance with his agreement with the FDP, Adenauer resigned from his chancellorship in October 1963, making place for
Ludwig Erhard who appointed FDP leader Erich Mende as Vice Chancellor and
Minister of All-German Affairs. In the
1965 federal election the FDP gained 9.5 percent. The Free Democrats initially renewed their alliance with the CDU under Erhard but the coalition broke up in 1966 on the issue of tax increases. During the 1966-1969
Grand coalition the party led the opposition. Under their new chairman, Walter Scheel, there were signs of a change both in foreign policy and in party strategy: For the first time, the FDP opened up to a coalition with the SPD on a federal level, embracing foreign minister
Willy Brandt's
Ostpolitik.
1969–1982: social changes and crises served as Foreign Minister, Vice Chancellor, Acting Chancellor and
President of Germany. The
1969 West German federal election led to the first
social-liberal coalition between Social Democrats and Free Democrats in German post-war history. Even though the Christian Democrats won the election, the Free Democrats rejected a new centre-right alliance and opted for a centre-left coalition under the new Chancellor
Willy Brandt. With FDP leader Walter Scheel as Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister, the liberals initiated a new controversial
Ostpolitik effectively normalizing relations between capitalist-democratic West Germany and communist-led East Germany. Within the FDP, this policy was quite controversial, especially after the
de facto recognition of the
Oder-Neisse line by the 1970
Treaty of Warsaw. In July 1970, right-wing members founded a "non-partisan" organization called the National-Liberal Action with the goal of breaking up the SPD/FDP coalition government. A little later, members of parliament Siegfried Zoglmann,
Heinz Starke and former party leader
Erich Mende left the party with Starke and Mende joining the CDU and Zoglmann founding a new splinter party called German Union
(Deutsche Union). This led to the
1972 snap election from which the SPD/FDP government emerged even stronger. In 1974, party leader Walter Scheel was the second Liberal to be elected Federal President after
Theodor Heuss. He was succeeded by Interior Minister
Hans-Dietrich Genscher as the new FDP leader and Foreign Minister who continued the centre-left coalition under new SPD Chancellor
Helmut Schmidt. The party's centre-left strategy was supported by a new party manifesto, the 1971 Freiburg Theses (
Freiburger Thesen) which set the party on a
progressive and
social liberal course. However, in 1977, the progressive liberal Freiburg Theses were supplemented and partially revised by the more
economically liberal Kiel Theses (
Kieler Thesen), effectively setting the party back on a classical liberal course. Even prior to the
1980 West German federal election, cooperation between Social Democrats and Free Democrats seemed to come to an end but the candidacy of CSU chairman
Franz Josef Strauss for chancellor led both parties to once again renew their coalition government.
1982–1998: Kohl government, economic transition and reunification In the fall of 1982, the FDP reneged on its coalition agreement with the SPD and instead threw its support behind the CDU/CSU. On 1 October, the FDP and CDU/CSU were able to oust Schmidt and replace him with CDU party chairman Helmut Kohl as the new Chancellor. The coalition change resulted in severe internal conflicts, and the FDP then lost about 20 percent of its 86,500 members, as reflected in the general election in 1983 by a drop from 10.6 percent to 7.0 percent. The members went mostly to the SPD, the Greens and newly formed splinter parties, such as the left-liberal party
Liberal Democrats (LD). The exiting members included the former FDP General Secretary and later EU Commissioner
Günter Verheugen. At the party convention in November 1982, the
Schleswig-Holstein state chairman
Uwe Ronneburger challenged
Hans-Dietrich Genscher as party chairman. Ronneburger received 186 of the votes—about 40 percent—and was just narrowly defeated by Genscher who went on to act as party chairman as well as Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister in the new
Kohl government. In the following federal election campaigns during the 1980s and 1990s, the party sided with the CDU and CSU, the main conservative parties in Germany. in 1980, FDP members who did not agree with the politics of the left-leaning FDP youth organization
Young Democrats founded the
Young Liberals (JuLis). For a time JuLis and the Young Democrats operated side by side, until the JuLis became the sole official youth wing of the FDP in 1983. The Young Democrats split from the FDP and were left as a party-independent youth organization ultimately merging with a marxist youth group to form the "Young Democrats/Young Left" in 1992. During the "
Peaceful Revolution" of 1989 in the
GDR, a couple of new liberal parties emerged from the opposition, like the
Free Democratic Party (East Germany) or the
German Forum Party. Prior to the
March 1990 Volkskammer election they joined the established
Liberal Democratic Party, who had previously acted as a pro-communist
bloc party on the side of the SED, to form the
Alliance of Free Democrats (BFD). In the
Volkskammer election of March 1990 the Association of Free Democrats was heavily supported by the West German FDP and polled 5.28% of the votes. Most of the seats went to
Liberal Democratic Party members, whose leader
Rainer Ortleb became their parliamentary leader. It then participated in the last GDR government led by
Lothar de Maizière. After the
Liberal Democratic Party and another former bloc party, the
National Democratic Party of Germany, merged into the new party
Association of Free Democrats in late March, the several liberal parties all united with the West German FDP in August 1990 to form the first all-German party. The merger brought the Free Democrats a great, albeit short-lived, increase in membership and assets of DM 6.3 million in cash and property. At the time of reunification, the FDP's objective was a special economic zone in the former East Germany, but the party could not prevail against the CDU/CSU. In the
first all-German Bundestag election, the centre-right Kohl coalition was confirmed, the FDP received 11.0 percent of the valid votes (79 seats) and won in Genscher's city of birth
Halle (Saale) the first direct mandate since 1957. During the 1990s, the FDP won between 6.2 and 11 percent of the vote in Bundestag elections. In the second half of the 1990s, however, the FDP had to contend with a series of electoral defeats at local and state level, which led to it falling out of twelve of the 16 state parliaments and the European Parliament between 1993 and 1995. The party was derisively referred to as the 'lady without an abdomen'. At the same time, the party was shaken by new infights between the left and right wings. In 1996, Federal Minister of Justice
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, a prominent representative of the party's
social liberal wing, resigned in protest to the government's policy of expanding the state's right to interfere in citizens' private domain by means of acoustic observation
(Großer Lauschangriff, literally "big eavesdropping attack"). On the other hand, former
Public Prosecutor General Alexander von Stahl tried to rebuild the party's
national liberal wing in an ultimately failed attempt to bring the FDP onto a right-wing course modelled on
Jörg Haider's
FPÖ in
Austria. These infights contributed to the CDU/CSU-FDP defeat in the
1998 German federal election which ended the 16-year centre-right coalition in Germany and the FDP's nearly three decade reign in government. For the first time since 1969 (apart from a brief period in 1982), the Free Democrats now found themselves in opposition and out of power on a federal level.
2002 and 2005 federal elections Following their electoral defeat, the party developed a strategy of equidistance to the CDU and SPD championed by
North Rhine-Westfalia state party leader
Jürgen Möllemann who led the party to a good result in the
2000 state election. At their 2001 party conference in Düsseldorf, outgoing party leader
Wolfgang Gerhardt was replaced by a 39 year old
Guido Westerwelle who became the youngest FDP leader in history. The party conference also adopted a strategy developed by Möllemann which became known as 'Project 18'. It aimed at winning new groups of voters through new forms of communication and presentation and at profiling the party as an independent force autonomous from SPD and CDU. The name referred to the electoral goal of tripling the party's share of the vote from 6% to 18%. While Westerwelle and Möllemann generated a lot of media attention, the party was once again embroiled in controversy on Westerwelle's perceived lack of seriousness in his election campaign ("Spaßwahlkampf") and on Möllemann's alleged right-wing populism. Many critics interpreted the use of the
number 18 as a hidden right-wing extremist symbol (a code for the letters A and H, meaning Adolf Hitler) and an attempt to attract voters on the far right. In addition, Möllemann launched a leaflet campaign with harsh criticism of the
Israeli government under
Ariel Sharon and the German-Jewish journalist
Michel Friedman, which critics interpreted as anti-Semitism. Amid controversy over a possible right-wing populist orientation associated with this, the FDP ultimately achieved 7.4% instead of the targeted 18 per cent in the
2002 German federal election. In the
2005 general election the party won 9.8 percent of the vote and 61 federal deputies, an unpredicted improvement from prior opinion polls. It is believed that this was partly due to
tactical voting by CDU and
Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU) alliance supporters who hoped for stronger market-oriented economic reforms than the CDU/CSU alliance called for. However, because the CDU did worse than predicted, the FDP and the CDU/CSU alliance were unable to form a coalition government. At other times, for example after the 2002 federal election, a coalition between the FDP and CDU/CSU was impossible primarily because of the weak results of the FDP. The CDU/CSU parties had achieved the third-worst performance in German postwar history with only 35.2 percent of the votes. Therefore, the FDP was unable to form a coalition with its preferred partners, the CDU/CSU parties. As a result, the party was considered as a potential member of two other
political coalitions, following the election. One possibility was a partnership between the FDP, the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the
Alliance 90/The Greens, known as a "
traffic light coalition", named after the colors of the three parties. This coalition was ruled out, because the FDP considered the Social Democrats and the Greens insufficiently committed to market-oriented
economic reform. The other possibility was a CDU-FDP-Green coalition, known as a "
Jamaica coalition" because of the colours of the three parties. This coalition wasn't concluded either, since the Greens ruled out participation in any coalition with the CDU/CSU. Instead, the CDU formed a
Grand coalition with the SPD, and the FDP entered the
opposition. FDP leader
Guido Westerwelle became the unofficial leader of the opposition by virtue of the FDP's position as the largest opposition party in the Bundestag. In the
2009 European election, the FDP received 11% of the national vote (2,888,084 votes in total) and returned 12
MEPs.
2009–2013: Merkel II government In the
September 2009 federal election, the FDP increased its share of the vote by 4.8 percentage points to 14.6%, an all-time record. This percentage was enough to offset a decline in the CDU/CSU's vote compared to 2005, to create a CDU-FDP centre-right governing coalition in the Bundestag with a 53% majority of seats. On election night, party leader Westerwelle said his party would work to ensure that civil liberties were respected and that Germany got an "equitable tax system and better education opportunities". The party also made gains in the two state elections held at the same time, acquiring sufficient seats for a CDU-FDP coalition in the northernmost state,
Schleswig-Holstein, and gaining enough votes in left-leaning
Brandenburg to clear the 5% hurdle to enter that state's parliament. However, after reaching its best ever election result in 2009, the FDP's support collapsed. The party's policy pledges were put on hold by Merkel as the
Great Recession unfolded and with the onset of the
Euro area crisis. By the end of 2010, the party's support had dropped to as low as 5%. The FDP retained their seats in the state elections in
North Rhine-Westphalia, which was held six months after the federal election, but out of the seven state elections that have been held since 2009, the FDP have lost all their seats in five of them due to failing to cross the 5% threshold. Support for the party further eroded amid infighting and an internal rebellion over euro-area bailouts during the
Euro area crisis. Westerwelle stepped down as party leader following the 2011 state elections, in which the party was wiped out in
Saxony-Anhalt and
Rhineland-Palatinate and lost half its seats in
Baden-Württemberg. Westerwelle was replaced in May 2011 by
Philipp Rösler. Rösler was the first cabinet minister and vice-chancellor of Asian background in Germany. Rösler was the first cabinet minister and vice-chancellor of Asian background in Germany. The change in leadership failed to revive the FDP's fortunes, however, and in the next series of state elections, the party lost all its seats in
Bremen,
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and
Berlin. In Berlin, the party lost nearly 75% of the support they had had in the previous election. In March 2012, the FDP lost all their state-level representation in the
2012 Saarland state election. However, this was offset by the
Schleswig-Holstein state elections, when they achieved 8% of the vote, which was a severe loss of seats but still over the 5% threshold. In the snap elections in
North Rhine-Westphalia a week later, the FDP not only crossed the electoral threshold, but also increased its share of the votes to 2 percentage points higher than in the previous state election. This was attributed to the local leadership of
Christian Lindner.
2013 federal election The FDP last won a directly elected seat in 1990, in
Halle—the only time it has won a directly elected seat since 1957. The party's inability to win directly elected seats came back to haunt it at the
2013 election, in which it came up just short of the 5% threshold. With no directly elected seats, the FDP was shut out of the Bundestag for the first time since 1949. After the previous chairman Philipp Rösler then resigned, Christian Lindner took over the leadership of the party.
2014 European and state elections In the
2014 European parliament election, the FDP received 3.4% of the national vote (986,253 votes in total) and returned 3
MEPs. In the
2014 Brandenburg state election the party experienced a 5.8% down-swing and lost all their representatives in the Brandenburg state parliament. In the
2014 Saxony state election, the party experienced a 5.2% down-swing, again losing all of its seats. In the
2014 Thuringian state election a similar phenomenon was repeated with the party falling below the 5% threshold following a 5.1% drop in popular vote.
2015–2020 The party managed to enter parliament in the
2015 Bremen state election with the party receiving 6.5% of the vote and gaining 6 seats. However, it failed to get into government as a coalition between the Social Democrats and the Greens was created. In the
2016 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election the party failed to get into parliament despite increasing its vote share by 0.3%. The party did manage to get into parliament in
Baden-Württemberg, gaining 3% of the vote and a total of 12 seats. This represents a five-seat improvement over their previous results. In the
2016 Berlin state election the party gained 4.9% of the vote and 12 seats but still failed to get into government. A red-red-green coalition was instead formed relegating the FDP to the opposition. In the
2016 Rhineland-Palatinate state election, the party managed to enter parliament receiving 6.2% of the vote and 7 seats. It also managed to enter government under a
traffic light coalition. In
2016 Saxony-Anhalt state election the party narrowly missed the 5% threshold, receiving 4.9% of the vote and therefore receiving zero seats despite a 1% swing in their favour. The
2017 North Rhine-Westphalia state election was widely considered a test of the party's future as their chairman Christian Lindner was also leading the party in that state. The party experienced a 4% swing in its favour gaining 6 seats and entering into a coalition with the CDU with a bare majority. In the
2017 Saarland state election the party again failed to gain any seats despite a 1% swing in their favour. The party gained 3 seats and increased its vote share by 3.2% in the
2017 Schleswig-Holstein state election. This success was often credited to their state chairman
Wolfgang Kubicki. They also managed to re-enter the government under a
Jamaica coalition. In the
2017 federal election the party scored 10.7% of votes and re-entered the Bundestag, winning 80 seats. After the election, a
Jamaica coalition was considered between the CDU, Greens, and FDP. However, FDP chief Christian Lindner walked out of the coalition talks due to a disagreement over European migration policy, saying "It is better not to govern than to govern badly." As a result, the CDU/CSU formed another
grand coalition with the SPD. The FDP won 5.4% and 5 seats in the
2019 European election. In the
October 2019 Thuringian state election, the FDP won seats in the Landtag of
Thuringia for the first time since 2009. It exceeded the 5% threshold by just 5 votes. In February 2020, the FDP's
Thomas Kemmerich was elected Minister-President of Thuringia by the Landtag with the likely support of the CDU and
AfD, becoming the second member of the FDP to serve as head of government in a German state. This was also the first time a head of government had been elected with the support of AfD. Under intense pressure from state and federal politicians, Kemmerich resigned the following day, stating he would seek new elections. The next month, he was replaced by
Bodo Ramelow of
The Left; the FDP did not run a candidate in the second vote for Minister-President.
2021–present is the party chairman, having succeeded
Christian Lindner in May 2025. In 2021, the FDP returned to the
Saxony-Anhalt state parliament after five years of absence. They had similar success in
Baden-Württemberg and
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, but faced setbacks in
Baden-Württemberg,
Berlin and
Rhineland-Palatinate. In the
September 2021 federal election, the CDU/CSU under
Armin Laschet was defeated. The FDP saw both its vote share and number of seats grow, to 11.5% and 92 seats respectively. As a result, the SPD, Greens, and FDP entered talks to form an
Ampelkoalition (
traffic light coalition). In the agreement finalized on 24 November, the FDP held four federal ministries in the
Scholz cabinet (
Finance,
Justice,
Digital and Transport and
Education and Research). After the comeback in the Federal Government, the FDP saw poor approval in national opinion polls, and started falling out of multiple state parliaments. In March 2022, the FDP didn't win any seats in
Saarland. Then in October it lost all 11 of their seats in
Lower Saxony. It also lost all 12 seats in the
2023 Berlin repeat state election, and in May they lost over half their seats in
North Rhine-Westphalia and
Schleswig-Holstein. In the
2023 Bavarian state election, where
Martin Hagen led the party, it lost all 11 seats. The FDP were similarly wiped out in the
2024 Thuringian state election, where
Thomas Kemmerich lost his party's 5 seats, again in the
2024 Saxony state election, where the FDP achieved less than 1% of the vote, and lastly in the
2025 Hamburg state election, where the party lost its last constituency sit, making a total of six states where the party was wiped out since 2021. In the
2024 European Parliament election the party kept on 5 seats, coming in sixth, behind the newly formed
BSW. In November 2024,
Christian Lindner was fired as
Minister of Finance. The FDP leaving the coalition meant the
collapse of the traffic light government. With the crisis taking place the four ministries held by the party were lost, as
Marco Buschmann and
Bettina Stark-Watzinger resigned. However,
Digital and Transport minister
Volker Wissing decided to resign from the FDP instead in order to stay in cabinet. On the same month controversy was sparked after
Die Zeit and
Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the crisis was in fact a deliberate strategy by the FDP, planned for weeks in advance, in a paper with heavy use of militaristic terminology, including the word
D-Day, a reference to allied invasion of Normandy during WWII. The reports contradicted declarations by the party leader Lindner on Scholz's "calculated break" of the governing coalition. In the
subsequent snap election, FDP failed to reach the
5% threshold needed for parliamentary representation and as a result lost all their seats in
Bundestag again.
Christian Lindner and
Wolfgang Kubicki would resign from party leadership. In March 2026 the FDP failed to reach the
5% threshold in both the
2026 Baden-Württemberg and
Rhineland-Palatinate state elections and as a result they lost all of their seats in both state parliaments. On 23 March 2026, there were reports that Christian Dürr along with the rest of the party leadership would resign from their positions ahead of the party congress scheduled for May. == Ideology and platform ==