page_title: Free Democratic Party (Germany)
section_title: 1969–1982: social changes and crises
hierarchical_section_title: Free Democratic Party (Germany) / History / 1969–1982: social changes and crises
caption_attribution_description: Information added by Wikimedia users.*Deutsch: Portraitfoto Walter Scheels, 4. Bundespräsident der Bundesrepublik Deutschland von 1974 bis 1979, aufgenommen 1974. Scheel wurde am 15. Mai 1974 zum Bundespräsidenten gewählt, seine Amtszeit begann am 1. Juli.
context_page_description: The Free Democratic Party is a liberal political party in Germany. The FDP is led by Christian Lindner.
  The FDP was founded in 1948 by members of former liberal political parties which existed in Germany before World War II, namely the German Democratic Party and the German People's Party. For most of the German Federal Republic's history, it has held the balance of power in the Bundestag. It was a junior coalition partner to the CDU/CSU and the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In the 2013 federal election, the FDP failed to win any directly elected seats in the Bundestag and came up short of the 5 percent threshold to qualify for list representation, being left without representation in the Bundestag for the first time in its history. In the 2017 federal election, the FDP regained its representation in the Bundestag, receiving 10.6% of the vote.
  Predominantly classical-liberal, the FDP supports human rights, civil liberties, and internationalism. The party is traditionally considered centrist or centre-right. Since the 1980s, the party has pushed economic liberalism and has aligned itself closely to the promotion of free markets and privatization.
context_section_description: On 21 October 1969 began the period after the election of a Social-Liberal coalition with the SPD and the German Chancellor Willy Brandt. Walter Scheel was he who initiated the foreign policy reversal. Despite a very small majority he and Willy Brandt sat by the controversial New Ostpolitik. This policy was within the FDP quite controversial, especially since after the entry into the Federal Government defeats in state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony and Saarland on 14 June 1970 followed. In Hanover and Saarbrücken, the party left the parliament.
  After the federal party congress in Bonn, just a week later supported the policy of the party leadership and Scheel had confirmed in office, founded by Siegfried party rights Zoglmann 11 July 1970 a "non-partisan" organization called the National-Liberal action on the Hohensyburgstraße - to fall with the goal of ending the left-liberal course of the party and Scheel. However, this was not. Zoglmann supported in October 1970 a disapproval resolution of opposition to Treasury Secretary Alexander Möller, Erich Mende, Heinz Starke, and did the same. A little later all three declared their withdrawal from the FDP; Mende and Strong joined the CDU, Zoglmann later founded the German Union (Deutsche Union), which remained a splinter party.
  The foreign policy and the socio-political changes were made in 1971 by the Freiburg theses, which were as Rowohlt Paperback sold more than 100,000 times, on a theoretical basis, the FDP is committed to "social liberalism" and social reforms. Walter Scheel was first foreign minister and vice chancellor, 1974, he was then second-liberal President and paving the way for inner-party the previous interior minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher free.
  From 1969 to 1974 the FDP supported the SPD Chancellor Willy Brandt, who was succeeded by Helmut Schmidt. Already by the end of the 70s there did not seem to be enough similarities between the FDP and the SPD to form a new coalition, but the CDU/CSU chancellor candidate of Franz Josef Strauss in 1980 pushed the parties to run together again. The FDP's policies, however, began to drift apart from the SPD's, especially when it came to the economy. Within the SPD, there was strong grassroots opposition to Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's policies on the NATO Double-Track Decision. However, within the FDP, the conflicts and contrasts were always greater.
caption: Walter Scheel served as Foreign Minister, Vice Chancellor, Acting Chancellor and President of Germany
exif: {}