German Transport Minister Volker Wissing left the Free Democratic Party so he could remain in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government after the three-party coalition broke apart. Wissing said Scholz had asked whether he would continue as a minister and that, after considering the offer, he agreed.
The decision separated Wissing from other FDP ministers, who had been expected to submit their resignations after Scholz dismissed party leader and Finance Minister Christian Lindner the previous evening. Rather than leave the cabinet, Wissing notified Lindner that he was resigning from the party. He said he had received no response from the FDP leader at the time of his news conference.
Wissing framed the move as a personal choice intended to avoid burdening his former party while serving in a government it no longer supported. He said he did not plan to join another party and wanted to remain true to himself. His continued presence gave Scholz an experienced transport minister as the chancellor moved forward with a minority administration.
By leaving the FDP rather than carrying its membership into the minority cabinet, Wissing removed an immediate question over whether he represented the party in government. His statement instead positioned him as an unaffiliated minister serving at the chancellor’s request, without announcing a new political affiliation.
Three parliamentary state secretaries in the transport ministry took the opposite position. Daniela Kluckert, Oliver Luksic and Gero Hocker asked Wissing to arrange their immediate dismissal by Germany’s federal president. In a statement posted on X, the three FDP politicians said they no longer trusted Wissing following what they called his solitary decision.
The break was notable because Wissing had previously occupied a central position in the FDP. He served as the party’s general secretary during the 2021 election campaign and helped Lindner negotiate the governing coalition with Scholz’s Social Democrats and the Greens. Images of Wissing and Lindner alongside senior Green politicians Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock had come to symbolize the coalition’s formation.
Tensions between Wissing and parts of the FDP had grown before the government fell. Some members of the parliamentary group believed he was too accommodating toward the Social Democrats and Greens. Wissing was absent from the FDP parliamentary meeting held after the coalition rupture, where participants reportedly gave Lindner a standing ovation.
Days earlier, Wissing had argued publicly that withdrawing from government would be disrespectful to voters. In a newspaper opinion article, he said the electorate had chosen three parties and expected them to find compromises rather than implement a purely Green, Social Democratic, Christian Democratic or FDP program. The argument contrasted with Lindner’s effort to increase pressure on Scholz and Habeck for further economic reforms.
Wissing’s party resignation turned that position into a concrete institutional choice. He retained executive responsibility for transport policy but gave up his formal place in the political organization that had brought him into the cabinet.
The episode illustrated the immediate personnel consequences of the coalition’s collapse. Scholz lost his finance minister and the FDP withdrew from government, yet Wissing stayed, leaving the transport ministry divided between a minister continuing in office and three senior deputies seeking to depart.
