BERLIN – A senior figure in the party whose departure from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition three weeks ago put Germany on the road to an early election resigned Friday in a furor over an internal document discussing how the party could leave the government, a presentation whose title referred to “D-Day.”
Bijan Djir-Sarai of the pro-business Free Democrats said he was quitting as general secretary, the official responsible for day-to-day political strategy and election planning. He said he was “taking the political responsibility in order to head off damage to my credibility and that of the Free Democrats.”
The affair threatens to complicate further the Free Democrats’ campaign for an election in which polls already suggest they risk falling short of the 5% support needed to keep any seats in parliament.
Scholz fired Christian Lindner, the Free Democrats’ leader, as finance minister on Nov. 6 as a long-running dispute in his three-party coalition over …