FDP: Treasurer Solms announces resignation

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FDP politician Hermann Otto Solms: Treasurer for many years

Hermann Otto Solms belongs to the inventory of the FDP. Since December 2013 he was treasurer of the party, even with interruptions in the decades before. In total he held the office three times.

But now the 79-year-old wants to give up the post - and thus possibly opens up party leader Christian Lindner an option to make personnel changes in the party's presidium. For weeks there have been persistent rumors that Lindner wanted to replace the FDP General Secretary Linda Teuteberg and that he was dissatisfied with her work. Teuteberg has only been in office since April last year, her new election would not be due until May 2021.

Solms has now announced in a letter that SPIEGEL has received, his "resignation" at the next federal party conference on September 19. "After I have been a member of the Bundestag for ten legislative terms, I will not run again for this election," he wrote in it. That is why he now thinks the right time has come to "announce my resignation (final!) From the office of Federal Treasurer with effect from the coming federal party conference on September 19th".

A crucial sentence in the letter reads: He had agreed on this with Christian Lindner some time ago. "In this way, the party leadership can be geared towards the future today," continues Solms.

In the letter to the FDP federal executive, dated August 13, Solms also goes into the party's financial position. The point in time for his decision seems to him to be suitable, "because in the middle of the year we have overcome the excessive indebtedness of the federal party since 1990". The finance department is well positioned in terms of organization and balance sheet, expenditure and income are in a balanced relationship to one another, "even if the donation income this year still leaves something to be desired due to the corona". The financial basis for a healthy further development of the party has been laid, so Solms.

The letter arrives a few days before a federal board meeting that is to be held next Monday in Berlin.

In connection with the rumors about the replacement of Teuteberg, SPIEGEL wrote last Friday that Lindner had made an offer to his general secretary before the summer break: the chairman of the Saxon-Anhalt FDP politician Frank Sitta, who is giving up his top political positions, will be vacated in the presidium. Lindner asked her at a meeting in Berlin to propose her to the party congress in September for this post and to upgrade her as Eastern Commissioner. Teuteberg refused, it is said that it was not enough for her. The FDP politician did not want to confirm the process on request.