On 6 November 2024, Olaf Scholz, the incumbent chancellor of Germany, announced the dismissal of Christian Lindner, the then-finance minister and leader of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), from his cabinet.

With SPD and The Greens being considered centre-left and FDP economically liberal, the ideological differences between the three parties led to challenges in the newly formed government from the start.

[6] Additionally, the country entered an economic crisis while under leadership of the traffic light coalition, leading to falling approval ratings.

Scholz's cabinet had reallocated unspent debt proceeds – originally designated to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic – to its climate action budget.

In all three states, far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and left-populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) gained large numbers of voters.

[11] In October 2024, Robert Habeck, Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and member of The Greens, proposed a debt-financed fund to promote investment by companies in order to fill the gap in the government's budget.

As Kukies was formerly an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, his appointment was criticised by some politicians, including members of Scholz's own Social Democratic Party as well as Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of the left-populist BSW.

[19] On 15 November, the newspapers Die Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung independently reported that the FDP had been planning a strategy to break the coalition for several weeks.

[23] Criticism came from the SPD upon the revelation that their coalition partner had apparently not been acting in good faith for weeks: parliamentary leader Rolf Mützenich described himself as "feeling deceived and disappointed" and "horrified" by the controversial language.

[25] In an 18 November interview with RTL and n-tv, FDP general secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai flatly denied the use of the term "D-Day" and stated the party's leadership was not aware of the paper.

SPD acting general secretary Matthias Miersch described Djir-Sarai as "a transparent scapegoat" to protect Lindner and called it "unimaginable" that the party leader would not know of the paper's existence.

[28] In a written statement released that evening, Lindner again denied any knowledge of the paper and stated he would not have approved of it, and that it was only circulated among internal party staffers and not any elected officials.

[29] Marco Buschmann, who served as justice minister until the traffic light coalition's collapse, was appointed to succeed Djir-Sarai as general secretary of the FDP on 1 December.

Scholz' plan for a vote of confidence on 15 January 2025 would have required a possible snap federal election in early April at the latest, per the constitution.