[7] Since the 1980s, the party, consistently with its ordoliberal tradition, has pushed economic liberalism and has aligned itself closely to the promotion of free markets and privatization.

From the establishment of the National Liberal Party in 1867 until the demise of the Weimar Republic in 1933, the liberal-democratic camp was divided into a "national-liberal" and a "left-liberal" line of tradition.

Soon after World War II, the Soviet Union pushed for the creation of licensed "anti-fascist" parties in its occupation zone in East Germany.

In July 1945, former DDP politicians Wilhelm Külz, Eugen Schiffer and Waldemar Koch called for the establishment of a pan-German liberal party.

The place for the party's foundation was chosen deliberately: the "Heppenheim Assembly" was held at the Hotel Halber Mond on 10 October 1847, a meeting of moderate liberals who were preparing for what would be, within a few months, the German revolutions of 1848–1849.

In the first elections to the Bundestag on 14 August 1949, the FDP won a vote share of 11.9 percent (with 12 direct mandates, particularly in Baden-Württemberg and Hesse), and thus obtained 52 of 402 seats.

The FDP participated with the CDU/CSU and the national-conservative German Party (DP) in Adenauer's coalition cabinet; they had three ministers: Franz Blücher (Vice-Chancellor), Thomas Dehler (justice), and Eberhard Wildermuth (housing).

The FDP won Hesse's 1950 state election with 31.8 percent, the best result in its history, through appealing to East Germans displaced by the war by including them on their ticket.

[10] Under the influence of the party's right wing, the Free Democrats campaigned against West Germany's denazification provisions and courted even former office-holders of the Third Reich with nationalist values.

At their party conference in Munich in 1951 they demanded the release of all "so-called war criminals" and welcomed the establishment of the "Association of German soldiers" of former Wehrmacht and SS members to advance the integration of the Nazi forces in democracy.

Whilst the FVP continued the government coalition with Adenauer's CDU/CSU and merged with the right-wing German Party (DP) in 1957, the FDP took it to the opposition for the first time in its history.

With Mende as party leader the FDP went into the 1961 federal election with the promise of ending Konrad Adenauer's leadership and gained 12.8 percent nationwide, the best result until then.

[14] Among other things, the party committed itself to "self-determination", "democratization of society", a "reform of capitalism" and a form of ecoliberalism which prioritized "environmental protection over profit and personal gains".

Ronneburger received 186 of the votes—about 40 percent—and was just narrowly defeated by Genscher who went on to act as party chairman as well as Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister in the new Kohl government.

The merger brought the Free Democrats a great, albeit short-lived, increase in membership and assets of DM 6.3 million in cash and property.

In the first all-German Bundestag elections, the centre-right Kohl coalition was confirmed, the FDP received 11.0 percent of the valid votes (79 seats) and won in Genscher's city of birth Halle (Saale) the first direct mandate since 1957.

In 1996, Federal Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, a prominent representative of the party's social liberal wing, resigned in protest to the government's policy of expanding the state's right to interfere in citizens' private domain by means of acoustic observation (Großer Lauschangriff, literally "big eavesdropping attack").

On the other hand, former Public Prosecutor General Alexander von Stahl tried to rebuild the party's national liberal wing in an ultimately failed attempt to bring the FDP onto a right-wing course modelled on Jörg Haider's FPÖ in Austria.

[16][17] These infights contributed to the CDU/CSU-FDP defeat in the 1998 German federal election which ended the 16-year centre-right coalition in Germany and the FDP's nearly three decade reign in government.

It aimed at winning new groups of voters through new forms of communication and presentation and at profiling the party as an independent force autonomous from SPD and CDU.

Many critics interpreted the use of the number 18 as a hidden right-wing extremist symbol (a code for the letters A and H, meaning Adolf Hitler) and an attempt to attract voters on the far right.

This percentage was enough to offset a decline in the CDU/CSU's vote compared to 2005, to create a CDU-FDP centre-right governing coalition in the Bundestag with a 53% majority of seats.

The change in leadership failed to revive the FDP's fortunes, however, and in the next series of state elections, the party lost all its seats in Bremen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Berlin.

In the agreement finalised on 24 November, the FDP held four federal ministries in the Scholz cabinet (Finance, Justice, Digital and Transport and Education and Research).

[40] In the 2024 European Parliament elections, the FDP narrowly surpassed the 5% threshold, remaining on 5 seats and coming in sixth, behind the newly formed BSW.

[90] In 1971 during its federal social-liberal coalition with the SPD, the FDP published the Freiburger Thesis programme, heralding an ideological move towards reformism and social liberalism,[14][68] and support for environmental protection.

[92] Historical members of the party's social-liberal wing included Gerhart Baum and Werner Maihofer,[93] a faction who remained organised as the Freiberg Circle.

[97] Möllemann in the particular was noted for his role during the 2002 federal election in attempting to push the party in a right-wing populist direction, albeit to poor electoral results.

[98][99] During the 2017 federal election, the party called for Germany to adopt an immigration channel using a Canada-style points-based immigration system; spend up to 3% of GDP on defense and international security; phase out the solidarity surcharge tax (which was first levied in 1991 to pay for the costs of absorbing East Germany after German reunification); cut taxes by 30 billion euro (twice the amount of the tax cut proposed by the CDU); and improve road infrastructure by spending 2 billion euro annually for each of the next two decades, to be funded by selling government stakes in Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Telekom, and Deutsche Post.

[120][121][122][123][124] In the European Committee of the Regions, the Free Democratic Party sits in the Renew Europe CoR group, with one full member for the 2020–2025 mandate.