20 years chairman of the FDP in Saxony: Holger Zastrow

Photo: Matthias Hiekel/ dpa

The FDP in Saxony is losing a prominent member: Holger Zastrow, former state leader of the Liberals, is turning his back on his party. Zastrow confirmed corresponding media reports on X (formerly Twitter).

He left the FDP after 30 years, he wrote. "The decision was not easy for me and it is highly emotional for me. But I can't do it anymore." As justification, Zastrow also referred to the speech of FDP leader and Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner at the farmers' demonstration on Monday in Berlin. This was "the last straw".

Despite all the criticism, the reason for his step was not the policy of the Saxon FDP state association or that of the FDP in Dresden, but the policy of the FDP in the traffic light, it said. Above all, the merger of the Liberals with the Greens is a no-go. In his resignation statement, Zastrow wrote that as long as Guido Westerwelle had led the FDP, it had been his party. Westerwelle's downfall marked the beginning of a "creeping process of alienation." In the time that followed, he struggled. It took ten years "for me to admit to myself that we had grown apart."

The end point of this development was Lindner's speech on Monday. "It was the lowest point for me in 30 years of the FDP." He sees people "for whom we once went into political struggle and whose interests we represented." Now the concern for our country is bringing these people to the streets. "The speech showed how far removed we have become from the reality of our clientele's lives," says Zastrow. He "probably lives in a different world than my party."

Zastrow is harsh on the German government. "From my point of view, the policy of the traffic light is wrong, and so completely that I can hardly put it into words. Almost nothing meets my expectations, nothing is really good for our country." The FDP is "part of what is probably the worst government in the history of the Federal Republic."

Philipp Hartewig, general secretary of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) in Saxony, thanked Zastrow for his "unique commitment", but also looked back on the recent past. His estrangement from the FDP had become more visible in recent years. Nevertheless, we very much regret his intention to leave, because you can't really imagine a Holger Zastrow without the FDP." His resignation is a great loss for the Free Democrats, both politically and personally, Hartewig said.

Zastrow is considered a veteran of the Saxon liberals. At the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he co-founded the youth organization Young Liberal Action in Dresden. In 1999, he took over as chairman of the FDP after it crashed with 1.1 percent of the vote in the state elections in the same year.

For 20 years, Zastrow led the Saxony FDP, and from 2004 to 2014 he was also its parliamentary group leader in the state parliament. From 2009 to 2014, the FDP was in a coalition with the CDU in the Free State. Between 2011 and 2013, Zastrow was vice-chairman of the Free Democrats. He is currently a city councillor for the FDP in Dresden.

Zastrow stands for a much more conservative course of the FDP – which is probably one of the reasons why he quarreled with the traffic light alliance in Berlin. FDP party leader Christian Lindner and he were not considered political friends.

czl/ulz/dpa