The support of the German Liberal Party and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation to their Spanish counterpart during the Transition

Abstract

This article analizes the support that the German liberal party, Freie Demokratische Partei (FDP), provided to its Spanish counterparts, from the end of Francoism until the first democratic elections held in Juny 1977. The primary sources for this work have been documentation (originating) from the German Foreign Office and the German Federal Archiv; all of this was complemented with Spanish press of that time. Three main questions have been studied: the motivating factors behind the liberal`s involvement in the Spanish transition; the development of the Spanish liberal groups along the analized period; and how the German support to its Spanish partners took form. The conclusions highlight also three aspects: the first one, that despite the German will and the disproportionate political and economic effort, the Germans did not achieve their objective of a united liberal party in Spain; the second, the Spanish partners benefited from the German support but didn`t gave up with their political individualism; and finally, the emergence of the UCD and the integration of a large part of the Spanish liberal parties in it frustrated the initial target of the FDP. After that, the German liberals had to conduct the objective to a new goal: the enforcement of the liberal ideology of their very atomized and insignificant partners.