• “Influential and Unsuspicious Assistance”

    Chancellor Scholz visits founding anniversary of the Partido Socialista (PS) in Lisbon. Founded by the SPD-affiliated foundation in Bad Münstereifel, it had maintained excellent contacts to Bonn.

    BAD MÜNSTEREIFEL/LISBON (Own report) – With his attendance at the 50th anniversary of the founding of Portugal’s Partido Socialista (PS), Chancellor Olaf Scholz has commemorated the party’s founding in Bad Münstereifel, in German exile. On April 19, 1973, the later Prime Minister, Mário Soares, and other members of the opposition to the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar founded the PS in an academic institution of the SPD-affiliated Friedrich Ebert Foundation (“Haus Münstereifel”). With the help of the West German foundation, the new party sought also to position itself against the, at the time, very strong Partido Communista Português and to prevent it from coming to power. By aiding the PS, the foundation was also securing for itself and the SPD the best political contacts to Portugal. Similar processes are known to have taken place in relationship to Spain and Greece. Exiled members of the Greek opposition, who had been integrated in political networks in the Federal Republic of Germany – often by the SPD – later became ministers or president in Athens. The social democrats’ support for the PS was also intended to detract from the fact that Bonn was supporting the Salazar dictatorship with arms deliveries for its colonial wars in Africa. Read more