The small German party at the centre of the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition was in disarray Friday, with key figures resigning over a leaked party document dubbed the "D-Day paper".
The liberal Free Democratic Party's general secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai said he was stepping down and party chairman Carsten Reymann also announced his resignation.
Scholz's three-way coalition broke up early this month, sparking new elections in February, after tensions came to a head between him and rebellious Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the FDP.
Both blamed each other for the collapse, but an FDP internal party document leaked to the media later suggested Lindner's troops had for weeks schemed to provoke the acrimonious end of the coalition.
The FDP has since drawn widespread condemnation -- including from within the party -- both for the alleged scheming and for the belligerent language used in the paper.
It refers to "the field battle" to be waged against the FDP's erstwhile coalition partners, Scholz's Social Democrats and the Greens, which would come to a head on what it dubbed "D-Day".
Djir-Sarai had earlier denied to German media that the document contained the phrase "D-Day".
But on Friday he admitted he "unwittingly gave false information".
"This was not my intention, as I myself had no knowledge of this paper, of how it was produced or of the nature of its contents," he said.
Lindner's sacking prompted the FDP to quit the government and left Scholz at the head of a minority coalition at a time when Germany faces a stuttering economy and a turbulent geopolitical context.
A snap election is now expected in late February, in which both the SPD and the Greens are expected to lose swathes of seats.
The FDP looks set to do even worse, hovering between three and four percent of the vote in the latest polls -- below the crucial five percent minimum for returning to parliament.
The conservative opposition CDU/CSU alliance has a commanding lead on around 32 percent, with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) polling at around 18 percent.