1952. However, the draft was rejected in favour of a liberal manifesto, and the conspirators were arrested by British authorities in January 1953. Before the arrests, the British authorities had consulted three high-ranking FDP politicians (Theodor Heuss as Federal President, Franz Blücher as Vice-Chancellor and federal party chairman and Dehler as Minister of Justice), who had advised them to intervene. Dehler, along with Fritz Neumayer and Alfred Onnen, formed an internal fact-finding committee that reproached parts of the North Rhine-Westphalia branch. Dismissal as minister The Federal elections of September 1953 resulted in large gains for CDU/CSU, while its coalition partners sustained slight losses. Adenauer missed an absolute majority by only one seat but to ensure a solid majority for his policy of Western integration and rearmament, all coalition partners were retained. However, because of the Minister of Justice's increasing differences with the Chancellor and because of "a serious breach of confidentiality" in the context of the Naumann affair, Dehler was replaced by Fritz Neumayer. This move met little opposition by fellow ministers and was supported President Heuss and Höpker-Aschoff, both fellow FDP members. Party leader Immediately after his departure from government, Dehler was elected chairman of FDP's parliamentary group and of the federal party, replacing Hermann Schäfer and Vice-Chancellor Franz Blücher, respectively. The reasoning behind this move was that the FDP deputies blamed their party's losses in the election on a lack of distinctive profile and now choosing an opponent of Adenauer as their leader. Dehler now combined two central party offices for the first time since 1949. Even though the FDP remained the CDU/CSU's partner in government, the party now vocally addressed disagreements. Notable issues were the Saar issue, which hit its peak in the mid-fifties, and proposed changes to electoral law. In 1954, Dehler played a vital role in Bavarian politics again, engineering a coalition between his party, the Social Democrats, the Bavaria Party and the refugee party BHE. All parties in the Bavarian parliament except the largest - the Christian Social Union – combined to elect Social Democrat Wilhelm Hoegner as prime minister. A major issue for Dehler was the replacing Bavaria's system of denominational elementary schools, which had been restored after the fall of the Nazi regime, with interdenominational institutions. The coalition indeed reformed the training of elementary school teachers but proved unstable. After the CDU/CSU's triumphal victory at the Federal elections of 1957, the coalition