Reunification Could Pull the Rug Out From Under ‘Small Town in Germany’ : Europe: The capital of new nation would probably move to Berlin. Landlords fear a mass exodus.

After years of trying to be taken seriously as the capital of West Germany, this sleepy, Rhine-side university town has the feeling that the political and economic rug is being pulled out from under it.

Pulling at the rug is German reunification, a development likely to come sooner rather than later, which means that the capital of the Federal Republic will probably move to Berlin--seat of past governments of kings, kaisers, republicans and Nazis.

Bonn’s first qualms surfaced a few days ago when the federal government announced that it was halting preliminary work on the new $150-million federal press and information center here.

Construction was also ordered stopped on a new lobbying office here for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Feelings of panic are rising among landlords, who fear a mass exodus of politicians, diplomats and journalists to Berlin, depressing inflated rents and prices for houses and apartments.

“This could be a city in ruins,” commented a leading Christian Democratic member of Parliament, Kai-Uwe von Hassel, who urged that the capital remain in Bonn.

And Bonn’s Mayor Hans Daniels calls the issue “a red-hot poker.”

Bonn’s worries come as the city of 300,000 has experienced the biggest building boom in its history: Last year six hotels were completed, increasing bed space by one third; a new legislative chamber for the Bundestag, or Parliament, is being finished, and new (and, in most cases, unsightly) federal office buildings are springing up all over town.

At last, civic fathers had thought, Bonn, with its fine city orchestra, parks, restaurants, and new ministries, would cease being the butt of jokes about its provincialism and small scale.

Now the question raised by many here is whether all the new buildings will end up as white elephants if the government and ministries decide to pack up and leave.

In announcing cessation of construction for the information headquarters, an official said: “We don’t know if we will stay here or move to Berlin.”

Bonn has long been sensitive about being described as “a small town in Germany” by spy-thriller writer John le Carre or being called by its more common nickname, the “Bundesdorf”--the federal village.

The guiding force behind Bonn’s being chosen as the federal capital was the first postwar federal chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, who had been mayor of Cologne and lived across the Rhine from Bonn in a village called Rhoendorf, where he tended his roses.

Adenauer’s scheme in selecting Bonn was to keep alive the notion that an eventually reunited Germany would return its government to Berlin, and Bonn’s function as the West German capital in the meantime would keep a major city such as Cologne, Frankfurt, Hamburg or Munich from being chosen and irreversibly established as the capital.

Bonn, then centered around the university, began annexing villages on both sides of the Rhine, but it didn’t have the kind of facilities needed for proper government buildings and foreign embassies.

So the Parliament was placed in a teachers college, and the president’s and chancellor’s official residences were former private mansions. Federal offices commandeered whatever space they could find, and major embassies such as those of the United States and Britain were housed in Spartan prefabricated buildings.

The temporary appearance of the government quarter contrasted with the fine old university buildings in the city where Beethoven was born.

On weekends, Bonn looked like a ghost town as politicians departed for their home constituencies and the more sophisticated pleasures of the bigger cities.

“What’s the best thing about Bonn?” ran an old joke. “The train to Munich.” Or Frankfurt, or Hamburg. Another: “Bonn has half the population of a Chicago cemetery and is twice as dead.”

But in the early 1980s, the government seemed to decide that Bonn might remain the capital for some time to come, and a major building effort was undertaken.

Yellow and orange cranes went up along Route B-9 between Bonn and the diplomatic community of Bad Godesberg to erect federal structures, embassies and lobbying group headquarters. Castles were renovated for government guests and new museums were established. An expensive remodeling of the Parliament building was begun.

Just two months ago, Chancellor Helmut Kohl signed a $75-billion contract to support the extra needs of the city as the capital through the 1990s, ensuring that all the buildings under construction will be completed.

With speculation rising over Bonn’s future role, Mayor Daniels is mounting a campaign to hang onto the capital. He says, “We stand on the threshold of a fateful year.”

An estimated 100,000 people, a third of the population, rely on Bonn being the capital for their livelihood.

Other officials are urging that if the capital shifts to Berlin, most of the ministry staffs should remain in Bonn, since Berlin is already overcrowded and short of office and living space.

The mood of Bonn workers who would be affected is mixed.

One secretary said: “I like it here. Things are quiet and living is pleasant. Berlin is too big, noisy and dirty.”

But a newspaper bureau manager said: “I’m looking forward to moving to Berlin. Now that would be a real world-class capital.”

Officials at the newly completed Maritim Hotel in Bonn said optimistically: “We are not too worried. We’ve got bookings well into 1995.”

But if there’s no governmental reason to come to Bonn, bookings might be canceled, and, city officials fear, Bonn itself might be “canceled.”