Bonn: One-Industry Town Loses That Industry : Germany: With the capital returning to Berlin, the ‘federal village’ on the Rhine asks compensation. Many small businesses feel the sky is falling.

A small town in Germany just got smaller.

As the reality of the historic Bundestag vote to move the capital to Berlin began to sink in Friday, this bucolic “federal village” on the Rhine anxiously pondered a future without its sole industry: government.

Mayor Hans Daniels and the City Council adopted a slew of resolutions demanding compensation for the university town of 300,000, where one-third of the population relies on Bonn’s being the capital for their livelihood.

Shifting the Bundestag and seat of government to the Prussian capital on the river Spree is expected to take up to 12 years and cost billions of dollars. Renovation of the Reichstag, the Parliament’s original home in Berlin, is expected to take at least four years.

The Bonn City Council noted the dramatic impact that the decision to move will have on the region.

A statement issued Friday afternoon said that “extraordinary compensation, especially from the federal government,” is called for to save Bonn from ruin. “The generous aid Berlin experienced over 40 years is now expected for the Bonn region,” the council declared. Isolated in the middle of what used to be Communist East Germany, Berlin enjoyed special status and heavy subsidies from the West German government.

Thursday’s revised 338-320 vote in favor of the move left many small businesses in Bonn facing almost certain doom.

“The Moor has done his duty, now he can go,” read a hand-lettered sign quoting German dramatist Friedrich von Schiller. It hung on the door of a tiny grocery tucked amid the complex of government buildings here.

The grocer had called parliamentary President Rita Suessmuth on Friday morning to ask what would happen now to the tiny enclave where a handful of shops cater almost exclusively to government workers.

“She immediately came over and got the shop owners together and tried to make us believe that it would be at least eight years before everything here goes away,” said Ben Madersbacher, a 36-year-old bookstore owner who took out an 80,000-mark (about $45,000) loan and posted his house as security to buy his shop in January.

“Nobody believed her, of course,” he said.

Madersbacher, a salesman in the store he eventually bought, had been encouraged by the clientele--members of Parliament and high-ranking officials who assured him the government would never abandon Bonn.

“Somehow, I kept thinking right up to the end that the government would never do something so crazy,” Madersbacher said. “I haven’t eaten anything since the day before yesterday.”

How much won’t be eaten in Bonn anymore is exactly what is worrying Jutta Deimel. The Bonn caterer runs canteens for three ministries and organizes 100 to 150 parties a week, “80% to 90% of them capital-related.”

“It’s not just directly the government itself with banquets and such,” Deimel said in a telephone interview. “Mostly, we do parties for associations, lobbyists and industry who are here solely because the government is. Parties of 300 people who pay 60, 70, 80 marks a head.

“Our first spontaneous reaction was to move to Berlin, too,” she said. “But it took 10 of the 15 years we’ve been here just to make a name for ourselves and build our reputation.

“It’s really sad from a business point of view,” she added. “But in my heart, as a German, I have to say I’m glad it’s Berlin.”

Bonn’s diplomatic community found itself left in the dark--and possibly in the lurch--after Thursday’s decision.

The Japanese, who have a big cultural and scientific center in Berlin already, just put the finishing touches on a 30-million-mark (about $18 million) embassy in Bonn for its 37 diplomats.

“It’s too early to tell what we’ll do,” said an embassy spokesman who declined to be identified. “We don’t know yet if the Foreign Ministry will go to Berlin.”

The Ugandan press attache was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying he hoped Germany would subsidize the move to Berlin for poorer countries.

“We don’t have any property in Berlin. That will be an expensive move, but we have no alternative but to go with our hosts,” said the attache, Joshua Mutabazi.

The Bundestag resolution made no mention of compensating foreign countries for their moves, or for money lost when Bonn real estate values plummet as a result of the pullout.

At the U.S. Embassy, the second-largest American embassy in the world (London is first), an official said it was “much too early” to say how and when the embassy might move to Berlin, where it already has a smaller mission. The Bonn embassy and the related American community, such as the American high school, employ more than 800 people.

Before the decision was made, one Third World ambassador privately expressed concerns for personal safety should Berlin be made the capital. Skinheads and other radical gangs have attacked foreigners, particularly in the eastern part of the city, and the diplomat expressed concern about “a lack of tolerance” that “makes it unsafe for foreigners to walk the streets.”

Another diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, felt uncomfortable about Berlin’s role as capital of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. “The Germans look at this as a historical decision; they always talk about history,” he said.

“This kind of explanation creates fear in some circles of revitalized Nazi movements in 10, 15, 20 years,” he said, adding at the same time that he nonetheless personally preferred Berlin, “because it’s a very lively city. Bonn is very boring.”

That image--of a passionless, provincial backwater--is something Bonn will have to fight to overcome as the government buildings empty and the population dwindles. Tourism has never been a strong drawing card for Bonn, since it has neither the romantic appeal of a medieval village nor the excitement of a big German city such as Munich or Hamburg. Bonn’s claims to fame are its age--2,000 years old--and the simple house where Beethoven was born.

And, of course, its status as a world capital.

A Swiss institute recently projected a 2.6 billion-mark loss of purchasing power in Bonn without that capital status.

The Bundestag resolution recommends that a “fair division of labor” be worked out between Bonn and Berlin and that the upper house of Parliament, the Bundesrat, stay behind with an undetermined number of secondary government offices. Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who voted for Berlin, previously has indicated that he would favor leaving the Defense Ministry and possibly the giant Postal Service in Bonn.

The resolution envisions Bonn remaining a kind of “administrative center” for Germany, and there has been speculation about fashioning some sort of European Community identity for the city, which is less than an hour’s drive from the Dutch and Belgian borders.

“The 1989 postage stamps already said ‘Bonn--Conference City,’ ” remarked one diplomat.

The City Council resolution did not address any specific future development plans for Bonn, but demanded that the Bundestag resolution be interpreted to mean that “only the core ministries be moved to Berlin.” It also asked for a “Bonn treaty” outlining compensation to the region.

The city also expressed concern over the numerous government building projects already in progress and sought guarantees that the skeletons would not be left standing unfinished.

Although Bonn was chosen as the “temporary” capital of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, dreams of reunifying with East Germany and returning the capital to Berlin waned in the 1980s, and a major building effort was launched.

New federal buildings, embassies and lobbyist high-rises began to sprout up, and old villas and castles were spruced up as guest houses for dignitaries. A month after the Berlin Wall fell, Kohl signed a $75-billion contract to meet the capital’s growing needs through the 1990s.

Bonn bureau researcher Reane Oppl contributed to this story.

COUNTERPOINT

While Germany’s decision to shift its Parliament and government to Berlin had Bonn singing the blues, property developers were drooling in Berlin on Friday. “You can earn as much money now from property development as from robbing a bank,” said Hartmann Vetter, chief executive of the Berlin Tenants Assn. Berlin used to be a cheap place to live, attracting a community of artists, students and squatters, but big companies with highly paid executives have moved in from the west since the Berlin Wall fell. Real estate prices have boomed since that momentous event in 1989, rising about 20% over the last year alone. The move of the capital will bring up to 100,000 politicians, civil servants, diplomats, lobbyists and their families.