Berlin Regains Its Old Role as Germany’s Hub

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder heralded the “culmination of German unity” Monday as he ushered parliament back to Berlin’s radically altered Reichstag, ending the capital’s 50 years of exile in a Rhine River village and, perhaps, the stigma of Germany as a threat to world peace.

The move of the power center from Bonn to Berlin brings Germany to the long-sought destination of its post-World War II journey: a “normal” country, free and united, exorcised of the evils of fascism and confident in its new role as the economic backbone of a prospering Europe.

Germans who gathered outside the Reichstag on a cold but sunny morning cheered as a parade of sleek limousines discharged dignitaries and lawmakers for the first event in the new capital. But the mood inside was notably restrained, with NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia--which have drawn German armed forces into their first combat role since World War II--casting a pall over the celebrations.

The restoration of the Reichstag as the seat of parliament, and of Berlin as the German capital, coincides with a dramatic shift of historical burdens that brings this nation full circle. The 55-year-old Schroeder, the first German leader with no personal memory of the Holocaust, has committed his country to emulating the Allies of World War II in teaching democracy and tolerance to those now conducting “ethnic cleansing” in the Balkans.

“We Germans must take these lessons to heart. We stand responsible, from our history, as the country that has twice fostered dictatorships this century and as the country that brought genocide and aggression across our continent,” Schroeder said in his address to the inaugural session of the Bundestag, or Federal Assembly.

Readiness to Repay Debts to History

As grateful recipients of the aid and advice provided by Allied occupiers after the Nazi defeat, Germans stand ready to repay their debts to history by helping build stable democracies amid the wreckage left by nationalist tyranny on Europe’s southern edge in Kosovo, Schroeder said.

Despite assertions that the move back to Berlin portends no resurgence of the militarism practiced by past Berlin governments, the relocation and the retention of the newly renovated Reichstag’s original name nurture doubts among many Germans who embrace pacifism.

As the former seat of Prussian kaisers and dictators from both the Nazi and Communist eras, Berlin as the capital evokes, for some, images of this country’s most dangerous inclinations.

And the Reichstag, despite a $330-million cellar-to-ceiling remake by British architect Norman Foster, remains the architectural signature of the imperial era. The building burned by the Nazis, bombed by the Allies and barricaded from its historic Unter den Linden promenade by the Berlin Wall has been a monument in search of meaning since it was abandoned by Adolf Hitler with the 1933 imposition of the Third Reich.

Although Foster’s design opens the neoclassical building to more light and airiness with the addition of a glass cupola over the parliamentary chamber, the building’s name retains the specter of a nation thirsting for power, because Reichstag in German means Imperial Assembly.

Leftist politicians led by parliament President Wolfgang Thierse forced a name change on the building that compromises between tradition and political correctness: Plenarbereich-Reichstagsgebaeude, or Plenary Meeting Area-Imperial Assembly Building. But most Germans still use the old name, and Berlin’s traffic department has angered Thierse by posting directional signs that read simply “Reichstag.”

While evocative of the late 19th century reign of Kaiser Wilhelm I, the Reichstag was never used by Third Reich henchmen because a fire of mysterious origin gutted the building only a month after the Nazis came to power, allowing Hitler to deal a death blow to the disintegrating Weimar Republic.

Soviet troops left their mark on the building’s history after hoisting their red hammer-and-sickle flag in victory in 1945, and their graffiti have been preserved on walls of the northern portal to remind visitors that the Third Reich was vanquished.

Lawmakers endorsed restoration of Berlin as the capital only a few months after German reunification in October 1990, but the eight-year endeavor to uproot the Bonn bureaucracies has met with some resistance. And now the Kosovo conflict has cast the shadow of aggression over Europe, reminding many of the Nazi past.

“The return of reunified Germany’s parliament to Berlin and the military conflict over Kosovo do have a common reason--the end of communism,” Thierse acknowledged. “It has granted us the joy of German unity but not, as hoped by so many in 1989 and 1990, a golden age of peace. . . . Still, one should not say that the return of parliament and government to Berlin means a return to bellicose politics or a relapse into the worst of German history.”

Proclaiming Germany a reliable neighbor and partner within the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Schroeder insisted that the more self-assured new Germany stands as a bastion of stability that will eventually breach the prosperity divide between East and West.

In his hourlong address, Schroeder telegraphed a message of unity, promising more investment in the poorer eastern German states and better compensation for victims of Communist repression. And he assured neighbors and allies that Germany remains a committed partner in the intensifying integration of Europe and in efforts to spread respect for human rights throughout the continent.

Key Buildings Long Way From Completion

The $11-billion, 350-mile transfer from Bonn of ministries and the 669-member parliament is officially set for completion by September, but many key buildings are months or years behind in construction. Schroeder’s new chancellery, for example, is unlikely to be ready in less than two years, which has forced him to take up temporary quarters in a former East Berlin Communist Party building.

North and west of the Reichstag, wire fences separate the impressive new parliament structure from gaping pits that will one day house the foundations of government office buildings and traffic tunnels that will strengthen the logistical links between once-divided areas of the city.

* HISTORY TO THE LIGHT: Glass dome at the heart of rebuilt Reichstag celebrates spirit of open government. F1