Roaming through the topography of democracy

By Hartmut Palmer

When the Parliamentary Council, chaired by future Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, began work on the Basic Law and met for the first time in Bonn on 1 September 1948, no one could have guessed that on that day in the illuminated hall of the Alexander Koenig Zoological Museum – among stuffed animals – the most successful chapter in the history of German democracy to date would begin. Germany had been defeated, the cities lay in ruins, and the fathers and mothers of the Basic Law, as they were later called, were marked by the hardships of the war years.

The beautiful white house on the other side of the street, Villa Hammerschmidt, where the first German President Theodor Heuss was to move in two years later, was still occupied by Belgian soldiers. And the neighbouring Palais Schaumburg, where the Prussian Princess Victoria, a sister of the last German emperor, had once fallen for an impostor and marriage swindler, was also still in military use. At the time, no one could have imagined that a German chancellor would one day be able to greet kings, presidents and even an emperor in front of the small castle with the round tower. But that is exactly what happened. Until 1976, Palais Schaumburg was the official residence of Chancellors Adenauer, Erhard, Brandt and Schmidt. Then they moved to the new building next door.

In Bonn, all the democratic institutions of the German capital were within walking distance: The executive and legislative branches, media, lobby and state representations were closer together than in almost any other capital city in the world. You didn’t necessarily have to make appointments here. Unlike in Berlin, London or Paris, journalists often met people from the world of politics spontaneously and unplanned on the street (and in the neighbouring pubs) and sometimes learnt more in passing than at any press conference. This closeness characterised the Bonn Republic. It was unique.

Bonn lost the title of capital city. The phantom pain over the loss is still evident today. An underground station is still called the »Foreign Office«, although there is no longer a Foreign Ministry there. And the tallest building in the city, right next to the Reuterbrücke bridge, is still called »Neuer Kanzlerplatz« (even without a chancellor).

But Bonn has remained Beethoven’s birthplace. The Beethovenhalle, named after the musician, was even the only link between cultural and political Bonn for many years during the capital city era. In this hall, inaugurated in 1959 on the ruins of a clinic destroyed in the war, four federal presidents were elected between 1974 and 1989. All the parties represented in Bonn’s Bundeshaus held their party conferences there, most recently the Green Party in 1998, and from 1969 to 1998, journalists accredited to the Federal Press Conference celebrated the annual Federal Press Ball in the Beethovenhalle. As a namesake for streets, avenues and buildings, the Rhinelander Beethoven still holds the record ahead of the Rhinelander Adenauer. He appears in the address book twice as often as the latter. In any case, he has stood as a monument on Münsterplatz since 1845. From 1938 to 1949, he sat at the Alter Zoll (since 1977 in the Rheinaue). He has been back at Alter Zoll as a knobbly sculpture by Markus Lüpertz since 2014. And as a figure by conceptual artist Otmar Hörl – one metre high and smiling – almost seven hundred times in many Bonn flats and shop windows for a few years now.

Hartmut Palmer has been a correspondent for local and national newspapers (including Süddeutsche Zeitung and Spiegel) in Bonn since the 1960s and knows the Bonn government district like the back of his hand.