A Visit to the German Bundestag
As soon as we booked our flight tickets to Berlin, I immediately made a reservation for our visit to the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament building. While visiting a national parliament may not be the top of the list for most vacationers, I urge all fellow travelers to make an exception for the Reichstag. Most visitors may not be interested in the inner workings of the German parliament, but the Reichstag’s unique rooftop glass dome attracts more than three million visitors a year, making it the most visited parliament in the world and the second most visited landmark in all of Germany.
As a practicing architect, I have long had the Reichstag on my travel bucket list. It is one of the most famous cases of adaptive reuse of a civic structure. That said, what made this building so worthy of visiting is its history. For anyone interested in the 20th-century history of Europe, few buildings are as historically significant as the Reichstag Building. It is inimitably linked to many of the most pivotal events in European history, from the unification of German-speaking states to the end of the Cold War. No matter your interests, this is one of the most all-around fascinating buildings in the world.
To visit the Reichstag, visitors should visit the official website of the parliament, Bundestag. There are two options, one for visiting the glass dome only and the other for a guided tour of the building interiors with access to the dome at the end. Given its popularity, visitors should book their timed reservation at least a couple of weeks in advance. While walk-up tickets are theoretically available, it is usually booked out solid. I recommend reserving a guided tour in English, even though the schedule is subject to last-minute change due to parliamentary activities.
The Brandenburg Gate has long been the ceremonial entrance into central Berlin.
Before visiting the Reichstag, I stopped by the Brandenburg Gate, the preeminent symbol of Berlin. This gate was the ceremonial gateway when Berlin was the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia. It marked the axis connecting the Palace of Berlin and the old capital of Brandenburg. Keen observers would notice that the Reichstag is technically located just outside the city center. When the parliament was looking for a new home, both Emperor Wilhelm I and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck were keen to push the parliament far away from the Imperial Palace. In response, the parliamentary leaders oriented its ceremonial entrance toward the west, away from the imperial palace.
The parliament hosted two design competitions for a new building in 1872 and 1882. Eventually, the commission was awarded to Paul Wallot. His eclectic design combines elements of several architectural styles and is rich in symbolism. The four corner towers represent four constituent kingdoms of the German Empire: Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg. The Reichstag was a state-of-the-art building with its own power plant, modern lighting, thermostats, and electrical fans. Crowning the building was an innovative rectangular dome made of steel and glass. While most of us today would regard it as a magnificent building, the design was met with criticism by both the traditionalists and the modernists.
As the most visited parliament building, the Reichstag is a well-oiled machine when it comes to visitor services. Tours for the dome leave every fifteen minutes, and visitors are processed efficiently, as you would expect in Germany. Our guided tour, Christopher, was led by an elderly gentleman who had a deep passion for Germany’s constitutional democracy. We visited the Capitol in Washington and Ottawa in the last few years; the guides/docents were all enthusiastic teenagers regurgitating facts and figures they learned in the orientation. Christopher, on the other hand, has an encyclopedic knowledge of German history. It was clear that he took on this position purely out of passion.
While most visitors are most interested in the tumultuous history of this building, it is also incumbent on us to learn about the functioning of Germany’s constitutional system. The first thing Christopher wanted to clear up was the two often-confused terms: Reichstag and the Bundestag. The Reichstag refers to the historical building, and the Bundestag refers to the lower house of the German Parliament. Although the two terms may be synonymous nowadays, the building’s tragic history forced the Bundestag to meet elsewhere, sometimes for decades at a time.
The most pivotal event associated with the Reichstag took place on the night of February 27, 1933. A fire was reported around 9 pm., and the building was entirely engulfed by the time fire companies arrived on the scene. Even though the fire was put out before midnight, the interiors were totally gutted. Adolf Hitler, the Chancellor of Germany at the time, raced to the building with Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring. Hitler immediately proclaimed that the Bolsheviks perpetrated the fire and labeled it as an act of terrorism. A suspect was apprehended on the scene, and he turned out to be a young Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe.
Hitler was quick to capitalize on the dramatic event to declare a national emergency. Although Lubbe claimed sole responsibility for the fire, Hitler attributes the arson to the works of Communist agitators whose ultimate goal was to overthrow the German government. The following day, he convinced German President Paul von Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree, in which the civil rights of German citizens could be suspended. The duly elected Communist Party MPs were suspended, allowing the Nazi Party to extend its grip on the parliament. The Burning of the Reichstag has become a phrase representing an abuse of power in the wake of a national tragedy. A similar comparison has been made to the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks.
Although scholars agree that Marinus van der Lubbe was responsible for the fire, many suspect the fire was not possible without coordination and accomplices. Given how swift the Nazis responded with a sweeping decree, the opposition believed the fire was a false flag attack to justify the one-party rule by the Nazis. The fire took place only a week before the 1933 election, so it is natural to speculate that the undercover Nazi agents might have secretly aided Lubbe. On display in the Reichstag is a section of a historical tunnel from which Lubbe allegedly entered. In light of the hasty trials by the Nazis, he was posthumously pardoned in 2008.
After the fire, the Nazi-controlled parliament transformed into a one-party rule with the passage of the Enabling Act of 1933. The rubber-stamp legislature was relocated to the Kroll Opera House across the square. It was from there that Hitler delivered some of his most incendiary speeches, including the call for “annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.” During this period, the Reichstag building was not fully restored and was instead used for various purposes, including a medical facility and an electrical equipment factory.
As Nazi Germany struggled in a two-front war with the Allies, the Reichstag buildings were fortified and windows bricked up. As the Soviet troops fought street by street into Berlin, the Nazi leadership, including Hitler and Goebbels, went underground into a fortified bunker under the Reich Chancellery. However, the Soviet generals were unaware of Hitler’s whereabouts and set their ultimate prize on the Reichstag because of its symbolic value. Because the Reichstag building was built with heavy masonry and made a natural fortress, a large contingent of German soldiers was stationed at the building, and it was hand-to-hand combat to the last room. The final battle of the European theater was fought at the Reichstag.
The storming of the Reichstag had attained legendary status in the Soviet Union and modern Russia. The victory was made famous by a photograph taken by Yevgeny Khaldei. It depicts two soldiers planting a Soviet flag on the roof of the Reichstag. It was the single most iconic picture of the Battle of Berlin and was reproduced across the world. Unbeknownst to most, the photo was actually staged a day after the fall of Berlin. The flag in the photograph was brought from home by Khaldei and allegedly sawn by his Jewish acquaintance back in Moscow.
The panoramic of the Storming of the Reichstag at the Museum of Great Patriotic Wars in Moscow.
When I was in Moscow in 2011, I paid a visit to the Museum of the Great Patriotic War. I vividly remember a diorama of the Battle of Battle, especially the siege of the Reichstag. The diorama was part fiction and served as a form of Soviet propaganda. Now that I have the time to look back at my photograph from Moscow, I can better appreciate the meaning of the diorama to both the German and Soviet public. With over a million casualties, the Battle of Berlin is the third deadliest urban combat in Europe.
At the foyer, Christopher pointed out a model of the neighborhood around the Reichstag. It was striking how few historical buildings survived the war. A rare exception was the Swiss Embassy, which appeared so isolated from the rest of the city. The scale of destruction was unimaginable. During the final days of the war, Hitler ordered all food supplies and transport links into Berlin to be severed. Hitler’s “let Berlin burn” approach to the war was a chilling and perhaps fitting end to the Nazi regime.
The most interesting section of the Reichstag is a grand hallway in the northern section of the building. During the renovation in the 1990s, the construction crew uncovered numerous Cyrillic graffiti concealed by plaster from an earlier restoration in the 1960s. These graffiti were by the Soviet soldiers to commemorate their victory. According to the old photograph taken shortly after the wall, just about every inch of the Reichstag was covered in Soviet graffiti. Evidently, many soldiers mistook the building for the Reich Chancellery a few blocks away. While most of these markings consist of the names of soldiers and their hometowns, a few include more pointed messages, such as 'Death of Germans'.
While the most racist and sexist graffiti were documented and then removed in consultation with the Russian embassy, the rest were preserved in situ as a remembrance of the past. One of the most poignant graffiti reads: “This is for Leningrad.” The fate of Berlin was as tragic as what Germany did to Soviet cities like Leningrad and Stalingrad. So why would Germany actively preserve a relic of national defeat in the hall of their parliament? I believe it is an active reminder for German politicians to exercise their political power responsibly. Political extremism might ultimately lead to a nation’s demise.
The graffiti at the Reichstag reminded me of a recent Oval Office conversation between American President Donald Trump and the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, in which Trump jokingly told Mertz that D-Day was not a pleasant day for Germany. As somebody ignorant of history and contemporary politics, Trump thought such a dig would either humiliate or intimidate his German counterpart. Instead, the chancellor gave a brilliant response by phrasing the Normandy landings as the first step toward liberating Germany from Nazism. Such a response and framing were absolutely brilliant, and it crystallized how Germany approached its horrific history.
As someone who has never lived in the southern United States, I often puzzled as to why the South did not adopt such a narrative. Rather than insisting on the cause of the Civil War being the matter of states’ rights of self-determination, wouldn’t it be just graceful to advocate that the Civil War help the South to liberate itself from the historical shackle of slavery? Unlike its Axis ally Japan, Germany has been the most thoughtful in terms of reflecting on its past and actively guarding against going down the same dark path. With right-wing populism on the rise all across the West, the German experiences are more important than ever before.
After the war, Germany was de facto partitioned into the Soviet-backed German Democratic Republic in the east and the Western-backed Federal Republic of Germany. With its capital in East Berlin, East Germany had its legislature built on the site of the former imperial palace. West Germany has its capital and the Bundestag in Bonn. The Reichstag building is located within West Berlin, literally along the Berlin Wall. The Reichstag became a physical symbol of political division. During the division, the building was left in a ruinous state until a renovation in 1970. The damaged square dome was demolished, and most decorations on the buildings were removed. The structure was sparingly used during the Cold War, as West Germany agreed not to establish its capital in West Berlin.
In 1990, the Reichstag became a one-off venue for the first session of the Bundestag of a reunified Germany. However, Bonn remained the official seat of the unified parliament. The discussion as to whether to move the Bundestag back to Berlin was unusually contentious. The decision was finalized after a close vote of 338 to 320. The resolution decided that the Bundestag would once again take its seat in the Reichstag building to symbolize the return of a reunified Germany. An extensive renovation/rebuilding project was necessary to accommodate the Bundestag. Today, four seats of the Bundestag at Bonn were on exhibit at the Reichstag building. They were the only artifacts from that chapter of Bundestag's history.
After an international competition, the Bundestag awarded the commission to British architect Norman Foster. Since so much of the original architecture and decorations were either destroyed in the world or lost during the 1970 renovation, Foster proposed a new modern building within the exterior shell of the Reichstag. Before the renovation, the building had an artistic send-off in 1995: Wrapped Reichstag, Project for Berlin. Bulgarian-American artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude created an environmental art by wrapping the building in 24 acres of silver fabric. The project is sometimes regarded as one of the most spectacular public art pieces of the 20th century. Five million visitors came to see this fantastic work during its two-week existence. The piece is a symbol of the Reichstag’s and Germany’s rebirth.
After the wrapping was removed, massive demolition and construction began. The new Reichstag is decidedly modern on the inside, and it epitomizes architectural “facadism.” The building's interior is characterized by clean lines and large windows. Yet, it was punctuated with historical remnants and decorations. The ultramodern interiors are accented with numerous commissioned artworks. According to Christopher, the Bundestag only collects modern and contemporary art, which is quite unusual for a national parliament in a country with a rich cultural heritage. I don’t believe there is any artwork or decoration that dates back to Prussian times or earlier.
Installation für Reichstagsgebäude by American artist Jenny Holzer.
The most significant public art on display came from artists from France, the United States, Great Britain, and Russia. Once again, Germany was keen to acknowledge the necessary pain of post-war divisions by highlighting works from the four foreign powers that occupied post-war Germany. During our guided tour, we got to see two of these pieces. The first one was a tall pillar fitted with LED light strips. Designed by American artist Jenny Holzer, the pillar’s four faces display some of the most famous speeches delivered in the Bundestag.
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The highlight of the tour for me was undoubtedly the plenary chamber of the Bundestag. The grand hall is located right below the central glass dome, which floods the interior with abundant natural light.
Our guided tour ended at a special elevator that took us up to the rooftop dome. Designed by British architect Norman Foster, the
Memorial to the Murdered Members of the Reichstag.
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