The Reichstag
Thursday, 10th November 2005 by Alex Turnbull
Update: A couple of our readers have pointed out some inaccuracies with this post, which I intend to address. Firstly, we accept that we quoted incorrect information, and that the Nazi party never did much of anything with the Reichstag... except burn it down of course. We must also accept that our readers are right that, in US political terms, a closer comparison to the German Bundestag would be the House of Representatives, and not the Senate... basically because we don't know what either of them do. And finally, we failed to mention that it was Christo who wrapped the Reichstag due to our own naive assumption that people would have prior knowledge of his work, and would make the mental leap to connect the two. Our apologies on all three counts.
Opened in 1894, the Reichstag is home to the German Bundestag ('Parliament' in the UK, or 'Senate' in the US).
The Reichstag is named for the original German Parliament which convened here until 1933, after which it became home to Hitler's Nazi Party. The building was set on fire that year, which led to the passing of the infamous Reichstag Fire Decree, a bill which effectively suspended most basic human rights, and introduced the death penalty for a large number of offenses.
Since then the building has been ruined, been rebuilt (with a fabulous new rooftop dome), been an exhibition centre, been wrapped in fireproof polypropylene fabric, and finally been reconstructed again.
And that's just the edited highlights! Check the Wikipedia page for the full story.
A little to the west you can see the Bundeskanzleramt (the chancellor's office), which is known locally as Waschmaschine (washing machine) and according to Wikipedia, is the largest government HQ in the world (although that doesn't seem to make sense to me...)
Thanks to Alexander Ilg, Lars, Serge Lyubomudrov, Frank Castle, Sebastian J, Patrik Renmark and Robert.
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
So can we talk about WWII now
Seeing as it was the most important event in twentieth century history it is difficult to ignore it. Tomorrow (11/11) is Armistice Day when we (in Britain at least) commerate our war dead – so to make reference to sights relevant to WW2 is quite fitting. Godwins Law applies to Fascism not History. The physical and political shape of Europe was changed forever by WW2 so it is ineviatable that it when looking at sights in Europe it will come up at some stage. I tried to find some of the WW1 war graves in Northern France and Belgium but they were all low-res. Shame because they are a humbling sight to behold.
Lol! I’ve been waiting for you to say that Nigerachie 😀
To the east of there I found “The World’s Largest CD” 😀 What is that thing??? View Placemark
Right next to the world largest microchip! Perhaps its actually the worlds biggest hard drive.
That William, is Berlin’s Olympic Velodrome and is the largest hall in Berlin.
Cool! Thanks Alex. It almosts looks like a huge iPOD.
Can any one find auschwitz, i cant find it, i also looked for Normandy beach and i think that it is in low res. sucks
Nigerachie, here you can see Arromanche, France, where there was an artificial harbourd build by the Allied in June 1944.
View Placemark
Nigerachie, Auschwitz must be somewhere near Polish city of OÅ›wiÄ™cim, so it may be this (but is low res. anyway 🙁 ) View Placemark
AHH I see says the blind man. thanks guys
Arcgon you are pretty much right…
http://www.auschwitz.org.pl/html/eng/historia_KL/index.html
I found this beach in France, there are some structures which could be old bunkers and stuff: View Placemark
Nice pictures – but the informations are either not complete or completly wrong. 1. If at all the Bundestag compares to the US House of Representatives, not the Senate. 2. The Reichstag was never ever home of the Nazi party. That is absolute bull shit. Remember Nuremberg? In fact it is almost a fact that the Nazis had it burned down, because the Reichstag was a symbol for Democracy since it was and is home to the parliament. And the fire served well as a pretext to abolish huma rights. In fact Hitler was in the Reichstag only twice: once as a member of parliament and then as the chancellor the day after it got burned. 3. If you mention it was wrapped why not tell people that it was done by Christo?
Props to Claudia for the corrections — won’t go further into details here…
So what is left is to point out the queue of visitors, clearly visible on the southern side: Admission to the glass cupola designed by Sir Norman Foster is free (The idea of the reconstruction — which took place before it was “wrapped” btw — is to have a transparent building of democracy) Especially in the evenings you get an impressive athmosphere up there. Nice to actually live for a while in Berlin, so you can pick less touristy days for a visit!