Germany makes capital move

Nine years after Germany reunified, the legislature is set to resume its business on September 6 in the new capital Berlin.

Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl 8212; the man who presided over German reunification in 1990 in a speech to the final parliament session in Bonn Thursday thanked the birthplace of Beethoven thatspy writer John Le Carre has called 8220;a small town in Germany8221; for 8220;the service it gave to the nation.8221;

He said Bonn would remain for future generations 8220;the cradle of the second German democracy.8221;

Bonn, a sleepy provincial town on the Rhine, has given way to Berlin, the former imperial, Nazi and now democratic central city on the river Spree.Kohl described the move to Berlin as 8220;the culmination of decades of German aspirations for unity.8221; He said the democratic principles laid down in Bonn would not change with the new city.

Transport Minister Franz Muentefering on June 28 became the first minister to move to Berlin.

The lower house of parliament, the Bundestag8217;s 669 deputies and their 3,400 staff begin Monday transferring their offices from Bonn to Berlin and the rest of the government ministers are to move in August. Muentefering has estimated total costs of the move, including renovation and new buildings, at 20 billion marks 10.6 billion dollars with the price tag threatening to rise.The first train convoy of 40 metallic blue containers is to begin moving on Monday evening from the train station in Cologne, near Bonn.

A total of 24 trains, one a night, will carry out the move of some 30,000 pieces of furniture as well as books and archives from July 5-31, although artworks, porcelain and the Bundestag8217;s 7,500 bottles of wine will be taken by road in refrigerated trucks.

The parliament will be sitting in Berlin in the Reichstag after a 66-year hiatus, following an arson attack in February 1933 one month after Adolf Hitler came to power, which Hitler used to eventually discredit his leftist opposition and dissolve the legislature. The Reichstag remained empty during World War II and was in the western part of Germany after the country split in two, with the communists taking the East. Since 1995 the building8217;s 19th century interior has been completely stripped and refurbished at a cost of 300 million euros 325 million dollars conserving its neo-Renaissance facade, on which is written:8220;To the German people.8221;

The renovation by British architect Norman Foster includes a glass cupola roof meant to symbolize the opening of German democracy to outside scrutiny.German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has warned against associating the Reichstag building with the German Reich, or empire, saying such comparison is 8220;as absurd as confusing Berlin with Prussian might and German centralisation.8221;

He said in April: 8220;The German federal model is intact and is the least in danger in the world.8221; He added that the relocation of the capital closer to the Polish border marked Germany as an important link between East and West and a 8220;cornerstone of European unity.8221;