Embassy of the People's Republic of China (Bonn)

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Former building of the Chinese embassy, ​​Kurfürstenallee 12 / Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 59 (2014)

The embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Federal Republic of Germany was based in the Bad Godesberg district of Bonn from 1984 to 1999 . The embassy buildings , consisting of Rigal Castle from 1849 and three new buildings built in 1983/84, are located in the Alt-Godesberg district on Kurfürstenallee (house number 12) at the corner of Friedrich-Ebert-Straße (house number 59) opposite Rigal'schen Wiese and form the southern end of the so-called "Electoral Line". They will continue to be used by the People's Republic of China until 2005 and again as a branch office of the embassy since 2015.

history

Former office building of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Niederbachem (2014)

After recording of diplomatic relations with the Federal Republic of Germany in 1972, the People's Republic of China opened in February 1973, a message on the seat of government in Bonn. The office of the embassy took its seat in a previously rented hotel building in Niederbachem (Konrad-Adenauer-Straße 104), a district of the municipality of Wachtberg southwest of Bonn; the trade department was also located outside the office building in Niederbachem (Bondorfer Straße 3a). From the beginning, China planned to build its own embassy building in Bonn and looked for suitable land that the Federal Republic of Germany would provide in return for land for the German embassy in Beijing . At the end of 1973 China acquired the 1.2 hectare site of the palace-like villa “Schloss Rigal” in the center of Bad Godesberg, the spatial focus of the diplomatic missions, built in 1849 as the summer residence for Ludwig Maximilian Freiherr von Rigal-Grunland . The Chinese embassy urged the city of Bonn to create the public law prerequisites for the planned type of development in the form of a development plan at short notice ; Due to a delay in negotiations to acquire a property in Beijing, the German government postponed the implementation of the Chinese construction project. The development plan was drawn up in January 1981 so that the Federal Foreign Minister could inform the embassy that the building application could now be submitted . In a letter dated August 25, 1981, the city of Bonn sent the Federal Foreign Minister the building permit for the new embassy building to be built, who sent it to the embassy with a verbal note of October 2, 1981.

Construction work began in July 1982. The new embassy complex was intended to accommodate both the office in three new buildings to be built and the residence, the ambassador's residence, in the Rigal Castle to be renovated. The planning was in the hands of the Federal Building Department , and Hochtief AG was entrusted with the execution as the general contractor . Numerous Chinese skilled workers were employed on the construction site. In March 1984, the Federal Foreign Minister received the final acceptance certificate for the new embassy building, which he sent to the Chinese embassy on March 23, 1984. The keys were handed over to the Chinese ambassador ( An Zhiyuan ) on June 20, 1984. The department for economy and trade was located in its own house on the northern edge of the complex, connected by a low transverse tract, and consequently had a separate address (Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 59). The only department of the embassy was the education department outside the new embassy building in the Godesberg-Villenviertel district (Rheinallee 53). In the district of Mehlem (An der Nesselburg 88), China is also said to have had a guest house.

In the course of the relocation of the seat of government to Berlin (1999), the Chinese embassy moved to Berlin with 40 to 50 employees in November 1999 (→ Chinese embassy in Berlin ). In Bonn, a branch of the embassy was initially left with a trade and visa department, the consular district of which included the federal territory except for the states of Bremen , Hamburg , Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein . In June 2005, the latter was the only department with four employees still belonging to the branch office and affiliated to the newly opened Chinese Consulate General in Frankfurt am Main and moved there on August 27, 2005. The previous embassy buildings were now empty, but were still maintained by China and occasionally opened to the public. Various plans for a new use of the property , including 2007 as a European center for traditional Chinese medicine and 2009 as a German-Chinese education center, initially came to nothing. At the end of 2012 it became known that a guest house for Chinese diplomats and embassy staff would be set up there and that cultural events were planned. A refurbishment was in progress for this purpose. Since spring 2015 there has been a branch office of the embassy again, which was officially put into operation in September 2015 and is staffed with an embassy counselor as head of the branch office, two embassy secretaries and an attaché (as of August 2020). It is also used as a conference center for embassy events and is home to the building management for the four Chinese consulates general in Hamburg, Munich , Frankfurt am Main and Düsseldorf .

building

The Chinese embassy buildings are a complex of four interconnected buildings: Rigal Castle from 1849 (formerly the residence), located in the center of Kurfürstenallee - a two-storey, late classicist brick building - and three new buildings at the rear from 1982–1984 (formerly the Chancellery), from one of which served as the embassy guest house. They are kept in the formal language of Chinese architecture , grouped around five inner courtyards and have pagoda roofs typical of the country , the glazed roof tiles of which were imported from China. The interior of the lobby is particularly grand. The embassy buildings are located in a park area of around 12,000 m² , which has valuable trees and houses a Chinese tea house .

See also

literature

  • Hilda Ortiz Lunscken (ed.); Hilda Ortiz Lunscken, Ingeborg Fischer-Dieskau (Photos: Martin Krockauer): Pour Memoire. To Remind. As a reminder - ambassadorial residences on the Rhine. Ortiz-Lunscken Publishers, Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-9806801-0-X , pp. 130-131.

Web links

Commons : Embassy of the People's Republic of China (Bonn)  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Foreign Office (ed.): List of diplomatic missions and other representations in Bonn (status: September 1974, November 1981)
  2. ↑ a b Information from the Federal Audit Office: Comments of the Federal Audit Office 1986 on budgetary and economic management (including the comments on the annual accounts of the federal government 1984) (= German Bundestag , 10th electoral period, printed paper 10/6138, October 10, 1986). P. 23.
  3. ↑ Handing over the keys for the new Chinese embassy . In: General-Anzeiger . June 21, 1984, p. 4 .
  4. ↑ Foreign Office (ed.): List of diplomatic missions in the Federal Republic of Germany , as of March 1992
  5. ↑ Foreign Office (ed.): List of diplomatic missions and other representations in the Federal Republic of Germany , as of April 1995
  6. ^ Danger in the Haunted House , General-Anzeiger , August 6, 2015
  7. ↑ China moves to Mitte , Der Tagesspiegel , October 27, 1999
  8. ^ Embassy building of the People's Republic of China in the Federal Republic of Germany ( Memento of June 21, 2004 in the Internet Archive ), Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Federal Republic of Germany
  9. ↑ Diplomatic missions and consular missions in the Federal Republic of Germany , status: September 2002 (Bundesanzeiger Verlag, ISSN  1616-9468 )
  10. ↑ Chinese Consulate General opened in Frankfurt am Main , Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Federal Republic of Germany, June 24, 2005
  11. ↑ China opens the largest consulate in Europe in Frankfurt , Frankfurter Neue Presse , June 24, 2005
  12. ^ Relocation of the consular department of the Chinese GK in Frankfurt aM , The Consulate General of the PR China in Frankfurt am Main, August 8, 2005
  13. ↑ China closes the branch office of the embassy in Bonn , General-Anzeiger , September 10, 2005
  14. ↑ The Chinese Embassy is to become a preparatory college , General-Anzeiger , January 15, 2009
  15. ↑ Foray . In: General-Anzeiger . December 19, 2011, p. 16 .
  16. ^ Government move to Berlin. 13 ex-embassies in Bad Godesberg are still empty , General-Anzeiger, October 3, 2012
  17. ↑ List of diplomatic missions and other representations in the Federal Republic of Germany (as of June 8, 2015), Federal Foreign Office
  18. ↑ Announcement of the Prime Minister - LPA II 1 - 01.32-4 / 15 of September 28, 2015: Embassy of the People's Republic of China, Bonn Branch , Ministerialblatt (MBl. NRW.) - Edition 2015 No. 32 of November 19, 2015, p. 716
  19. ^ OB Sridharan receives the Chinese ambassador , City of Bonn
  20. ↑ List of diplomatic missions and other representations in the Federal Republic of Germany (PDF) (as of August 6, 2020), Federal Foreign Office
  21. ↑ The Chinese open their doors for the first time , General-Anzeiger , March 31, 2016
  22. ↑ Claudia Euskirchen, Olaf Gisbertz, Ulrich Schäfer a. a. (Ed.): North Rhine-Westphalia I. Rhineland . (= Georg Dehio (†): Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler ). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-422-03093-0 , p. 185.
  23. ^ Michael Wenzel: Small stories Bad Godesberger Messages , 2nd edition 2011, p. 38/39.

Coordinates: 50 ° 40 ′ 40.6 ″  N , 7 ° 9 ′ 22.3 ″  E