Embassy of the State of Israel (Bonn)

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Former office building of the Israeli embassy, ​​Simrockallee 2 (2014)
Former residence of the embassy, ​​Fasanenstrasse 30 (2014)

The embassy of the State of Israel in the Federal Republic of Germany was located in the Bonn district of Bad Godesberg from 1966 to 1999 , with a branch office until 2000. The former office building of the embassy , built in 1973/74, is located in the district of Plittersdorf on Simrockallee (house number 2) Corner of Ubierstrasse. It was rebuilt in 2003 and is now rented out as an office building.

history

Before the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Israel on May 12, 1965, the only state representation in the Federal Republic was the Israel Mission (1953–1966) in Cologne , a "trade mission" subordinated to the Israeli Ministry of Finance to carry out German reparations according to the Luxembourg Agreement (1952). The head of the mission, Felix Elieser Shinnar , performed his office with the rank of ambassador. After lengthy negotiations with the Federal Republic of Germany, the mission was also able to run a consular department subordinate to the Israeli Foreign Ministry .

Office building of the embassy from 1966 to 1974, Ubierstrasse 78 (2014)

After the establishment of diplomatic relations Israel opened in August 1965, a message on the seat of government of Bonn; the first Israeli ambassador was accredited on August 24th . The embassy office was initially set up on the premises of the Israel Mission in the Ehrenfeld district of Cologne (Subbelrather Strasse 15). In 1966 she moved to Bad Godesberg , the spatial focus of the diplomatic missions, to an office building in the Godesberg-Villenviertel district (Ubierstraße 78; later the Embassy of Portugal ). The residence of the embassy, ​​residence of the ambassador, was a house in the Johanniterviertel (Zitelmannstrasse 7) belonging to the district of Gronau in the parliament and government district . The consular section of the embassy was initially located outside the office building in the Godesberg-Villenviertel district ( Rheinallee 58 ; later the embassy of Ghana ).

When the Israeli government began to adjust to a longer presence at the Bonn government seat, it planned to build a new embassy office in Bad Godesberg (Simrockallee 2). It was completed in the spring of 1974 and was similar in structure and structure to the building of the Permanent Mission of the GDR that was built at the same time . The Israeli embassy on Simrockallee was considered the best guarded diplomatic representation in Bonn. In the event of bomb threats against the embassy, ​​the entire district, mostly in the area between Denglerstrasse and Plittersdorfer Strasse, was cordoned off for days in some cases. In 1978 the ambassador's residence was relocated to a corner house in the Rüngsdorf district (Fasanenstrasse 30) that was acquired by Israel for this purpose, ostensibly for security reasons .

“The message, on the other hand, almost frightened me. The French have a proverb that goes something like this: "To find something so ugly, you have to get up very early." I was often asked in Bonn how I could work in such an ugly building. My answer was always: »You can only work here in this building, because only from this building you have no view of it.« (…) Just like the residence, the message from the inside was not lavish, but functional, and in spite of everything, in the end I felt very comfortable there too. "

- Avi Primor , Israeli ambassador to Germany from 1993 to 1999 (2015)

In the course of the relocation of the seat of government to Berlin , the Israeli embassy temporarily moved there in August 1999 to the former consulate general of Israel. In Bonn, a branch office of the embassy was initially left in the former chancellery building, which was closed at the beginning of December 2000 when the new Israeli embassy building in Berlin was moved into. In May 2003, a service company from Sankt Augustin acquired the property and had it converted into a regular office building, in which two apartments were integrated, by the end of 2003, removing its former fortification-like character at a cost of 1 to 1.5 million euros. It is marketed as an "MC Center (Management & Consulting)" and rented out to lawyers and management consultants, among others.

building

The former office building of the Israeli embassy has four floors with a stacked floor reduced by one axis and has a total area of ​​1,800 m². The building includes an underground car park with 28 parking spaces and eight above-ground parking spaces. The penthouse previously housed the Israeli secret service, now two apartments. The embassy building was secured by an approximately two-meter-high concrete wall, which was kept at a reduced height - except for a section of the edge - in memory of its earlier use on Ubierstrasse.

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 , p. 56/57. [with photos of the former ambassador's residence]

Web links

Commons : Simrockallee 2  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tobias C. Bringmann: Handbuch der Diplomatie, 1815-1963: Foreign Heads of Mission in Germany and German Heads of Mission Abroad By Metternich Bis Adenauer , Walter de Gruyter, 2001, ISBN 978-3-11-095684-9 , p. XIX.
  2. ↑ Monika Grübel, Georg Mölich (ed.): Jewish life in the Rhineland: from the Middle Ages to the present , Böhlau Verlag, 2005, p. 311.
  3. ^ List of diplomatic missions and commercial missions of foreign countries in the Federal Republic of Germany] (as of February 1, 1966) . In: The Hessian Minister of the Interior (Ed.): State Gazette for the State of Hesse. 1966 No. 27 , p. 872 , Annex 1 ( online at the information system of the Hessian State Parliament [PDF; 5.0 MB ]).
  4. ↑ Foreign Office (ed.): List of the diplomatic corps in Bonn (as of June 1966)
  5. ↑ If I were German ... SPIEGEL reporter Hermann Schreiber on Ben-Gurion in Bonn , Der Spiegel , May 1, 1967
  6. ^ List of diplomatic missions and commercial missions of foreign states in the Federal Republic of Germany] (as of September 25, 1968) . In: The Hessian Minister of the Interior (Ed.): State Gazette for the State of Hesse. 1969 No. 4 , p. 133 , Annex 1 ( online at the information system of the Hessian State Parliament [PDF; 5,8 MB ]).
  7. ↑ List of diplomatic missions and commercial agencies of foreign states in the Federal Republic of Germany] as of September 25, 1968) . In: The Hessian Minister of the Interior (Ed.): State Gazette for the State of Hesse. 1970 No. 24 , p. 1209 , Annex 1 ( online at the information system of the Hessian State Parliament [PDF; 5.4 MB ]).
  8. ↑ Foreign Office (ed.): List of the diplomatic corps in Bonn (as of April 1974)
  9. ↑ Angelika Schyma : The houses of the state representations in Bonn . In: Kerstin Wittmann-Englert, René Hartmann (Hrsg.): Buildings of the countries. The state representations in Bonn, Berlin and Brussels , Lindenberg im Allgäu 2013, p. 36.
  10. ^ Michael Wenzel: Small stories Bad Godesberger Messages , Bonn, 2nd edition 2011, pp. 27/28.
  11. ↑ 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.
  12. ↑ Avi Primor: Nothing is ever completed. The autobiography , Quadriga, Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-86995-077-8 .
  13. ^ The Israeli embassy initially in the old rooms in Wilmersdorf , Der Tagesspiegel , August 7, 1999
  14. ^ Israel's embassy starts work in Berlin , Süddeutsche Zeitung , August 7, 1999
  15. ↑ The last employees of the Israeli embassy are moving , General-Anzeiger , December 5, 2000
  16. ↑ a b Jürgen Ehlert: Former fortress becomes office building . In: General-Anzeiger . May 8, 2003, p. 9 .
  17. ↑ a b Sales hit and slow-moving , Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , November 19, 2005
  18. ↑ Extra-territorial area , Berliner Zeitung , July 21, 2010

Coordinates: 50 ° 41 ′ 35.9 ″  N , 7 ° 9 ′ 48.5 ″  E