Permanent representations of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic

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On October 2, 1990, the head of the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the GDR, Franz Bertele , unscrewed the sign on his office building himself. The mission ended its work with German unification.

In the basic treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic of December 21, 1972 (entered into force on June 21, 1973), the establishment of permanent representations (StäV) was decided (Article 8).

Diplomatic accreditation

The permanent representatives were practically ambassadors - the GDR called them that too. They had to accredit themselves with the head of state of the other German state : the Federal German permanent representative to the chairman of the State Council , the permanent representative of the GDR to the federal president . In contrast to conventional ambassadors who have been working in accordance with the Vienna Convention since 1961 , the following cross-regulation applied:

  • The permanent representative of the Federal Republic to the GDR was State Secretary in the Federal Chancellery (at that time in Bonn ) and assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MfAA)
  • The permanent representative of the GDR in the Federal Republic was State Secretary in the MfAA and assigned to the Federal Chancellery (i.e. not to the Foreign Office as usual ).

The word “at” in the term “Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the GDR” expresses that East Berlin, after its four-power status, did not belong to the GDR (any more than West Berlin to the Federal Republic). The reason for the deviation from normal embassy operations lay in the conflicting state-political views. The permanent representatives were therefore not treated "in accordance with" but "in accordance with" the Vienna Convention .

For the Federal Republic the German question remained open until 1990, that is

  • The aim of their German policy was German reunification
  • The GDR was regarded as a sovereign state, but not as a foreign country
  • The Federal Republic only accepted a special GDR citizenship to a limited extent; uniform German citizenship was still decisive.

For the GDR, on the other hand, the question of Germany was closed, at the latest since 1974, when the constitution of 1968 - especially Article 8, which contained the requirement of reunification ("The German Democratic Republic and its citizens strive [...] the gradual rapprochement of the two Germans States until their unification on the basis of democracy and socialism ”) - was changed. For the GDR there were two German states, each of which was for the other foreign country (→  two-state theory ).

Interests

On December 19, 1975, the permanent representative Günter Gaus signed an agreement on transit fees in the House of Ministries with the department head in the Ministry of Finance of the GDR, Hans Nimmerich (right)

Both German states were frontline states behind which powerful allies, the USA and the USSR , set the tone. The Federal Republic and GDR had an existential interest in detente, because both knew that a “hot war” as a continuation of the Cold War would be their end on the battlefield of Central Europe (stationing of Soviet medium-range missiles, NATO double decision ). In addition, there were economic interests that can be divided into normal and special (specifically German). The normal ones consisted in the movement of goods and the creation of jobs (in the Federal Republic about half a million jobs depended on GDR trade). The special ones resulted from the different political views and the economic gap between the Federal Republic and GDR.

  • The Federal Republic offered recognition as a sovereign state and international reputation ( UN membership, participation in the conference on security and cooperation in Europe ), as well as money (for example in the form of interest-free overdrafts, the so-called swing).
  • The GDR offered transit routes between the Federal Republic and West Berlin, the expansion of the interstate postal and telecommunications system, in general: humanitarian improvements for GDR citizens (e.g. family reunification, prisoner care).

tasks

The tasks of the permanent representatives were those of ambassadors, who, however, had to deal with the specifics of intra-German relations . They brought or received suggestions or complaints from governments and negotiated or participated in negotiations, for example regarding

  • Transport routes (financing of the Berlin-Hamburg autobahn , financing of border crossing points, opening of the Teltow Canal for western ships, road usage fees)
  • Travel options (determination of the group of people and the duration of the trip, entitlement certificates, visa fees, minimum exchange )
  • Post and telecommunications
  • Environmental issues (mining of potash salts and pollution of the Elbe)
  • Cultural cooperation (stay of journalists, exhibitions, town twinning).

The head of office (casually also the "permanent representative") in East Berlin acted as the ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the GDR , although this term was deliberately avoided because the GDR was granted complete state sovereignty by the Federal Republic of Germany due to the reunification requirement in the Basic Law was never recognized. In return, the GDR had a permanent mission in Bonn , the head of which was given the rank of "ambassador" by the GDR government , which in turn was ignored by the federal government .

The permanent representatives of the Federal Republic also had other tasks to do: During the existence of the permanent representation, GDR citizens repeatedly fled to the premises of the permanent representation in order to leave the GDR for the Federal Republic , for example because their application to leave the country did not was foreseeably processed or not approved. Most of the time, these cases were not known and were tacitly settled by buying them free in the Federal Republic.

The negotiations about it (with the lawyer Wolfgang Vogel or Honecker's special representative Schalck-Golodkowski ) were conducted in secret and without records. The solution was often for the refugees to return to their place of residence and submit an application to leave the country, which the GDR authorities agreed to approve. In 1984 and 1989 the permanent representation in Berlin had to close temporarily because 55 and 131 GDR citizens respectively had sought refuge there (they lived in the conference pavilion, the so-called "garden house" behind the permanent representation building).

Because of these explosive "incidents", the entire area was under constant surveillance by the People's Police and employees of the Ministry for State Security .

people

Federal Republic of Germany

The Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the GDR in Berlin (Hannoversche Strasse 28–30):

  • Günter Gaus (1974–1981, SPD since 1976, journalist, confidante of Willy Brandt , after his time as permanent representative briefly Senator for Science in West Berlin, then publicist, † 2004)
  • Klaus Bölling (1981–1982, SPD, before and after his time as permanent representative, spokesman for the Schmidt government , † 2014)
  • Hans-Otto Bräutigam (1982–1989, independent, 1974–1977 deputy of Gaus, after 1989 UN Ambassador, 1990–1999 Justice and Europe Minister in Brandenburg)
  • Franz Bertele (1989–1990, CDU, 1977–1980 deputy of Gaus, later ambassador to Poland and Israel, † 2019)

The first three permanent representatives of the Federal Republic came from the time of the Schmidt government. The Kohl government - it continued Brandt and Schmidt's " new Ostpolitik " - left the groom in office.

GDR

The permanent representatives of the GDR in Bonn (Godesberger Allee 18):

  • Michael Kohl (1974–1978, together with Egon Bahr architect of the basic agreement , later deputy foreign minister, † 1981)
  • Ewald Moldt (1978–1988, 1970–1978 and 1988 to March 1990 deputy foreign minister, † 2019)
  • Horst Neubauer (1988–1990)

Offices

Federal Republic of Germany

Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany, Berlin (2006)
Memorial plaque on the house at Hannoversche Strasse 30 in Berlin-Mitte

The permanent representation of the Federal Republic had its seat in Berlin-Mitte in the Hannoversche Strasse 28-30. The building was the “white house” for East Berliners and “Object 499” for the Ministry of State Security . At the time, federal border police officers lived in the attic (the Scharoun studio) .

The property had been a barracks site since the 18th century (initially cavalry , in the 19th century guards - artillery ). Between 1912 and 1914 the current building was erected as barracks for the machine gun companies of the Kaiser Alexander Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 1 and the II Guards Regiment on foot . In 1938 it was a police barracks (police school center). In 1948 the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) handed over the building to the Academy of Sciences, which was slightly damaged in the war . In 1949 Scharoun built an attic with a case as a studio. It served the Institute of Construction of the Academy of Sciences. The institute was dissolved in 1950 and the German Building Academy was founded on January 1, 1951 (at times also the seat of the editorial office of the German architecture magazine ).

In 1973 the Deutsche Bauakademie cleared the house, which was later converted for the permanent representation. Since the reunification, the building has served as the second office of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research . It has been a monument since 1995. The residence of the Federal German permanent representatives was on Kuckhoffstrasse (Pankow).

GDR

Permanent Mission of the GDR, Bonn (2006)
Coat of arms of the GDR, formerly part of the facade of the StäV in Bonn

The Bonn office of the Permanent Mission of the GDR was at Godesberger Allee 18, the east side of Bundesstrasse 9 in the Bad Godesberg district of Plittersdorf ( 50 ° 41 ′ 32.6 ″  N , 7 ° 8 ′ 50.3 ″  E ). The building was erected in 1973 by a local housing company as a four-storey reinforced concrete structure - reduced by one axis on the upper floor - with metal cladding and taken over by the Permanent Representation on May 2, 1974. It was secured by high fences. The main building, which faces the street front, is supplemented at the rear by a single-storey extension, which is adjoined by a semi-detached house serving as a residential building for employees of the permanent representation in the parallel Teutonenstrasse. The GDR also had a guest house there . The residence of the head of the permanent representation was in the Bornheim district of Hersel (Rheinstrasse 232) in a villa from the 1960s that was demolished in 2000 (→ Rheinstrasse 232 (Bornheim) ). A block of flats in the Auerberg district of Bonn was rented for the remaining employees of the permanent representation .

The furnishings of the permanent representation were auctioned off at a Cologne auction after their dissolution in the course of reunification. After extensive renovation, the building then served as the state representative for Saxony (from June 1991; lower floors) and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (from October 1991; upper floors) from 1991 to 1999 . A buoy and anchors in front of the building for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and a replica of a milestone in the Electoral Saxony donated by the Sächsische Sandsteinwerke Pirna in 1995 in the form of an obelisk with the hourly distances of a stagecoach from the Bonn location remind of the former use as a state representative . Today (2015) the German Nutrition Society is housed here. The building is part of the path to democracy .

Details and timeline

  • Egon Bahr to a journalist after signing the basic contract: "So far we have had no relationships, now we will have bad ones, and that is the progress."
  • The Federal Constitutional Court , the suit on July 31, 1973 Bavarian state government back to the basic treaty.
  • At the end of 1973 Gaus suggested using the budget to raise funds for the purchase of works of art for the Permanent Representation. As early as the beginning of 1974 he procured works by Otmar Alt , Horst Antes and Roger Loewig, for example . Later works by Gerhard Altenbourg and AR Penck (Ralf Winkler) were added.
  • Gaus and the deputy GDR Foreign Minister Kurt Nier signed the protocol on the establishment of the permanent representation in Bonn on March 14, 1974 (according to the basic agreement).
  • Gaus reports in an interview: "On May 2nd [1974] the advance detachment of the Federal Republic started in the Hotel Unter den Linden" (Gaus was only accredited on June 20, 1974).
  • Around 90 people worked in each of the two permanent representations.
  • On November 21, 1975, the conference pavilion in the courtyard of the permanent representation, the "garden house", was inaugurated (Federal Building Directorate Charlottenburg).
  • From the window of his office, Gaus could see Wolf Biermann's apartment (Chausseestrasse 131, corner of Hannoversche, 2nd floor) , who was expelled in November 1976.
  • On April 28, 1977, a modern jazz concert took place in the garden house ( Manfred Schoof quintet).
  • On May 25, 1977, the packaging artist Christo stayed at the Permanent Mission and was shown the Reichstag building from the roof (he had the idea of ​​packaging it even then).
  • In an exchange of fire between Soviet MPs and a deserter in June 1978 at the Friedrichstrasse / Unter den Linden intersection, an employee of the Permanent Mission (OAR Walter Jung) was injured in the head when he happened to drive through the line of fire in a company car.
  • On October 23, 1981, a Beuys exhibition took place in the garden house. Joseph Beuys - limed, in hat and fishing vest - posed as a statue.
  • Confidential discussions were held in the “Laube”, a tap-proof room on the 4th floor of the west wing. The room no longer exists, it had to give way to the extension. Occasionally, employees of the Permanent Mission have used the fact that the Stasi was tapping telephone conversations diplomatically to launch information.
  • In 1982 an officer on special operations (OibE) worked in the permanent mission. He reported that the (old) porter's lodge was "an armored electronics cabinet, the sheet steel door and armored steel door as well as 3 cassette doors were open" (from a message from the BStU ).
  • On January 22, 1984, six GDR citizens fled to the US embassy building; they could quickly leave for the west.
  • The permanent representation was temporarily closed on June 26, 1984: 55 GDR citizens occupied the permanent representation.
  • It was reopened on July 31, 1984 - under increased security measures (grating of the stairwell, remnants of the grating can still be seen in the west stairwell today).
  • In September 1986, the physicist and philosopher Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker spoke about "questions of peacekeeping in Europe" in the permanent representation .
  • In 1988 the number of people who were allowed to travel from the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany reached one million (among them a third were non-pensioners).
  • On February 16, 1989, a GDR family (with two children) broke through the closed barrier to the courtyard of the Permanent Mission in a Trabi , injured a people's policeman and wrecked the getaway car. The GDR lawyer Vogel took over the defense of the GDR refugees , who were allowed to leave after a period of shame .
  • The permanent representation closed again on August 8, 1989: 131 GDR citizens had occupied the permanent representation.
  • On September 3, 1989 - during the mass occupation - two children were “enrolled” by a teacher who had organized substitute lessons under the occupiers.
  • On September 8, 1989, the last 100 “occupiers” who had persevered left the permanent mission.
  • On October 1, 1989, over 800 GDR citizens who had fled to the Warsaw embassy of the Federal Republic drove through the GDR to the Federal Republic. The Federal German permanent representative, Franz Bertele, accompanied them on this trip to guarantee the refugees safety. The trip from Warsaw through the GDR to Helmstedt had been arranged between the permanent representative of the GDR, Neubauer, and the head of the Federal Chancellery, Rudolf Seiters .
  • On November 10, 1989, one day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the permanent missions were reopened (Honecker had already been deposed, Stoph resigned).
  • On July 11, 1990, the permanent representative of the GDR, Horst Neubauer, left Bonn (without replacement).
  • In the 16 years of the permanent representation, the Federal Republic paid over 3 billion DM for the ransom of GDR citizens , about 100,000 DM per prisoner (Bräutigam in an interview with politikorange in June 2004).
  • The Berlin conservationist and architectural historian Simone Hain “rediscovered” the Scharoun studio after the permanent mission was cleared and helped to reconstruct it. Today a cafeteria and a reference library of the BMBF are housed in the Scharoun studio.
  • Since 1991 a memorial plaque has been hanging at the old (east) entrance of the Federal German Permanent Mission. It says: "From 1974 until the unification of Germany on October 3, 1990, the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the GDR was in this house."
  • Ida Krenzlin (* 1978), who had lived in Wilhelm-Pieck-Straße (today Torstraße), remembered 2004 (in staeffi ): “At least the piece of lawn next to the permanent representation was the best guarded place in the world for your guinea pigs to roam free The gatehouse designed by the architect Hans Kollhoff has stood there since 1997 ( reminiscent of the Oranienburger Tor ).

Trivia

  • The official sign of the Federal German Permanent Mission was stolen a few days before reunification. Franz Bertele had a new one made at his own expense so that it could be screwed off on October 2, 1990. This new sign hung in the Bonn House of History until spring 2006 , today it can be seen in the Tränenpalast Berlin. The official sign of the Permanent Mission of the GDR also hangs in the Tränenpalast Berlin - House of History.
  • The Karl Hofer painting “At the Window” (from 1947), which Gaus had acquired in 1973 (it hung on the east wall of his office), has been lost since reunification.

literature

  • Jacqueline Boysen: The “white house” in East Berlin. The Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic to the GDR , Christoph Links-Verlag, Berlin 2010.
  • Hans-Otto Bräutigam : Permanent representation: My years in East Berlin , Hoffmann and Campe, 2009.
  • Franz Bertele: 1989–1990 - On the management of the division towards the reunification of Germany , lecture in Seoul on May 23, 2002.
  • Franz Bertele: Interview of the RBB on September 26, 2005.
  • Deutschlandfunk of September 26th, 2000: "All gone from the window", where have the GDR diplomats gone?
  • Simone Hain : The house at Hannoversche Strasse 30, a Berlin setting for German-German history , Berlin 2001 (not published).
  • Günter Gaus: Texts on the German Question , Luchterhand 1981.
  • Günter Gaus: Where Germany Lies , Hoffmann and Campe, 1983.
  • Günter Gaus: It was the most important time of my life . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 6, 2001, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 86-94 ( luise-berlin.de - interview).
  • Kathrin Chod, Herbert Schwenk, Hainer Weisspflug: Permanent representation of the FRG to the GDR . In: Hans-Jürgen Mende , Kurt Wernicke (ed.): Berliner Bezirkslexikon, Mitte . Luisenstadt educational association . tape 2 : N to Z . Haude and Spener / Edition Luisenstadt, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89542-111-1 ( luise-berlin.de - as of October 7, 2009).
  • Literary Guide Berlin , Insel-Verlag, 1998.
  • Eberhard Grashoff / Rolf Muth (eds.): Inside front of the door , Edition Ost, Berlin 2000. - About the work of correspondents in the GDR
  • Franz Bertele: Basic contract and permanent representation in Berlin. Notes on the management of the German division . In: Jochen A. Frowein, Klaus Scharioth, Ingo Winkelmann, Rüdiger Wolfrum (eds.): Negotiating for Peace , Berlin / Heidelberg / New York 2003 ( PDF ( Memento from November 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive )) .
  • Kerstin Wittmann-Englert, René Hartmann (Hrsg.): Buildings of the countries. The state representations in Bonn, Berlin and Brussels. Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg im Allgäu 2013, ISBN 978-3-89870-796-1 .

Movie

  • MDR: “The year '84 on Hannoversche Strasse” by Thomas Franke (director: Angelika Perl), broadcast in 1992.
  • RBB: "Diplomacy in the shadow of the wall - Bonn's branch in East Berlin" by Sissy von Westphalen, broadcast in 2005.
  • “Staeffi”, edition of “politikorange” (Network Democracy Offensive), 2004.
  • WDR / Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie Berlin: “We are not a hotel - escape location embassy” (director: Inge Albrecht), length 59 min., Broadcast several times since 1996. - Via the embassy escapes in 1984 to the permanent mission

Web links

Commons : Permanent representation of the Federal Republic of Germany in the GDR  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Angelika Schyma : In diplomatic restraint. Embassy architecture of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn from the founding of the state to the fall of the wall . In: Embassies in Berlin , Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-7861-2472-8 , pp. 29–41.
  2. ^ A climate protection settlement is being built on Teutonenstrasse , General-Anzeiger , April 26, 2012
  3. ↑ Permanent representative of the GDR gave fools receptions in Herseler Villa , General-Anzeiger, January 4, 2012.
  4. ↑ Christian Lonnemann: The Permanent Representatives of GDR in Bornheim - "Hersel Alaaf" . In: Rhein-Sieg-Kreis (Ed.): Yearbook of the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis , edition 27, year 2012, Edition Blattwelt, Reinhard Zado, Niederhofen 2011, ISBN 978-3-936256-46-8 , p. 108– 115 (here: p. 111).
  5. ↑ Kerstin Wittmann-Englert, René Hartmann (ed.): Buildings of the countries. The state representations in Bonn, Berlin and Brussels , Lindenberg im Allgäu 2013, pp. 36, 50.
  6. ↑ Angelika Schyma : The houses of the state representations in Bonn . In: Kerstin Wittmann-Englert, René Hartmann (eds.): Buildings of the countries: The state offices in Bonn, Berlin and Brussels , Art Publishing House Jose0f Fink, Lindenberg im Allgäu 2013, ISBN 978-3-89870-796-1 , p. 17 –55 (here: pp. 36, 50).
  7. ↑ Entry on Path of Democracy
  8. ↑ Günther Gaus: It was the most important time of my life . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 6, 2001, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 86-94 ( luise-berlin.de - quote p. 87).
  9. ↑ Jacqueline Boysen: The “white house” in East Berlin. The Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic to the GDR , Christoph-Links-Verlag, Berlin 2010; on Bertele and the sign: p. 283.
  10. ↑ staev.de ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.staev.de

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '36.9 "  N , 13 ° 23' 9.9"  E