40 Fun Facts About Reichstag Building

Which artist couple wrapped the whole Reichstag building in fabric for two weeks in 1995?

Christo and Jeanne-Claude lobbied for 24 years before parliament voted to allow it. They paid for the project themselves by selling drawings and early works.

Which English singer's 1987 show by the Reichstag drew East Germans to listen from behind the Wall?

David Bowie played close to the Wall on 6 June 1987, and the night ended with rioting among the listeners on the eastern side.

What was scratched out of the famous 1945 photograph of a Soviet flag raised over the Reichstag?

A second wristwatch on one soldier's arm hinted at looting. The photographer removed it with a needle before the picture was published.

Which Berlin landmark crowned by a four-horse chariot stands one block south of the Reichstag?

Brandenburg Gate lost its chariot to Napoleon, who carried the sculpture off to Paris in 1806. It came home after his defeat eight years later.

Which group did the Nazis blame for the Reichstag fire, jailing thousands of its members in days?

Communists were accused of plotting a coup, which let the new government suspend civil liberties by emergency decree the very next day.

Which city on the Rhine did Germany's parliament leave to move into the rebuilt Reichstag building?

Bonn lost the 1991 vote on the seat of government by a slim margin, after a debate remembered as one of parliament's most memorable sessions.

What does 'Dem deutschen Volke', the inscription over the Reichstag's entrance, mean in English?

To the German People was a dedication the Kaiser resisted for years because of its democratic ring. It went up only in the middle of the First World War.

Who was Germany's chancellor at the official reunification ceremony held at the Reichstag in October 1990?

Helmut Kohl joined the crowds there amid huge firework displays, and the next day the united country's parliament met in the building as a symbolic act.

A memorial to which 'Iron Chancellor' stood before the Reichstag until the Nazis moved it in 1938?

Otto von Bismarck was shifted, statue and all, to clear space for Hitler's planned new capital. The move probably saved the monument from wartime destruction.

Which architect rebuilt the Reichstag building in the 1990s and gave it a walk-in glass dome?

Norman Foster first proposed a huge canopy over the building and resisted a dome, giving way only when parliament insisted on one.

The Reichstag building stands on the bank of which river that winds through the centre of Berlin?

The Spree lay in the attackers' way in 1945: Red Army troops crossed a damaged bridge over the river, a mere 600 metres from the building.

War reparations paid by which defeated country in the 1870s funded the building of the Reichstag?

France paid for the new parliament without meaning to: the bill was settled from the indemnity it owed after losing the war of 1870–71.

What did the 1990s rebuild of the Reichstag keep inside as a trace of the 1945 battle for Berlin?

Soldiers' graffiti in Cyrillic, scrawled by Red Army troops after the fighting, was kept on show. Insults were removed in agreement with diplomats.

Visitors climb the Reichstag dome on spiral ramps said to be reminiscent of which shape?

A double helix is the usual comparison: one ramp winds up to the viewing platform while the other, set half a turn apart, leads back down.

What colour was the fabric that hid the Reichstag building from view for two weeks in 1995?

Silver fabric covering 100,000 square metres was tied down with blue rope, and millions of visitors came to see the building disappear.

The Reichstag stands on the eastern edge of which Berlin park, once a hunting ground for its rulers?

Tiergarten means animal garden: the electors kept deer and other game fenced in there long before the land became a public park.

The Federal Convention gathers in the Reichstag building solely to elect which German office-holder?

The President is chosen by every member of parliament plus an equal number of electors sent by the states, and the body has no other job.

How is the German word 'Reichstag' usually translated into English?

Imperial Diet is the literal sense, which is why the word now names only the building: the parliament inside is called the Bundestag.

Which head of state signed the emergency decree issued the day after the Reichstag fire?

Paul von Hindenburg signed at his new chancellor's request, using emergency powers in the Weimar constitution to suspend civil liberties across Germany.

Germany's last Kaiser disliked the Reichstag and privately mocked it as a house for which animals?

Monkeys featured in his insult 'Reichsaffenhaus', and he also called the new parliament building the height of tastelessness.

Which Frankfurt architect won the commission to design the Reichstag building after a contest in 1882?

Paul Wallot was the second contest winner: an earlier design, chosen ten years before, was never built because the intended site was not available.

Which Dutch former bricklayer was convicted of starting the Reichstag fire and beheaded in 1934?

Marinus van der Lubbe went to the guillotine three days before his 25th birthday. Germany formally pardoned him in 2008.

After the 1933 fire, Germany's parliament met in which building facing the gutted Reichstag?

Kroll Opera House had stood empty for nearly two years. There the deputies passed the Enabling Act, handing Hitler almost unlimited authority.

Which politician left his lunch in the Reichstag dining room to proclaim Germany a republic in 1918?

Philipp Scheidemann acted without permission, and his party leader pounded the table and shouted that he had no right to proclaim the republic.

What hangs at the centre of the Reichstag dome to direct daylight down into the debating chamber?

A mirrored cone of 360 angled panes sends daylight to the chamber, while stale air rises through its hollow core and escapes from the open top.

What ironic nickname do Germans give the huge eagle in the Reichstag building's debating chamber?

Fat Hen, or 'Fette Henne', pokes fun at its rounded shape. The eagle is an enlarged copy of one a sculptor designed for the old West German parliament.

Soviet commanders wanted the Reichstag taken in time for which annual holiday parade in Moscow?

May Day was close when Soviet troops reached the roof, yet fighting went on inside a building that had not housed parliament since it burned in 1933.

Before the Reichstag opened, parliament met for 23 years in the old home of a royal maker of what?

Porcelain from the royal manufactory gave way to politics when the premises were converted for the deputies in just 70 days, as a stopgap.

The bronze letters above the Reichstag's entrance were cast in 1916 from which melted-down objects?

Captured cannons from the wars against Napoleon were melted for the 60-centimetre letters, which a Jewish family foundry cast.

Which emperor laid the Reichstag's foundation stone in 1884 but died before it was finished?

Wilhelm I died in 1888, the Year of Three Emperors, six years before the builders finished. His grandson inherited a parliament house he never liked.

In the Second World War, Berlin's Charité hospital used the Reichstag's basement as what?

A maternity ward was improvised there beside an air-raid shelter, and some 60 to 80 Berliners are thought to have been born in the building.

In which German city did the Reich Supreme Court try the five men accused of the Reichstag fire?

Leipzig hosted the trial from September to December 1933, with some hearings moved to the scene of the crime. Four of the five accused were acquitted.

The Reichstag's four corner towers each stood for a German kingdom; which of these was one of them?

Saxony shared the honour with Prussia, Bavaria and Württemberg, the four kingdoms inside the empire founded in 1871.

Which US city's Memorial Hall, built for an 1876 world's fair, is often cited as a model for the Reichstag?

Philadelphia built its hall as the art gallery of the fair marking 100 years of American independence, and it is the only major building from the fair still standing.

Which Berlin square, called Königsplatz under the Kaisers, lies in front of the Reichstag building?

Platz der Republik got its name in 1926. The Nazis brought the royal name back in 1933, and the republican one returned for good in 1948.

Which Soviet photographer staged the famous image of soldiers raising a flag on the Reichstag roof?

Yevgeny Khaldei brought his own flag, sewn from tablecloth fabric, after seeing the American photograph of a flag raised on Iwo Jima.

Which Bulgarian cleared at the Reichstag fire trial went on to become his country's prime minister?

Georgi Dimitrov turned his defence into an attack, cross-examining Göring in court. After the war he returned from exile to head the Bulgarian government.

Which Spartacist leader answered the Reichstag proclamation of 1918 with one from the Berlin Palace?

Karl Liebknecht declared a 'Free Socialist Republic' from a palace window that same day. About two months later he was seized and shot by paramilitaries.

Which German electrical firm made radio tubes inside the bricked-up Reichstag during the war?

AEG set up its tube workshop after the windows had been bricked up and the building turned into a fortress. A hospital shared the space.

Which mayor, speaking before the ruined Reichstag in 1948, begged the world not to abandon Berlin?

Ernst Reuter faced a crowd of some 300,000 during the Soviet blockade, while an Allied airlift was keeping the western half of the city supplied.