(Virtual Parliament)

211th Session of German Parliament

Bonn, February 25, 1994

Page 2 of 10

Our colleague Dr. Burkhard Hirsch will speak next.

Dr. Burkhard Hirsch (F.D.P.):

Mrs. Speaker! Honorable ladies and gentlemen! It gradually takes courage to acknowledge that there is something in this country which is removed from private pleasures and that it is important that the Reichstag belongs to this group.

I am not filled with joy that we as a parliament and in such times are, by means of a roll-call vote Ä in other words, by means of the most democratic instrument Ä are becoming part of a PR campaign.

(Applause from MPs of the F.D.P., the CDU/CSU, the SPD and the PDS/Linke Liste)

It displeases me how lightly, even to an AIDS poster, those against the Christo project were dismissed. It displeases me that the petitioners do not consider with a word the arbitrariness of the arguments of ideological superstructure with which this project is accompanied and substantiated, up to the wrapping out of shame because of the Third Reich or wrapping because it is not needed or a plastic sheet so that may appear beautiful above the Wall.

(Applause from MP Uta Würfel [F.D.P.])

We not deciding on art in fact, we are also not deciding on the obvious, arbitrary, ideological superstructure, we are deciding on the time-honored Reichstag. Even after a hundred years, the building, with its compact facade, still remains impressive.

Even its location is a political symbol: the other side of the old city border, erected on the other side of the Brandenburg Gate, with the facade directed away from the former power center and dedicated to the German people. There is no structure in the national republic in which the glory and the misery of a German parliament and the German history of the last 120 years is reflected as it is there.

(Applause from the MPs of the F.D.P. and the CDU/CSU)

Bismarck, Bebel, Eugen Richter, Lasker and many others began a laborious, continuous forty-year path there in parliamentary democracy. Scheidemann proclaimed the republic there. Rathenau and Stresemann led Germany back into the community of nations there.

I see Marinus van der Lubbe, who laid down his life for this symbol. I see Göring with his smirking uniformed MPs. I see the storming by the Red Army and 40 years later, the celebration and the reunification on October 3, 1990 at which we stood on the steps in front of the Reichstag building, some of us reaching out our hands to each other.

Now Mr. Christo comes and packs everything. It is calmly being assured that it doesn't cost anything and that it in addition would be an excellent promotion for Berlin for which visitors would spend 500 million DM. What arguments! When I read this: this is not even our time, it is bad style, it is styleless.

(Applause from MPs of the F.D.P. and the CDU/CSU)

Why don't we also pack the Brandeburg Gate if it pleases the artist? Shouldn't the parliament also move into the Reichstag building for that reason because this building also has an unique historical meaning for us? There is nothing to pack and there is nothing to wrap.

(Applause from F.D.P. MPs)

If Mr. Christo would suggest packing the Capitol, the Houses of Parliament or the Assemblée Nationale, a storm of public indignation would sweep him and his project away.

(Applause from F.D.P. and CDU/CSU MPs Ä acclamation from the SPD)

Thus each has his own standards. Something else: Even if one could convince many people of the artistic value of this undertaking, what is then with the many others of which I am a part, who see the parliament and our past as being unworthily handled.

(Applause from CDU/CSU MPs)

Is the enjoyment which you may have, for those of you who are for this project, so very important that you can simply pass lightly over the hurt feelings of others who find the inspirations of Mr. Christo at best amusing but not important?

(Applause from F.D.P. and CDU/CSU MPs)

There should and must still be things in our country which are not available for private amusement. It is important that the Reichstag is one of them.

(Applause from F.D.P. and CDU/CSU as well as from SPD MPs - Peter Conradi [SPD]: That was a real liberal! - Gerhard Reddemann [CDU/CSU]: Yes, you will never understand that!)

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Translation © 1995 M. S. Cullen