(Virtual Parliament)
211th Session of German Parliament
Bonn, February 25, 1994
Page 9 of 10
Speaker Dr. Rita Süssmuth:
I will now give the floor to colleague Briefs.
Dr. Ulrich Briefs (no party affiliation):
Mrs. Speaker! Ladies and
gentlemen! It was easy to fear that an earnest, at times bitter earnest debate
on the association with so-called national honor would develop from its
advocates also well as its opponents during the discussion on the wrapping
of the Reichstag. It would have , also in relation to the object to be
wrapped, the Reichstag , probably been more appropriate to make a
decision easily for the aye or nay to this wrapping in the forecourt of formal
earnest parliamentary debates.
(Applause from MP Hans-Ulrich Klose [SPD])
Maybe we should have simply decided with a throw of the dice. It is
completely inappropriate anyway to reject the wrapping with this, with "an
insecure nation after the recovery of unity must first find itself" , these are
quotes , and that we "have no right to put the feelings of the people in this
country to the test". Thus expressed by chairman of the CSU parliamentary
group.
Nationally colored tones do not belong at all in this debate. If we just
consider this argument - the feelings of many people would be hurt -
more closely as an exception: Is it really so that deeper feelings are tied to to
the Reichstag, to the stone symbol of the unhappy history of German
parliamentary democracy?
I dare to claim the Reichstag is unknown and
unimportant to the great majority of the German population. It would
probably not be bad if the Reichstag were to ,the wrapping of which was
formulated as an art project long before reunification and when this was in
no way foreseeable - attract positive feelings of identification.
But this is
not so. Instead Markus Wasmeier or Katarina Witt attract much more of this
type of identification potential.
(Applause from the SPD MPs)
One can be of a fully contrary opinion on the artistic value of the wrapping
project, which has a slightly gigantic thing about it. After this debate here,
after the restrained national tones in this debate, one has simply to be for it.
As Werner Schmalenbach, the general director of the At Collections of
Northrhine Westphalia rightly said, one should give himself a push to vote
for the wrapping. Because the wrapping is at the very least - it has this
value - a spectacular project against national and otherwise German
narrow-mindedness.
Thank you, Mrs. Speaker.
(Applause from the SPD MPs)
Translation © 1995 M. S. Cullen
Foto: Aleks Perkovic © Wolfgang Volz