After the war the Reichstag remained empty while the West German parliament set up in Bonn and the East German parliament was based in East Berlin.
After the war the Reichstag remained empty while the West German parliament set up in Bonn and the East German parliament was based in East Berlin. In the 1960s, the building was renovated during which much of the original architecture was destroyed. After reunification in 1990, the German parliament voted to move back to Berlin from Bonn. During the final reconstruction, the building was first almost completely gutted, taking out everything except the outer walls, including all changes made by Baumgarten in the 1960s. Respect for the historic aspects of the building was one of the conditions stipulated to the architects, so traces of historical events were to be retained in a visible state. Among them were graffiti left by Soviet soldiers after the final battle for Berlin in April–May 1945. However, graffiti with racist or sexist themes were removed, in agreement with Russian diplomats at the time. With the permission of the Chilean government in 1889, eleven Selk’nam natives includin...