Why was Bonn the Capital of West Germany? (Short Animated Documentary)

after its defeat in World War II Germany was split into two parts East Germany with its capital of Berlin and West Germany with its capital of Bonn which is here and had a population of about 110 000 people in a nation of about 50 million and given that there were much larger more important cities in West Germany at the time why was Bond chosen as its capital so as of 1949 Germany was divided into four parts and the three controlled by the Western Powers were merged into the Federal Republic of Germany with the Allies preparing to hand over the role of Civilian government to the West Germans the first thing that needed to be picked was where this government would operate from and the temporary location chosen was bomb this was because Bonn was one of the larger towns in West Germany that had been bombed to ruins however it was only supposed to be a stop Gap until the politicians of West Germany could pick a new capital so why did they keep it there well there were many reasons and numerous larger cities were put forward Frankfurt Kelowna Munich were candidates for the capital but all of them were somewhat bombed and occupied the buildings that were still standing were either being used as a emergency housing or by the Allied armies as bases as such the West German government would need to spend considerable sums of money to build a new Parliament as well as the massive infrastructure needed to support it money which many at the time felt that the government didn't have furthermore German Chancellor comrade Arden hour and his opponent Kurt Schumacher didn't want the West German Capital to be somewhere with lots of foreign troops around Schumacher soon found himself a little bit dead in his successors push for Frankfurt because of its central location they weren't in power though so it wasn't up to them and largely fell toward an hour and his party to decide artanauer didn't want the federal Republic's New Capital to be a major city because he felt that such a move would look permanent and thus it would appear to be a concession that Germany would remain divided forever another concern was that the new capital couldn't be anywhere with a strong association with the previous regime with this in mind Arden hour needed to find a small town without Allied troops with no connection to the war that was large enough to house a parliament which didn't leave much the French refused to withdraw from any town in their former occupation zones as they saw it as a sign of weakness whereas the Americans preferred that the new gov government would be seated in a larger City but they also refused to remove their soldiers from there this left only the British who had already agree to withdraw forces from Bonn not because of any sympathy towards German feeling but because not stationing troops in a town is cheaper than stationing troops in a town and Britain was broke Bond had a lot of unbalmed unoccupied buildings that were suitable for use and also had nothing to do with the previous regime in fact it was the birthplace of Beethoven and thus appealed to a vision of Germany distinct from its Prussian or imperial past and another bonus was that it was only a 20-minute drive from mardenauer's house and given that the government was already there they just well chose to stay and in fact when Germany reunited in 1990 there was a vote to move the capital from Bonn to Berlin most West German politicians voted for it to remain in Bonn however when the votes of these German politicians were included it tipped the balance by a mere 18 votes and thus Berlin took over as the new capital of United Germany I hope you enjoyed this episode with a special thanks to my patrons James bisonet Kelly moneymaker kosher wolf Sky Chappelle kartoitska Adams rod D Martin a firefly Y and hockey Captain psydogboogly Wiggly Marvin cassar Winston k word commune Miss izet Maggie Paskowski Gustav Swan the mcgwapa Anthony Beckett Coppertone sherwenin spinning three plates words about books podcast Jim Stromberg Spencer Lightfoot and Charles the first

Channel: History Matters

Views: 1,146,054

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Id: 0rVvLPco124

Length: 3min 22sec (202 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2023