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Federal Ministry of Finance Public Relations Division 97 The 10117 , Detlev Rohwedder Building

Political significance Renovation and remodelling

The Federal Ministry of Finance has accepted the Transforming the Detlev Rohwedder Building into the historical challenge that this building embodies. main office of the Federal Ministry of Finance required Images A deliberate decision was made not to demolish the extensive renovation and remodelling. For the most building as some expert opinions had urged, but rather part, the original state of the building was retained, Anastasia Hermann, Ilja C. Hendel, Jörg Rüger, to renovate the entire complex and preserve it for the including the spatial arrangement of the offices, the BArch / R 4606 Bild-3782-002 / Arthur Köster public. Only by continuing to use this building can natural stone façade, the exterior grounds, and the BArch / Bild-183-S88607 / Heilig its history can be kept alive, to serve as a warning and mural by the artist Max Lingner. Conference rooms as BReg / B 145 Bild-00014119 / Perlia-Archiv reminder for future generations. well as press and visitor centres were redesigned and equipped with state-of-the-art conference technology Berlin, June 2019 and air conditioning.

To find out more about the history of the Detlev Rohwedder Building and to access additional Finance Detail of Max Lingner’s monumental mural, Ministry publications, please visit our website at Aufbau der Republik (“Building the Republic”). www.bundesfinanzministerium.de. During the post- period and GDR regime The Detlev Rohwedder Building, (1945–1989) located on Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin’s After the Second World War ended, historical government district, has the building again took on a pivotal role almost immediately. In 1947, served as the Finance Ministry’s the German Economic Commission was set up here as the central main office since 1999. It reflects The Ehrensaal (Great Hall) during the Nazi regime administrative organisation for the stages of Germany’s turbulent the , and During the Nazi regime the Soviet military administration Democracy arrives history more clearly than perhaps (until 1945) used the space as its headquarters (after 1989) any other building in the capital. until 1948. The building was constructed in 1935–1936 according to designs by the architect and was one The building also played central of the Nazi regime’s prestige projects in Berlin. It served stage for events that were crucial After the reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990, as the headquarters of the Reich Aviation Ministry from to the history of the German the Berlin branches of the Federal Ministry of Finance the time of its construction until the end of the Second Democratic Republic (GDR). On and the Federal Court of Auditors set up office in the World War and was Herman Göring’s centre of power. 7 October 1949, the German building. Other parts of the building were occupied People’s Council (a surrogate by the Treuhandanstalt, the agency charged with Resistance stirred here as well: members of the Rote parliament for the Soviet Founding of the German privatising East German state-owned assets, which Kapelle resistance group planned their activities here, occupation zone) declared itself Democratic Republic on was based here from 1991 to 1995. until their cover was blown. Today, a memorial located the provisional People’s Chamber 7 October 1949 in the Finance Ministry’s entrance hall commemorates and put the constitution of the On 1 April 1992, the edifice was given its present the resistance fighters, who were executed in 1942. GDR into effect. In legal terms, this name, the Detlev Rohwedder Building, in memory of sealed the division of Germany. the Treuhandanstalt’s first president, who had been Sagebiel designed a steel-framed construction consist- After the People’s Chamber moved assassinated a year earlier. ing of five to seven storeys and featuring two symmetric to another location, the building wings, a court of honour facing Wilhelmstrasse, two functioned as the GDR’s House of In 1999, the Federal Ministry of Finance transferred large interior courtyards, and a facility management Ministries. its head office from Bonn to Berlin as part of the yard. The edifice has a gross floor area of 112,000 square general relocation of the German government. metres and 56,000 square metres of usable floor space, As one of the main centres of making it – both then and now – one of the largest office government power under the complexes in Berlin. It encompasses over 2,100 offices socialist regime, the House of that can be reached via 6.8 kilometres of corridors, Ministries was a key target for 17 staircases, four elevators and three paternoster lifts. protests by construction workers on 16 June 1953 and the epicentre Despite the fact that the Reich Aviation Ministry played of the popular uprising that took a major role in the war effort, the building survived the place a day later on 17 June 1953. 17 June 1953: Workers war nearly unscathed. protest in front of the House of Ministries