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80-620: Their leader, Richard Müller , stated that their goal was a " council republic in the Russian style”. The SPD, at the time the largest workers' party in Europe, voted for war bonds for the imperial government in 1914. Karl Liebknecht was initially the only SPD member of the Reichstag who publicly rejected the measure. After having followed party discipline and voting for the bonds in August, he voted against

160-752: A diet , dates back to the Holy Roman Empire . The building was built for the Diet of the German Empire , which was succeeded by the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic . The latter would become the Reichstag of Nazi Germany , which left the building (and ceased to act as a parliament) after the 1933 fire and never returned, using the Kroll Opera House instead; the term Reichstag has not been used by German parliaments since World War II. In today's usage,

240-481: A fierce debate, considered by many as one of the most memorable sessions of parliament, on 20 June 1991, did the Bundestag conclude with quite a slim majority in favour of both government and parliament returning to Berlin from Bonn . On 21 June 1994, Norman Foster was asked to include a dome solution in his draft reconstruction proposal, which he included in his 10 February 1995 plans. Before reconstruction began,

320-733: A historic legislative government building on Platz der Republik in Berlin, is the seat of the German Bundestag . It is also the meeting place of the Federal Convention , which elects the President of Germany . The Neo-Renaissance building was constructed between 1884 and 1894 in the Tiergarten district on the left bank of the River Spree to plans by the architect Paul Wallot . It housed both

400-425: A left wing viewpoint and criticized this nationalist turn of the socialist and trade union movement and started wildcat strikes. From 1916 to 1918, these strikes became a mass-movement which substantially challenged the political support for the world-war. Müller, as the head of an organization called the " Revolutionary Stewards ", was the leading figure behind these mass-strikes. Müller was arrested and drafted into

480-477: A million people gathered at a mass demonstration in Berlin. Armed demonstrators stormed the Berlin newspaper quarter, where they occupied the editorial office of the SPD paper Vorwärts as well as other publishing buildings. The main railway stations were also seized. The force of the popular response caught the organizers by surprise. At a meeting at the police headquarters attended by Eichhorn, 70 Stewards, ten members of

560-476: A more jaundiced view of parliamentary democracy than his grandfather. The original building was acclaimed for the construction of an original cupola of steel and glass, considered an engineering feat at the time. But its mixture of architectural styles drew widespread criticism. In 1916, the iconic words Dem deutschen Volke ("To the German People") were placed above the main façade of the building, much to

640-607: A parliamentary democracy, they rejected the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), founded on 30/31 December 1918, which pursued the same goal. This was because the KPD was not ready to accept the five conditions set by Richard Müller on behalf of the Revolutionary Stewards: withdrawal of the anti-voting decision, a program committee with equal representation, condemnation of "putschism", taking part in party publicity and abandonment of

720-462: A proclamation demanding the toppling of Ebert's government. They wanted to prevent elections to the National Assembly and to continue with the revolution. A "provisionary revolutionary committee" was set up. It numbered 53 members, including Scholze, Liebknecht and Ledebour, and declared that it had taken over the government. Its only action, though, was to issue a call for another demonstration on

800-464: A very influential conception how council-communism could work in practise. By then, the periodical "The Workers-Council" (Der Arbeiter-Rat), was the theoretical organ of the council movement and Müller was one of its main authors. During the strike Movement in March 1919 Richard Müller was strike-leader for the larger Berlin area and tried to build a united front of all working class parties, but failed. When

880-702: The Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky in the Russian October Revolution only a few months earlier. For this reason, the strikes were also directed against plans of annexation, which Central Powers Germany and Austria-Hungary were pursuing in ongoing peace negotiations with Soviet Russia in Brest-Litovsk . The strikers demanded fundamental political changes within Germany as well as a just peace agreement with Russia that did not include territorial claims by

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960-568: The Cold War emerged, the building was physically within West Berlin , but in ruins. During the Berlin Blockade , an enormous number of West Berliners assembled before the building on 9 September 1948, and Mayor Ernst Reuter held a famous speech that ended with "Ihr Völker der Welt... schaut auf diese Stadt..." ("You people of the world...look upon this city..."). In 1956, after some debate,

1040-417: The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was founded by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on New Year's Eve of 1918, they tried to integrate Müller and the revolutionary stewards because of their credibility among workers and their widespread network within the factories. Although Müller was part of the socialist left and sympathizing with Liebknecht, he and his group decided not to join the party. The reason

1120-462: The German Revolution . In addition, they presented a unique collection of sources that Müller had collected during his political career. But in academia, Müller's conclusions were mostly ignored because of his Marxist point of view. Paradoxically, Müller's works were widely used as a source in almost every standard account of the historical events, since Müller gave the most detailed inside-view on

1200-583: The Reichstag Fire Decree suspending civil liberties, and pursue a "ruthless confrontation" with the Communists. Following the Reichstag fire , the building was not used for parliamentary sessions for the next 12 years of Nazi rule. Instead, the nearby Kroll Opera House was modified into a legislative chamber and served as the location of all parliamentary sessions, whilst the Reichstag building became

1280-516: The Reichstag was wrapped by the Bulgarian-American artists Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude in 1995, attracting millions of visitors. The project was financed by the artists through the sale of preparatory drawings and collages, as well as early works of the 1950s and 1960s. During the reconstruction, the building was first almost completely gutted, taking out everything except the outer walls, including all changes made by Baumgarten in

1360-547: The Weimar Constitution which came into force in August 1919, the republic became a pluralistic parliamentary democracy. After the defeat of the council movement, the Revolutionary Stewards still had influence and called for and helped execute a general strike against the right-wing nationalist and anti-democratic Kapp Putsch of March 1920. The strike brought the economy to a virtual stand-still and, together with

1440-643: The "Deutscher Industrieverband" (DIV), a small communist but anti-Stalinist union without party affiliation. Little is known about his activity there and Müller left the Organisation around 1929. Afterwards he became an entrepreneur in real estate. Originally, he wanted to become a publisher and founded a company called "Phoebus" in order to promote his third book. But after some time, the firm changed its field of operation and went into construction works. Phoebus built state-subsidized homes for working-class families and Richard Müller acted very successfully as director of

1520-476: 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 bullet holes and graffiti left by Soviet soldiers after the final battle for Berlin in April–May 1945. However, graffiti considered offensive was removed, in agreement with Russian diplomats at the time. Reconstruction

1600-472: The Berlin police headquarters and the publishing building of Vorwärts in which a reported 165 people lost their lives. The dead included several prisoners who were summarily executed, some after they had approached the government forces under a flag of truce. The January uprising led to the dissolution of the Revolutionary Stewards' network, because many of its members took part in the uprising while others such as Richard Müller opposed it. The organization of

1680-518: The Council of People's Representatives only two weeks after the revolution, and in the summer of 1919 Vollzugsrat was shut down by force after several strikes calling for socialization of core-industries were turned down as well. These strikes in the spring of 1919 were the biggest mass-mobilisation of the German council movement in which Müller was a leading figure. Together with his friend Ernst Däumig he wrote

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1760-499: The First World War in Germany. This was in part a reaction to the growing number of deaths on the front and the growing social need at home. Their most important speakers were Richard Müller and Emil Barth . The Revolutionary Stewards were especially strongly represented in the Berlin armament industry. They had already had experience with strikes, including the protest strike against the trial of Karl Liebknecht in summer 1916 and

1840-585: The German Empire against the "New Russia". The demands were not met by the Supreme Army Command ( Oberste Heeresleitung ) and the imperial government of Chancellor Georg von Hertling . The strike was ended when the Oberste Heeresleitung declared an aggravated state of siege, put some factories under military protection and conscripted many of the striking workers for military service. In

1920-655: The Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach , in what today is the German state of Thuringia , Müller left home and started working in the metal-industry after his father died in 1896. He became a lathe operator and around 1906 a member of the Deutscher Metallarbeiter-Verband (DMV), the German metalworkers union. Around the same time he became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands - SPD) which by then

2000-557: The Nazi regime. The building took further damage during World War II , and its symbolism made it an important target for the Red Army during the Battle of Berlin . After the war, the building was modernised and restored in the 1960s and used for exhibitions and special events, as its location in West Berlin prevented its use as a parliament building by either of the two Germanies. From 1995 to 1999,

2080-517: The People's Deputies ( Rat der Volksbeauftragten ). In order to keep control of events and against his own anti-revolutionary convictions, Ebert decided that he needed to preempt the workers' councils and thus—whilst the formal head of government—also become the leader of the revolution. On 10 November, the SPD managed to ensure that a majority of the newly elected workers' and (especially) soldiers' councils came from among their own supporters. Meanwhile,

2160-411: The Reichstag has a 360° view of the surrounding Berlin cityscape. The main hall ( debating chamber ) of the parliament below can also be seen from inside the dome, and natural light from above radiates down to the parliament floor. A large sun shield tracks the movement of the sun electronically and blocks direct sunlight which would not only cause large solar gain, but dazzle those below. Construction work

2240-407: The Reichstag legislature of the German Empire and the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic . The Reich's Federal Council also originally met there. The building was initially used by the Reichstag for Nazi Germany , but severe damage in the Reichstag fire of 1933 prevented further use and the Reichstag moved to the nearby Kroll Opera House . The 1933 fire became a pivotal event in the entrenchment of

2320-492: The Reichstag was fundamentally redesigned by Norman Foster for its permanent use as a parliament building in the now reunified Germany. The keys were ceremonially handed over to the President of the Bundestag , Wolfgang Thierse , on 19 April 1999. A landmark of the city is the redesigned walk-in glass dome above the plenary chamber, proposed by artist and architect Gottfried Böhm . The term Reichstag , when used to connote

2400-643: The Revolutionary Stewards dissolved, though many of its members continued to work in the council structures. The struggles, at times approaching the level of civil war, which took place in some regions of Germany in the following months put the council movement increasingly on the defensive. Various calls for regional council republics, for example in Bremen or, more famously, the Bavarian Soviet Republic , were suppressed with military force by regular armed forces and right-wing Freikorps troops by mid-1919. Under

2480-563: The SPD again, after a part of the remaining USPD returned to the SPD in 1922. Towards the end of 1922, the core of the local structures of the USPD in Berlin, which continued to exist as a small party, was composed largely of former Revolutionary Stewards. Some Stewards who continued to follow a party-independent "antiauthoritarian" council model joined the anarcho-syndicalist Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD). Richard M%C3%BCller (socialist) Richard Müller (9 December 1880 – 11 May 1943)

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2560-494: The SPD, about 100 from the USPD (of which ten were Spartacists ) and the rest were liberals, not associated with any party or members of independent revolutionary groups. The Congress took some important decisions (in each case with a broad majority): However, the Congress also passed two resolutions that went against the interests of the SPD leadership. First, it called on the Council of the People's Deputies to begin immediately with

2640-451: The Stewards, also attended by Liebknecht, which voted 21 to 19 against initiating revolutionary action on 4 November as the workers were not yet disposed to act. They settled on 11 November. In Berlin, the Stewards numbered around 80 to 100. The core group numbered only about a dozen. On 8 November, driven by events to accelerate their plan, the Stewards called for a general strike in Berlin on

2720-495: The USPD agreed to work with him and share power in the new revolutionary government. Ebert announced the pact between the two socialist parties to the assembled councils who were eager for a unified socialist front and approved the parity of three members each coming from SPD and USPD. However, the Stewards had anticipated that they would fail to prevent the SPD from dominating the Council of the People's Deputies. They therefore called for an Executive Committee ( Aktionsausschuss ) of

2800-513: The USPD led by Georg Ledebour , three representatives of the soldiers, and Liebknecht and Wilhelm Pieck for the KDP, the men were caught up in the momentum of the hour and lost sight of the real situation, overestimating the support for their actions from the military in the Berlin area. They voted 80 to six to topple the government. The Stewards' representative Paul Scholze  [ de ] , Karl Liebknecht (KPD) and Georg Ledebour (USPD) now signed

2880-454: The USPD to nominate three ministers for the future government. That evening a group of several hundred followers of the Stewards occupied the Reichstag and held an impromptu debate. They called for the election of soldiers' and workers' councils the next day (one per battalion or 1,000 workers). They were to assemble at "Zirkus Busch" and elect a provisional revolutionary government, the Council of

2960-481: The West German government decided that the Reichstag should not be torn down, but be restored instead under the guidance of Paul Baumgarten. The cupola of the original building, which had also been heavily damaged in the war, was dismantled, and the outside façade made simpler with the removal of ornaments and statues. Reconstruction started in 1961, and was complete by 1971. The artistic and practical value of his work

3040-603: The action was premature and caused by police provocation. But the KPD central committee did not like independent critics within the party and tried to get rid of Müller. Due to an Intervention of Lenin and Trotsky on the Third World-Congress of the Communist International they had to accept the re-integration of Müller and other critics into the KPD. But when fights within the party started over again later, Müller and his faction lost support from Moscow and left

3120-574: The additional name "Spartacus League". In the atmosphere of outrage created on the left by the military action against the Volksmarinedivision —which Liebknecht called "Ebert's bloody Christmas"—the Stewards were among the initiators of the Spartacus Uprising ( Spartakusaufstand ) in January 1919. Emil Eichhorn , a member of the USPD and head of the Berlin police, had refused to act against

3200-454: The building was thus used only for occasional representative meetings, and one-off events, such as a free concert given by British rock band Barclay James Harvest on 30 August 1980 and by Tangerine Dream on 29 August 1981. It was also used for a widely lauded permanent exhibition about German history called Fragen an die deutsche Geschichte ("Questions on German history"). The official German reunification ceremony on 3 October 1990

3280-433: The committee was superfluous, but if it was to be set up, it must be made up equally of SPD and USPD just like the Council of the People's Deputies. When Barth said that no SPD delegate must sit on the committee, the assembly exploded with protest, in particular from the soldiers' councils. After an interruption, the session continued and Barth announced an Executive Committee of 20 members: ten soldiers and ten workers. Half of

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3360-484: The council movement was already dead and political parties once again were the main organisation of the socialist movement. Within the KPD, Müller became Leader of the "Reichsgewerkschaftszentrale", the KPD's central on union affairs. Müller was responsible for the communist agitation and politics within the German unions. He lost this job in March 1921 when he criticised a failed communist uprising in Thuringia. In his views

3440-459: The day, the committee had relocated to the Marstall, the barracks of the Volksmarinedivision , but had been asked to leave and thus returned to the police headquarters. There they remained, when Ebert accepted mediation by those of the USPD who had left the Council of the People's Deputies in late December. Ebert had just one condition: the occupation of the newspaper buildings must end. On 7 January,

3520-411: The displeasure of Wilhelm II, who had tried to block the adding of the inscription for its democratic significance. During the revolutionary days of 1918, two days before World War I ended and just hours after Wilhelm's abdication was announced, Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed the institution of a republic from one of the balconies of the Reichstag building on 9 November. The building continued to be

3600-527: The early days of November 1918, the Revolutionary Stewards were one of the few political groups demanding an end to the monarchy. In addition, unlike the Majority SPD led by Friedrich Ebert , they were also in favour of " socialisation " of industries and government by workers' and soldiers' councils rather than a parliamentary system. On 2 November 1918 there was a meeting of the Executive Committee of

3680-553: The enterprise. By 1930 he had become a millionaire; some time later he left the business and retired. Little is known about his late years; he did not seem to be active in any kind of anti-fascist action, at least nothing like this is documented. Müller died on 11 May 1943 in Berlin. Reichstag building The Reichstag ( German : Reichstag , pronounced [ˈʁaɪçsˌtaːk] ; officially: Plenarbereich Reichstagsgebäude [ˈʁaɪçstaːksɡəˌbɔʏdə] , lit.   ' Imperial Assembly ' ),

3760-523: The events of the Christmas crisis ( Weihnachtskämpfe ), in which government troops were deployed against the Volksmarinedivision , a unit of leftist revolutionary soldiers established on 11 November 1918. The fighting caused many on the left to accuse the leadership of the SPD of having betrayed the revolution. Although the Revolutionary Stewards supported the idea of a council republic rather than

3840-406: The former Stewards did not play a notable role in the German labour movement any more. Many former activists became members of the KPD, especially after the left wing of the USPD merged with the KPD when the USPD split at the end of 1920. Occasionally it operated under the alternate name "United Communist Party of Germany" (VKPD). Other Stewards remained in the USPD and future related groups, or joined

3920-502: The highest organ of the newly declared "Socialist republic of Germany", so that in theory Müller was head of state. But in fact power concentrated within the "Council of People's Representatives" (Rat der Volksbeauftragten), a revolutionary government dominated by Friedrich Ebert , leader of the Social Democrats. Müller and the more radical forces in the executive council lost power very quickly. They had to hand over executive powers to

4000-503: The implementation of the last two points, causing increasing resentment and anger among the labour movement and its more radical representatives like the Spartacists and the Stewards. On 29 December, the only representative of the Revolutionary Stewards, Emil Barth (also a member of the USPD), and two further representatives of the USPD left the Council of the People's Deputies in protest against

4080-611: The latter would be supporters of the SPD, half supporters of the Stewards. The soldiers's delegates were to be elected on 11 November. The Stewards had lost. From 16 to 21 December 1918, the Reich Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils ( Reichsrätekongress or Reichsversammlung der Arbeiter- und Soldatenräte ) met in Berlin inside the Prussian Landtag building. There was one delegate for every 200,000 citizens and 100,000 soldiers. Out of 514 delegates, around 300 came from

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4160-545: The main entrance, celebrating the process of unification. Some of the Reichstag's decorative sculptures, reliefs, and inscriptions were by sculptor Otto Lessing . On 29 June 1884, the foundation stone was finally laid by Wilhelm I , at the east side of the Königsplatz. Before construction was completed by Philipp Holzmann A.G. in 1894, Wilhelm I died (in 1888, the Year of Three Emperors ). His eventual successor, Wilhelm II , took

4240-584: The measure in December 1914. With the split between the USPD and the Majority SPD (MSPD), there was a party in the Reichstag opposing the policy of "party truce" ( Burgfriedenspolitik ) between the various political parties. The Stewards supported the USPD's outright opposition to the war. Since most of the union functionaries supported the political truce, the Stewards created an opposition of industrial workers against

4320-465: The military three times, but he always managed to find a way out and return his political work. After the January-Strike in 1918 a big wave of repression hit the anti-war-movement. Müller and his circle decided to plan an armed uprising within the next months. Preparations began quite slowly, but gained speed in the fall of 1918, when the military catastrophe for Germany became more and more obvious to

4400-538: The next day. The masses reassembled on Sunday, 6 January. However, no orders came from the revolutionary leaders. In isolated actions, the government printing office and a telegraph office were seized. No one occupied the government buildings—whilst some armed supporters of the Ebert government gathered around the Reich Chancellery. The masses started to disperse and by midnight the centre of Berlin had been vacated. During

4480-430: The next day. The Spartacists, the SPD and the unions supported the call. On 9 November, workers' and soldiers' councils were formed, the headquarters of police was occupied and hundreds of thousands of demonstrators converged on the city centre. Imperial Chancellor Max of Baden announced prematurely that Emperor Wilhelm II had abdicated and handed over his office to Friedrich Ebert. In the afternoon Ebert grudgingly asked

4560-400: The only leftist group with a widespread network in the factories, called for a general strike and armed demonstrations formed to enter the city center. The revolutionaries took Berlin by surprise, almost no resistance was put against their actions. One day after the revolution, Müller became chairman of the " Executive Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils " (Vollzugsrat). By then this was

4640-598: The party. After he was forced out of the communist movement, Müller wrote an extensive history of the German Revolution. The first volume "Vom Kaiserreich zur Republik" (From Empire to republic) was published in 1924. A year later two other volumes followed: "Die Novemberrevolution" (The November-Revolution) and "Bürgerkrieg in Deutschland" (Civil War in Germany). Müller's writings were the only contemporary Marxist history of

4720-492: The public. Müller and the shop-stewards started secret conferences that involved Karl Liebknecht and his spartacist league but also some representatives of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) who had split from SPD because they opposed the war. Liebknecht in these meetings pushed for action, but Müller and his comrades had a more pragmatic way of organizing things. In order to secure

4800-598: The refusal of the bureaucracy to cooperate with the new government, caused the putsch to fail in a matter of days. However, in some parts of Germany, the striking workers refused to return to work and offered armed resistance to the legitimate government of President Ebert and Chancellor Bauer . The most significant of these events was the Ruhr Uprising , which was crushed by the Reichswehr and Freikorps in April 1920. After 1920,

4880-426: The regular officer corps. The last two decisions of the Congress underscored a division regarding short-term changes to the economy, the bureaucracy and the military between a broad-based consensus across party lines of the democratic-socialist movement on the one hand and the leadership of the SPD and the military on the other. The SPD members of the Council of the People's Deputies consequently dragged their feet over

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4960-584: The revolting sailors during the Christmas crisis. Some of his men from the Security Police ( Sicherheitspolizei ) had even actively supported the uprising. Paul Hirsch , Prussian Minister of the Interior, therefore dismissed Eichhorn on 4 January. Notwithstanding their differences, the Stewards, the USPD and the Spartacists called for a protest demonstration in support of Eichhorn. On 5 January 1919, around half

5040-480: The revolutionary committee declined. Whilst negotiations continued, Ebert prepared for a military response. He made Gustav Noske , since the withdrawal of the USPD a member of the Council of the People's Deputies, the military commander-in-chief and rallied the regular troops of the Berlin area to his cause. On the orders of Ebert, government forces commanded by Noske crushed the uprising between 9 and 12 January. Its defeat came after intense struggles, especially around

5120-406: The revolutionary movement. Prominent examples are the works of Arthur Rosenberg and Sebastian Haffner , two German historians who not only used Müller as a source but also discussed his conclusions. Müller's writings were re-discovered in the 1960s by the German student movement and had a strong influence on its view on the German Revolution. By the end of the 1920s Müller was an active member of

5200-509: The seat of the parliament of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933), which was still called the Reichstag. Up to 42 protesters died during the Reichstag Bloodbath of 13 January 1920 , when workers tried to protest against a law that would restrict their rights; it was the bloodiest demonstration in German history. On 27 February 1933, there was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, precisely four weeks after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler

5280-420: The setting for political exhibitions. In 1939, the library and archive were moved elsewhere, and the windows bricked up as the building was made into a fortress. By 1943, the building was used as a hospital, and a radio tube manufacturing facility by AEG . During the Battle of Berlin in 1945, it became one of the central targets for the Red Army to capture, due to its perceived symbolic significance. When

5360-460: The socialisation of all "suitable" industries, especially mining. Secondly, it approved the Hamburg Points, which called for the election of officers, for disciplinary power to lie with the soldiers' councils, no insignia of rank and no rank off-duty. However, the demands were anathema to the leadership of the military, in particular those relating to the position of the soldiers' councils vis-à-vis

5440-566: The success of the revolution, they wanted to avoid premature actions at all costs. Although the Berlin Coalition of Müller's revolutionary stewards, the spartacists and the USPD was the best-prepared group, the Revolution itself started spontaneously as a mutiny within the German war-fleet . When news about these events came to Berlin, the revolutionaries sped up their preparations and called for action on 9 November. The shop-stewards, who were

5520-501: The wave of strikes centered on Braunschweig and Leipzig in January 1917. The Stewards were a crucial force in organizing the January Strike of 1918 , which was centred on Berlin , the Ruhr , Saxony , Hamburg and Kiel and in which strikers demanded the end of the war through a negotiated peace and a democratisation of the empire. They were in part inspired by the success achieved by

5600-456: The word Reichstag (Imperial Diet ) refers mainly to the building, while Bundestag (Federal Diet) refers to the institution. Construction of the building began well after the unification of Germany in 1871. Starting in 1871, and for the next 23 years, the parliament met in the former property of the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin , at Leipziger Straße 4. In 1872, an architectural contest with 103 participating architects

5680-485: The workers' and soldiers' councils to be set up in parallel to the Council of the People's Deputies and that would be under the control of the Stewards. Its powers were to be left deliberately vague. Emil Barth, who was presiding over the assembly, then made a tactical error by giving a long-winded speech rather than moving directly to the vote. Listeners, including Ebert, were able to deduce the Stewards' intentions from what Barth said. Ebert made another speech, declaring that

5760-446: Was Philadelphia 's Memorial Hall , the main building of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition . Wallot adorned the building's façade with crowns and eagles symbolising imperial strength. The building's four corner towers represented the four German kingdoms at unification, Prussia , Bavaria , Saxony and Württemberg , and the heraldic coat of arms of each kingdom, as well as smaller devices representing various German city-states, flanked

5840-404: Was a German socialist , metal worker, union shop steward, and later historian. Trained as a lathe-operator, Müller later became an industrial unionist and organizer of mass-strikes against World War I. In 1918 he was a leading figure of the council movement in the German Revolution . In the 1920s he wrote a three-volume history of the German Revolution. Born in a small village called Weira in

5920-638: Was carried out to erect a new building, a contest won by Ludwig Bohnstedt . The plan incorporated the Königsplatz (today's Platz der Republik ), which was then occupied by the palace of a Polish-Prussian aristocrat, Athanasius Raczyński . That property was unavailable at the time. In 1882, another architectural contest was held, with 200 architects participating. This time, the winner—the Frankfurt architect Paul Wallot —would actually see his Neo-Baroque project executed. The direct model for Wallot's design

6000-401: Was completed in 1999, with the Bundestag convening there officially for the first time on 19 April of that year. The Reichstag is now the second most visited attraction in Germany , not least because of the huge glass dome that was erected on the roof as a gesture to the original 1894 cupola, giving an impressive view over the city, especially at night. The large glass dome at the very top of

6080-403: Was held at the Reichstag building, including Chancellor Helmut Kohl , President Richard von Weizsäcker , former Chancellor Willy Brandt and many others. The event included huge firework displays. The following day the parliament of the united Germany assembled as a symbolic act in the Reichstag building. However, at that time, the role of Berlin had not yet been decided upon. Only after

6160-478: Was its intention to boycott the upcoming elections for the national assembly and to leave the major unions in order to form their own communist union movement. After the KPD turned away from this ultra-left and more or less sectarian political course, Müller and many of his former comrades joined the party in October 1920. By then, the USPD had split and the left majority altogether had found its way to Communism. By then

6240-400: Was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany . Despite the firefighters' efforts, most of the building was gutted. Marinus van der Lubbe , a Dutch "council communist" , was the apparent culprit; however, Hitler attributed the fire to Communist agitators. He used it as a pretext to claim that Communists were plotting against the German government, and induced President Paul von Hindenburg to issue

6320-544: Was the biggest socialist party in Europe. In 1914 Müller was chairman of the agitational commission of the Berlin branch of the Metalworkers Union. Müller represented around 9,000 lathe-operators in the city of Berlin. When the First World War started, the social-democrats and the union leaders decided to collaborate with the imperial government and to support the war-movement. The lathe-operators, however maintained

6400-523: Was the subject of much debate after German reunification. Under the 1971 Four Power Agreement on Berlin , Berlin was formally outside the bounds of either East or West Germany, and so the West German parliament, the Bundestag , was not allowed to assemble formally in West Berlin. This prohibition was obeyed even though East Germany had declared East Berlin its capital, violating this provision. Until 1990,

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