House of Parliamentarians

The new offices were a complete disappointment – no desks, no chairs, no telephone. Under these circumstances, it was impossible to work here. Yet the representatives of the people were full of enthusiasm. They faced the historic task of unifying their state, the GDR, with the Federal Republic. On March 18, 1990, the citizens of the GDR had freely elected the People’s Chamber for the first time. A large majority had given its vote to those parties that supported a rapid reunification.

In order to make the necessary decisions in this process, however, the parliament needed more space. The plenary hall in the Palace of the Republic had been sufficient for the old People’s Chamber to approve every decision made by the all-powerful SED. Of all places, the new democratic People’s Chamber eventually found rooms for its co-workers and committees in the Haus am Werderschen Markt. From 1959 until early 1990 this building had been the secretive and eerie headquarters of the powerful state party SED. Due to the peaceful revolution of 1989, however, the SED had to give up its sole authority. After the free elections in March 1990, the party served in the opposition under the name PDS – Party of Democratic Socialism – and for the time being operated from the old SED headquarters.

The government decided to hand over parts of the Haus am Werderschen Markt to the People’s Chamber. But the old owner, the PDS, stalled the other parties. Rolf Schwanitz, member of the SPD: "We even thought about disowning the renamed SED in order to speed things up." When the House of Parliamentarians, as it was then called, was finally opened, many offices were found completely empty. The president of the People’s Chamber, Sabine Bergmann-Pohl, solved the problem by organising office furniture and computers with the help of the German Bundestag in Bonn.      

The unification of both German states was an enormous task for the parliamentarians, many of whom were in politics for the first time. The sessions often lasted late into the night. Schwanitz: "We had to make decisions at high speed and under incredible dynamics because the pressure of the people grew weekly, the economic conditions sharpened rapidly and the window of opportunity for reunification…got smaller with each passing day." On September 19, 1990, the health authorities of East Berlin also closed down the old plenary hall in the Palace of the Republic due to asbestos in the construction, a material dangerous to health. As a result, the parliament convened in the Lenin hall at Werderscher Markt. The main item on the agenda on September 20: the Reunification Treaty, which regulated the unification of both German states. The People’s Chamber approved it with the necessary two-thirds majority and the GDR finally joined the Federal Republic. Bergmann-Pohl: "We were able to complete the reunification and to thereby make ourselves superfluous."