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

“And another bonus is that it was only a 20 minute drive from Adenauer’s house”
Somebody really didn’t want to travel far for work

Wait if bonn became the west german capital why they keep west berlin

The motive is because west germany didnt had berlin, so it was bonn

History matters, once again coming in with niche but neat historical facts in a well explained format. Thanks !

All my homies love Bonn

"Schumacher soon found himself a little bit dead" 💀

I'm from Bonn, and i can tell you that the fact that Adenauers residence was 20 minutes away was the MAIN reason. 😂 Frankfurt was the logical choice all along. They even had a pre recorded speech from Frankfurts Major, to air on radio, when Frankfurt was elected as capital which never aired.
When the government moved back to Berlin, everybody in Bonn was very sad, this was a very emotional poll. As a kid i was always proud of the fact, beeing born in the capital. Altough it is not a big city.
Near by Cologne, Bonn was always considered as some kind of "backyard" to the mighty city of cologne 😅

Thanks.

Because the Allies destroyed every other city.

its crazy how much of history can be summed up with "sounds pricey"

Its said in ard documentaries that Adenauer who was a former mayor of koln didnt/could not travel to far away from his home and as result bonn because the capital. Also because Adenauer was a well liked advocate of compromises people where more eager to please the man of lonewolf decisions.

Because the French were like:

"What would make a good capital?"

Spoiler alert: The french thought Bonn was a good location.

I hear that Braunschweig has a great Cuban place, but Bonn ist sehr schön

Unusually witty visuals this time.

Honestly, the capital should be moved back to Bonn. Berlin ain't that great

As someone who only lives 21 kilometers (roughly 13 miles) from Frankfurt I find it sad that Frankfurt wasn't choosen as the Capital.
Sure I would have never witnessed it since I was born in 2007 but still it would have been cool.

I thought West Berlin was the capital

That last sentence, absolutely fascinating! Imagine if the capital remained as Bonn.

I just wanna Party like Boyko all day...

Love it

It was close to the French border for the elites to make a quick getaway if....

after adenauer came erhard
after erhard came kiesinger
after kiesinger came brand
after brand came kohl
after kohl came schröder
after schröder came merkel
after merkel came scholz

Can anyone tell me why Kurt Shoemaker has a leg missing?

They should make Bonn the hq of the EU, since everybody knows that it's Germany that drives the EU, not Belgium

I guess you could say Bonn hadn't been affected by the Bonns (bombs) lol

I love your channel keep up the great stuff

Berlin is and should be the capital.

Wasn't west Berlin the capital??

Bonn, Jakob Bonn

Because Kassel was too close to the border with DDR and in case of soviet attack it would have fallen soon

Strictly speaking Bonn was never the capital. It was the provisional seat of government, but never the capital de jure.

Wasn't Berlin "officially" still the capital of Germany? That's officially in the same sense that Germany was all one country after 1945, it was just hard for people to travel between East and West (or Berlin and anywhere outside Berlin) and Bonn was just a "provisional" capital.

I always thought that de-jure capital was West Berlin

Bonn sounds good. Maybe they should have kept it as the capital?

Damn, we were about to live in a world where Berlin wasnt the capital?

And Berlin is closer to Warsaw... you know. Just in case.

"massive infrastructure" == painted bike lanes

One thing I missed is: Bonn is still called Bundesstadt-federal city. It still houses departments of all ministries and some ministries have their official seat there and not in Berlin. Also both chancellor and federal president still have seats in Bonn (Palais Schaumburg and Villa Hammerschmidt). This was all part of the compromise around moving our capital. Though I’ve never heard any political news from Bonn.

"Schumacher found himself a little bit dead." Wow, never saw it coming.

München sollte unsere Hauptstadt werden, oder Hamburg

lol, imagine if germany's capital were still to be bonn

Little nitpick on Adenauer - he didn't, in fact, care for Germany to be "reunited" with Berlin or with Prussia generally. He used to say that Mongolia starts at the Elbe. There's even talk that he was hoping to negotiate the return of Berlin to the DDR if the DDR would trade him Thuringia.