The Reemergence of the Reichstag
Today the Reichstag is the centerpiece of the new Berlin. It sets an architectural standard that should last well into the 21st century. The original building was torched in 1933.
I briefly visited the site of the Reichstag in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. I was shocked when a German citizen grabbed me by the shoulders and blurted: "Do you see this building? This is where all of Germany will be ruled from!" I silently retreated in disbelief, but the emotion of that moment has remained etched in my memory.
That was about 10 years ago. Today the Reichstag is the centerpiece of the new Berlin. It sets an architectural standard that should last well into the 21st century. The original building was torched in 1933.
According to Newsweek (April 19), the building's reopening in April of this year signaled "the coming of the Berlin Republic." Ironically the architect is British, Sir Norman Foster.
In 1995, when the conceptual artist Christo covered this building with more than a million square feet of silver-colored fabric and transformed the Reichstag into a stupendous gift box, it was described "as a powerful metaphor for the country's transition from West Germany's Bonn Republic to reunited Germany's Berlin Republic."
As an American observer expressed it: "If the architecture of the Reichstag represents a kind of Prussian hardness—Germany as it was—the wrapped version can be seen almost as an ideal symbol of the new Germany struggling to emerge from unification." GN
An Article from:
Good News Magazine: November - December 1999
Course Content
John Ross Schroeder
John died on March 8, 2014, in Oxford, England, four days after suffering cardiac arrest while returning home from a press event in London. John was 77 and still going strong.
Some of John's work for The Good News appeared under his byline, but much didn't. He wrote more than a thousand articles over the years, but also wrote the Questions and Answers section of the magazine, compiled our Letters From Our Readers, and wrote many of the items in the Current Events and Trends section. He also contributed greatly to a number of our study guides and Bible Study Course lessons. His writing has touched the lives of literally millions of people over the years.
John traveled widely over the years as an accredited journalist, especially in Europe. His knowledge of European and Middle East history added a great deal to his articles on history and Bible prophecy.
In his later years he also pastored congregations in Northern Ireland and East Sussex, and that experience added another dimension to his writing. He and his wife Jan were an effective team in our British Isles office near their home.
John was a humble servant who dedicated his life to sharing the gospel—the good news—of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God to all the world, and his work was known to readers in nearly every country of the world.
