# Capital Move - Bonn to Berlin in 1999; How Did we Benefit **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 23, 2017, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170 "2017-12-23T22:53:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![JBGUSA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/258eb7/32.png) [@JBGUSA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBGUSA)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/1 "2017-12-23T22:53:39Z")
Many posters here argue that we should have received some “benefit” for moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This brings up an issue from the recent past; should we have moved the U.S. Embassy from Bonn to Berlin? One can argue that the move was deeply provocative to Russia. Russia had, just nine and one-half years earlier had effective control over East Germany. We were taking a stand on a regional controversy. For what benefit? > [@Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's Capital; a Proud Moment](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/203): > > If there’s animosity towards the US it’s largely because we’ve taken sides on this, and now we’ve lost any claim to be honest brokers entirely… > [@Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's Capital; a Proud Moment](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/5): > > I fail to see what the benefit of this action is, other than vaguely pleasing some Israelis and pro-Israel individuals. A lot of other countries are pissed. We’re not receiving anything in exchange for this. Will Israel remember this moment and pay back their gratitude in some concrete way sometime in the future? Let’s just say I doubt it. > [@Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's Capital; a Proud Moment](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/7): > > What was achieved? > How did this serve our National Interests? > [@Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's Capital; a Proud Moment](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recognizing-jerusalem-as-israels-capital-a-proud-moment/803854/9): > > Oh my God. I guarantee that Trump knew absolutely nothing about the history of Israel, of Palestine, of Jerusalem, or of anything pertaining to that part of the world, until he was coached by someone in his administration that it would appease some extreme Jews and evangelical Christians to say “Jerusalem is the capital.” And so he did it, and now there’s going to be even more conflict and violence somewhere far away while Trump sits in Florida eating well-done steak with ketchup and listening to Ted Nugent. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/2 "2017-12-23T23:29:59Z")
First of all, it would have been the USSR, not Russia. But Bonn was the de facto capitol of of West Germany, with most of the West German government offices there. Once those were moved to Berlin, it would have been in our interest to move there, too. This is not at all the same. And note that Tel Aviv is a one hour drive from Jerusalem. It’s an almost 375 km drive from Bonn to Berlin. ---
**Author:** ![JBGUSA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/258eb7/32.png) [@JBGUSA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBGUSA)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/3 "2017-12-23T23:48:17Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > First of all, it would have been the USSR, not Russia. > > But Bonn was the de facto capitol of of West Germany, with most of the West German government offices there. Once those were moved to Berlin, it would have been in our interest to move there, too. > > This is not at all the same. And note that Tel Aviv is a one hour drive from Jerusalem. It’s an almost 375 km drive from Bonn to Berlin. It was Russia in 1999. Learn your history. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/4 "2017-12-24T00:02:49Z")
It’s always easier if your embassy people can easily reach the national government people, so being near their offices is an advantage. For Bonn to Berlin, it’s a 5-6 hour drive – quite a big distance to travel. For Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, it’s only half an hour to 1 hour, depending on traffic. Not nearly as neecded. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/5 "2017-12-24T00:04:05Z")
> [@JBGUSA](#): > > It was Russia in 1999. Learn your history. Russia never “had control over East Germany”, per your OP. East and West Germany were united in 1990. I don’t need to learn that history because I was there 3 days after the reunification. And… I think we’re done here. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/6 "2017-12-24T06:34:52Z")
We’re getting a tad over-nitpicky, here. Pre-1991, “Russia” and “the USSR” were clearly not synonymous, but Russia was by a considerable margin the dominant republic of the USSR, so it’s not a _gross_ error to use the terms interchangeably. Anyway, this analogy seems to hinge on “One can argue that the move was deeply provocative to Russia. Russia [when it was the dominant member of the USSR] had, just nine and one-half years earlier had effective control over East Germany.” _Was_ it provocative? I don’t remember any press at the time on the subject about Russian opinion and frankly… does it matter if there was? I also don’t remember any concerns that Russia was going to _do_ anything about American recognition of the unified Germany’s capital at Berlin. That’s not true of the Israel/Jerusalem/Palestine situation. I gather the OP is a tad upset in some way that Trump saying he’d recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital (whether or not he follows through on this remains unclear) got a largely negative (or least less than “proud”) response here, but trying to link it to some post-Cold-War paperwork seems like a stretch. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/7 "2017-12-24T06:41:47Z")
What “regional controversy”? The USSR was one of the countries that signed the treaty relinquishing control over Berlin! ---
**Author:** ![JBGUSA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/258eb7/32.png) [@JBGUSA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBGUSA)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/8 "2017-12-24T06:42:43Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I gather the OP is a tad upset in some way that Trump saying he’d recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital (whether or not he follows through on this remains unclear) got a largely negative (or least less than “proud”) response here, but trying to link it to some post-Cold-War paperwork seems like a stretch. I’ve had enough with forcing Israel to meet impossible double-standards. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/9 "2017-12-24T06:46:49Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > _Was_ it provocative? I don’t remember any press at the time on the subject about Russian opinion and frankly… does it matter if there was? I also don’t remember any concerns that Russia was going to _do_ anything about American recognition of the unified Germany’s capital at Berlin. That’s not true of the Israel/Jerusalem/Palestine situation. Yeah, I don’t recall any negative perceptions of the move to Berlin (at least not outside of Russia), because reunification of West and East Germany was a total non-issue by then. The Berlin Wall fell in late 1989, the two halves of Germany formally reunited the following year, and the year after that (1991) saw the dissolution of both the Warsaw Pact and the USSR. By 1999, a unified, western-oriented Germany had been a fait accompi for years. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/10 "2017-12-24T06:52:24Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > What “regional controversy”? The USSR was one of the countries that signed the treaty that relinquished control of Berlin. Yeah, but a decade later, after the USSR dissolved, some hypothetical Russians nostalgic for the old days might have been upset, or something, and those hypothetical concerns are just as valid as the concerns of actual PalestInians, apparently. The only real controversy I can recall on the issue was whether or not to allow Germany to reunify at _all_. I can certainly understand the perspective of someone like Margaret Thatcher, who remembered World War II and almost certainly had heard from her parents about the privations of World War I, having misgivings about German reunification, and quite possibly being of the opinion that not only should Germany _not_ be reunified, but that in 1945 it should have been broken up into twenty or more pieces and rendered permanently harmless. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/11 "2017-12-24T06:54:11Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > We’re getting a tad over-nitpicky, here. Pre-1991, “Russia” and “the USSR” were clearly not synonymous, but Russia was by a considerable margin the dominant republic of the USSR, so it’s not a _gross_ error to use the terms interchangeably. Then I guess it’s a good thing I never said it was a “gross error”. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/12 "2017-12-24T06:54:50Z")
> [@JBGUSA](#): > > I’ve had enough with forcing Israel to meet impossible double-standards. Comparing apples and oranges is not an example of a double standard. Sure, they’re both fruit and Berlin and Jerusalem are both cities, but the comparisons don’t really line up much beyond that. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/13 "2017-12-24T06:56:03Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > We’re getting a tad over-nitpicky, here. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Then I guess it’s a good thing I never said it was a “gross error”. I rest my case. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/14 "2017-12-24T06:59:22Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I rest my case. Well, that’s some case you got there. If it were mine, I’d rest it, too. ---
**Author:** ![JBGUSA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/258eb7/32.png) [@JBGUSA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBGUSA)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/15 "2017-12-24T07:22:12Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Yeah, but a decade later, after the USSR dissolved, some hypothetical Russians nostalgic for the old days might have been upset, or something, and those hypothetical concerns are just as valid as the concerns of actual PalestInians, apparently. > > The only real controversy I can recall on the issue was whether or not to allow Germany to reunify at _all_. I can certainly understand the perspective of someone like Margaret Thatcher, who remembered World War II and almost certainly had heard from her parents about the privations of World War I, having misgivings about German reunification, and quite possibly being of the opinion that not only should Germany _not_ be reunified, but that in 1945 it should have been broken up into twenty or more pieces and rendered permanently harmless. That illustrates teh double standard. Israel should be a full member of the family of nations. ---
**Author:** ![Oswald\_Bastable](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oswald_bastable/32/214_2.png) [@Oswald\_Bastable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oswald_Bastable)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/16 "2017-12-24T08:16:44Z")
The hypothetical you should be comparing here is: _How would the US have benefitted had Reagan announced his intention to move the US West German embassy to Berlin in 1981?_ OB ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/17 "2017-12-24T08:24:55Z")
> [@JBGUSA](#): > > That illustrates teh double standard. Israel should be a full member of the family of nations. In 1999, there was no nation of East Germany that continued to claim Berlin as its capital. That is not the case as regards Israel and Jerusalem. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/18 "2017-12-24T08:26:01Z")
> [@JBGUSA](#): > > That illustrates teh double standard. Israel should be a full member of the family of nations. It is, it’s just unpopular. I can’t figure out how your comment responds or relates to mine in any way. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/19 "2017-12-24T08:31:52Z")
> [@Oswald\_Bastable](#): > > The hypothetical you should be comparing here is: > > _How would the US have benefitted had Reagan announced his intention to move the US West German embassy to Berlin in 1981?_ > > OB I’m trying to picture the circumstances under which Reagan might have done so, and all I can come up with is if there was some groundswell of support among West Germans to put their capital there, and that seems like an improbably impractical thing for them to want. The Soviet response to such a move, I guess, would be to… I dunno… be aware that an effort to invade West Berlin would really, really _really_ start World War III, as opposed to just really really? Somewhere around here, I have a box with a gen-u-wine chunk of the Berlin Wall. I’m not sure where I put it. Maybe one day I’ll pair it with a gen-u-wine chunk of the Western Wall, after a devastating Middle East war destroys Jerusalem. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2017, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170/20 "2017-12-24T09:38:15Z")
> [@JBGUSA](#): > > That illustrates teh double standard. Israel should be a full member of the family of nations. The electorates of both German states had agreed democratically to unify into a single state within the borders established in 1945 and subsequently ratified into international law, any residual legal and political hangovers from WW2 relating to Germany’s occupied status had been agreed all round (including by Russia), and wherever necessary all this had been incorporated into peace treaties. What then happened within Germany was a matter for them alone. None of that applies to Israel/Palestine, where there is still too much not agreed, or if agreed not adhered to. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/capital-move-bonn-to-berlin-in-1999-how-did-we-benefit/805170.md?page=2)