wooThere used to be an embassy in the Villa district of Bad Godesberg, which is not so easy to identify. “Focus on the front yard,” advises Michael Wenzel. If there was a flagpole, it was almost always the residence of an ambassador or chancellor. “Lebanon once had its embassy here,” Wenzel says, pointing to a renovated Art Nouveau villa on Raineli where a lawyer lives and works. Nothing is reminiscent of the House’s diplomatic past—just on the flags in the front yard.

as bono In 1949 it became the provisional seat of government of the Federal Republic of Germany, and several countries bought houses in the Vila district which emerged at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Message after message soon followed. Since German politics always spoke of a “temporary Bonn”, the vast majority of the roughly 180 countries that were once represented on the Rhine decided not to build new buildings.

Barring a few exceptions, the sale of the embassy building was further complicated following the proposal of the capital city on June 20, 1991. Like Lebanon, Pakistan had an embassy in Rhineali from 1952 to 1999. In 2000, Pakistan sold it to a private community of heirs. For some years, a company for graphic information systems was headquartered in the villa, built on the model of Italian Renaissance palaces, last year the “Academy of International Affairs” of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

slowly the gates closed

“80 percent of the embassy’s assets have been in private hands for many years,” says Wenzel, who is not only the councilor of the Greens and the deputy district mayor of Bad Godesberg, but also a proven expert on the subject. Wenzel has explored Bonn’s diplomatic past. Since 2007 he has also been offering embassy tours with the Bad Godesburg City Marketing Association.