Small building. Big history.
Kohl, Wehner and Strauß ate their boiled sausages here; Genscher, Blüm, Töpfer, Fischer and other political celebrities bought sandwiches or jelly babies there:
The sales pavilion at the Bundeshaus in Bonn, the so-called Bundesbüdchen. It is one of the most original buildings on the German list of monuments – only 20 square metres in size and barely more than 60 years old.
The kiosk was built by Jürgen Rausch’s family.
The beginning
Built in 1957 and kidney-shaped – Bonn’s cult kiosk was not always so modern: Jürgen Rausch’s mother started the business in Bonn’s government district with a fruit cart, then a post-war wooden stall, followed by a mobile sales trailer and finally the Bundesbüdchen. It looked chic, very much in the style of the 1950s: oval, with a tiled base and a wide canopy to protect customers from rain and sun, the sales area glazed all round. The ‘Bundesbüdchen’, a jewel of Bonn’s old government district. It stood diagonally opposite the Bundesrat entrance, not far from the main entrance to the Bundestag on one side and the access road to the Kanlzeramt on the other – on the route of all those who had anything to do in the manageable heart of the Bonn Republic…
‘There is no other government district in the world
such an unpretentious place for spontaneous communication
communication without an agenda.’
former Minister of Labour Norbert Blüm
Jürgen Rausch knew the political celebrities in Bonn, as they stood at his kiosk in Bonn’s government district every day.The pavilion became famous throughout Germany thanks to Friedrich Nowottny.The WDR man had lost a bet on the show ‘Wetten, dass…?’ and sold Vienna sausages there as ‘punishment’ in 1981.The kiosk was also the backdrop for political programmes, feature films, comedy series and entertainment shows.The 20 square metre ‘Bundesbüdchen’ was a symbol of the Bonn Republic – for almost 50 years in total.
Everyone met here: Top politicians, backbenchers
backbenchers, journalists, parliamentary messengers, a
classless society of sausage eaters
and coffee drinkers, an information exchange
unrivalled.
When the government moved in 1999, the Bundesbüdchen and its owner ürgen Rausch first lost their illustrious audience and a few years later even lost their location. The kiosk was in the way of the World Conference Centre Bonn in 2006. lmmerhin saved the original kiosk from demolition, it was removed in its entirety and stored with a haulage company. As a temporary solution, Jürgen Rausch has since been running a snack bar made of rough beams next to the multi-storey car park behind the WCCB and has been working hard to rebuild the ‘Bundesbüdchen’.
After 14 years on the sidings, the Bundesbüdchen has returned to Heussallee 13, on the corner of Platz der Vereinten Nationen – within sight of its old location – in 2020.
neuer Standort Bundesbüdchen (Heussallee 13)
