The old Bundesrat building in Bonn, much less impressive than the new one in Berlin (click here to see the new Bundesrat building). On the right is a view of the old Chancellor, barely visible behind the trees -- again, a far more subtle and even mysterious location than the new one in Berlin (click here to see the new Chancellory). It was almost sad to go through Bonn and see these sites, knowing that the Bonn Republic that brought stability and prosperity to Germany was gone, and that this beautiful city on the Rhein no longer housed a modest and efficient German government. Still, I'm not one of those who fears that the new Germany will somehow revert back to what it was before WWII or WWI. The political culture has been remade, times and ideas are different, and in over a decade since the fall of the wall Germans have resisted attempts by neo-Nazis to gain power, continued to work for multilateral solutions to international problems, pursue European Union, and maintain a stable foreign policy based on international law and human rights rather than crude national interest. Bonn Adieu, you did your part, but now its the unified Berlin Republic. Germany finally can go back and do it right, after the post-1871 path of authoritarianism and nationalism led it so wrong.