A diplomatic classroom, the Crisis Response Centre, the Minister’s office and an official state banquet: these are just a few aspects of foreign policy you can experience first hand at the Federal Foreign Office this weekend (21-22 August).

A varied programme with information and hands-on activities awaits the visitor to the Federal Foreign Office. The Crisis Response Centre, conference halls and the offices of the top officials, including Foreign Minister Dr Guido Westerwelle, will be open to the public. Visitors will be able to see the diplomatic protocol for welcoming and looking after state guests in Berlin, with the vehicles for an official motorcade on display and a table set for a state banquet. And in the “diplomatic classroom”, the visitor can learn an exotic language –like Indonesian or Swahili, or become a specialist on Europe, in twenty minutes.

As it is the twentieth anniversary of German reunification, the Open Day this year will focus on the chequered history of the building at Werderscher Markt. During the National Socialist period it housed the Reichsbank and in the GDR era it was the SED Central Committee Headquarters. Following the peaceful revolution in 1989, the building was renamed the “Haus der Parlamentarier” (house of parliamentarians, with reference to the first democratically elected parliament in the GDR), until, in 1999, the Federal Foreign Office moved in. A guided tour of the building brings recent German history to life for the visitor.