Facts - The Bundestag at a glance - Deutscher Bundestag

At the heart of the environmental strategy
are the central combined heat and
power (CHP) plants in the parliamentary
quarter. Their generators run on biodiesel
produced from rapeseed.
In accordance with the trigeneration
principle, waste heat created by electricity
generation is used to heat the parliament
buildings. This technology enables
the plants to generate about half of the
electricity needed for the parliament
buildings and meet all of their heating
and cooling requirements.
Unused waste heat can be used for cooling
purposes in an absorption chiller
or can be stored in summer in a layer
of porous rock 300 metres below the
surface in the form of warm water and
pumped up again in winter.
Bundestag buildings
Chronology of the Reichstag Building
5 December 1894
The Reichstag Building, which had
taken ten years to build, was formally
opened; the architect was Paul Wallot.
9 November 1918
Philipp Scheidemann (SPD) proclaimed
the German Republic from a window
of the Reichstag Building after Imperial
Chancellor Prince Max of Baden, acting
on his own authority, had announced
the abdication of Emperor William II at
noon on the same day.
27 February 1933
Shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power,
the Reichstag fire signalled the end of
parliamentary democracy in Germany
and served as a pretext for the persecution
of political opponents.
May 1945
At the end of the Second World War, the
red flag of the Soviet army was flown
above the Reichstag Building as a sign of
victory over National Socialist Germany.
Traces of history: during the reconstruction,
the graffiti left by Soviet
troops was carefully conserved.