It was an extremely symbolic act. In the presence of the American city commandant Colonel Robert Phelps, the Hessian Prime Minister Christian Stock, the magistrate and the city parliament met at the Paulskirche. A small celebration should highlight the importance of the event. March 17, 1947 - The reconstruction of the ruins of the building began, in which the first German National Assembly was constituted on May 18, 1848, in order to draft a constitution for Germany on the basis of democratic freedoms. The system of sovereign-monarchical power in the conglomerate of individual states that formed the "German Confederation" was to be overcome and the Germans to become a political community.
“It's not about Frankfurt, it's about Germany.” The Prime Minister reminded the audience. The cornerstone of a German democracy was laid in this building a hundred years earlier. With the final establishment of democracy in Germany after the years of the Nazi dictatorship, the Paulskirche should now be rebuilt - except for the oval of the outer walls destroyed in the bombing in March 1944.
Lord Mayor Walter Kolb took up this point: “If we believe in the midst of all our misery and have the courage to rebuild this monument of German and European spirit, then we do so with a deep moral obligation after all suffering, the deluded in the name of our people of all humanity added.
For our part we want to make up for such guilt and ensure that the name of the Germans, this people in the heart and core of Europe, regains respect and honor. "
"It was destroyed because we disregarded moral laws."
On the west side of the building, Kolb sank a cassette with the certificate of the decision on the reconstruction and with pictures of the old Paulskirche. The certificate read: “Today we are starting the reconstruction of the Paulskirche. It was destroyed because we disregarded moral laws. May our descendants overcome themselves, shake hands with all peoples beyond borders. This is our wish and our legacy. "
The city parliament unanimously passed the decision to rebuild on February 6th.
Costs of 2.7 million marks were assumed.
In January 1947, now 75 years ago, Kolb had already called on the Germans to help: "All of Germany must rebuild the Paulskirche, from the outside and from the inside, in stone as in spirit." A reconstruction lottery "in the western zones" - American, British, French - should bring in about one million marks according to the city's calculation.
However, benefits in kind were primarily in demand.
Vilmar an der Lahn, for example, provided material from the marble quarries there, Niederlahnstein donated four hundred pounds of nails, limestone came from the Bielefeld district, and cement from Brandenburg.
Trier contributed a barrel of wine in order to toast good success with a Mosel Riesling.