Journalist Hartmut Palmer

»This [...] Bonn smallness, I think, was a great democratic merit.«

The Basic Law will be 75 years old in May 2024 and Bonn, as the capital city at the time, was naturally right in the middle of it.  

Hartmut Palmer is probably the best interviewee you could wish for on this occasion. As the capital’s correspondent, he travelled around Bonn’s government district for Der Spiegel and the Süddeutsche Zeitung, among others.  

In this interview, he tells director Steven Walter what it was like when you could still meet politicians without an appointment between the Bundesbüdchen and the plenary chamber and how politics was done in Bonn.

bee.contemporary is the discussion podcast of Beethovenfest Bonn. Here we invite guests from the worlds of music, culture and society to talk to us about current artistic projects and contemporary discourse.