Schroeder's Move Into Huge New Berlin Offices BeginsChancellor Gerhard Schroeder's move to his imposing new offices began unceremoniously Friday with police-escorted trucks transporting boxes of official files to Germany's new seat of power in central Berlin.A powerful symbol of the larger, united Germany that emerged from the end of the Cold War more than a decade ago, the looming new Chancellery will be officially handed over to its first occupant on Wednesday. Over the weekend, movers are to bring some 4,000 boxes of files into the building's 370 offices from a former East German communist leadership building that has been Schroeder's temporary quarters since the German government returned to Berlin in 1999 from Bonn, the former West German capital. Schroeder will receive the keys to the building at an inauguration ceremony Wednesday. Even before then, he will receive former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing as the first foreign dignitary in his new quarters Monday. |
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