Berlin is the city state that serves as Germany's capital

Berlin is a city state and is the capital of Germany. It serves as the president of Germany's office. Schloss Bellevue serves as the president's official residence. The former Prussian Herrenhaus is now home to the Bundesrat, or "federal council," which represents Germany's Federal States (Bundesländer) (House of Lords).

Even though the majority of the ministries have offices in Berlin, several of them as well as a few minor departments have offices in Bonn, the former West German capital. Even though the Federal Republic of Germany's capital is Berlin, 8,000 of the 18,000 federal bureaucracy employees still reside in Bonn, which is located roughly 600 kilometers (370 miles) from Berlin.

Germany did not have a capital city and was not a cohesive nation-state before 1871

Germany had no capital city and was not a unified nation-state before 1871. During Charlemagne's rule, the medieval German Holy Roman Empire's favored seat of government was Aachen, and up until 1531, it served as the location where 31 Holy Roman Emperors were crowned Kings of the Germans. Frankfurt eventually hosted the coronation.

After Charlemagne, however, none of the Holy Roman Emperors relocated to Aachen or Frankfurt; instead, they either kept their original constituent kingdoms or principalities as their home bases or did so by relocating to temporary royal palaces scattered around the Kaiserpfalz confederacy. The Habsburgs, the last imperial reigning house, held Vienna as their permanent seat of power.

Only after Germany's unification in 1871 was the newly formed German Reich given a formal capital

Berlin became the capital of Germany because it was the capital of Prussia, the major state of the new Reich. Since 1518, Berlin has served as the capital of Prussia and its predecessor, Brandenburg. Up until 1945, Berlin served as the seat of the German Reich.

However, due to the civil strife that engulfed Berlin for a few months after the First World War, the national legislature gathered in Weimar. After Berlin was taken in 1945, Flensburg briefly served as the nation's capital. As a result of World War II, the Allies invaded Germany, and Berlin ceased to be the capital of an independent German state.

After regaining sovereignty, Germany was divided into West Germany and East Germany in 1949

Berlin was split into East Berlin and West Berlin as well. Initially, West Germany's interim capital was to be located in Frankfurt. Berlin would have been the nation's capital, nonetheless, according to West German authorities.

Since Frankfurt was a significant city on its own, they worried that it would eventually be acknowledged as the country's permanent capital, which would reduce support for reunification in West Germany. As a more evident temporary option, the capital was established in the smaller university city of Bonn.

Another influence was the proximity of Bonn to Cologne, the hometown of Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of West Germany. Even though Berlin as a whole was still a legally occupied region and would stay so for 45 years, East Germany claimed East Berlin as its capital.