The Reichstag has strong associations with the country's tumultuous modern history.

Sir Norman Foster: This building is radical in many ways

The last time it operated was during the Nazi era.

Regular meetings will not be held in the building until the new parliamentary session begins in September when the government is due to have moved over from Bonn - another step in the German Governments' return to a united Berlin.

Bomb damage: Berlin's Reichstag at the end of World War II

Originally built in 1894, the Reichstag has undergone a four-year renovation led by British architect Sir Norman Foster.

Topped by a completely rebuilt glass dome, lined with a viewing gallery for the public to look down upon the workings of their representatives, the new building is meant to symbolise the openness and transparency of 50 years of federal democracy.

(For a tour of the new Reichstag click here)

But the building's renovation has not ignored its past.

Caroline Wyatt reports: "Berlin is keen to put the past behind it"

Triumphant anti-German graffiti scrawled across the building's walls by Soviet soldiers who stormed the building in 1945 will remain intact, as will the bullet holes left from the storming of Berlin that finally brought an end to World War 2.

"A lot of events have passed over that building and left their imprint on the fabric," says Sir Norman Foster.

The 1933 fire symbolised the rise of Hitler

"I think it has more integrity to reveal and accept the history, making it tangibly visible for present and future generations."

However, the $11bn project has not been without its critics.

Some feel the money has been unwisely spent at a time of rising German unemployment.

Democratic cradle

Others feel the perceived ties between the building and the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich make it an inappropriate venue for democratic debate.

Visitors will be able to look down on lawmakers at work

But supporters of the return to the Reichstag point to the building's original place as the cradle of German democracy during the Bismarck era of Prussian rule.

In fact, the Reichstag fire of 1933 meant Hitler never actually governed from there.

Then Hitler, as the newly-installed chancellor, blamed communists for the blaze. Most historians believe either Hitler's National Socialist party itself was responsible or that a Dutch hitchhiker, Marinus van der Lubbe, committed the arson attack independently.

Whoever was responsible, Hitler used the fire as a pretext to push through an emergency law disempowering parliament and outlawing all political opposition.

Divide and rule

Post-war Germany was carved into East and West, with two respective capitals established on East Berlin and the small town of Bonn, on the Rhine.

Prof Wende: "Bonn had to be replaced by a permanent capital"

"The German Bundestag, the German Parliament, was placed in Bonn because it was a clear sign that this was a provisionary institution as long as Germany was divided," says Professor Wende, Director of the German Historical Institute.

"The modern German constitution had, so to speak, the (goal) of re-unification as a political task for the German Republic, and when this had been achieved in 1990, of course Bonn had to be replaced by a permanent capital."

Nonetheless with reunification in 1990, parliament's reoccupation of its traditional home did not have universal support and MPs voted only narrowly in favour of the move.

What's in a name?

One group of MPs has also expressed concern at the continued use of the name "Reichstag" - "reich" means empire in German - and demanded it should be replaced by the more neutral "plenary area" or "Deutscher Bundestag" since Germany no longer has an empire.

The fat eagle stays

Professor Wende says such opposition is misplaced.

"One has to make clear that when the German parliament, the parliament of the German Federal Republic, moves to a building which is called Reichstag, it is actually moving into a building where one can find one of the important roots of German democracy," he says.