After World War II the museum building, which was left largely intact by the war, was the only representative and large assembly hall available in Bonn, now capital of West Germany. This was the reason why the museum was used by the Parlamentarischer Rat (English: "parliamentary council"), for its opening session on September 1, 1948. At this time plans were made to use the museum building as the Chancellor's Office (German: "Bundeskanzleramt"), but it was eventually only used for two months by the new chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1949.