Germany 's former Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher passed away in his home in Bonn on Friday (01.04.2016), aged 89. The politician, who would later play a pivotal role in German reunification, was born in this house in eastern Germany on March 21, 1927. What was then the town of Reideburg was later incorporated into the city of Halle, near Leipzig.

Genscher's birth house is located at Schönnewitzer Strasse 9a. It belonged to his uncle, and had been built in the mid-1860s in late-classical style. He lived in it for six years, before his family moved to nearby Halle, where he would attend school and university. Genscher would follow in his father's footsteps and pursue law. In the years after the Genschers left, the house fell into decay.

Pictured is Genscher's childhood bedroom in his birth house in Reideburg-Halle as is looked in 2007. After World War II, Halle became part of communist East Germany. However, Genscher left for Bremen in the West in 1952, before the Berlin Wall was built and the border could still be crossed. It was in Bremen that he finished his law degree.

After German reunification, Genscher returned to his hometown many times. He is pictured at his birth house in 1993. Also in that year, he invited former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, to Halle. "Henry Kissinger liked to say yes back then because he thought it wouldn't work out anyways," Genscher told "Berliner Morgenpost" in 2009. "I was serious," he said of his invitation.

Even when he wasn't there, he was still there. Genscher's presence in Halle was constantly felt. In 1999, designer Steffen Müller and graphic designer Andreas Gülzow created this 120-centimeter image of the former foreign minister and positioned it in the window of a house just adjacent to his birth house.

After standing empty for years, Genscher's birth house was approved for demolition in 2006, the year this photo was taken. Cornelia Pieper, then head of Genscher's political party, the Free Democratic Party (FDP) in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, heard about it and decided to rescue the house. The plan was to turn it into a symbol of German unity.

FDP politician Cornelia Pieper gathered funds from the Erhard Hübener Foundation - an organization dedicated to political liberalism in the state of Saxony-Anhalt - and the Saxony-Anhalt Lottery, among others. The house, pictured here in 2008, was fully renovated at a cost of around 600,000 euros ($681,000).

Genscher's newly renovated birth house was inaugurated on September 11, 2009. Cornelia Pieper is pictured to the right. To the left of Hans-Dieter Genscher is Germany's former Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, also from the FDP, who just recently passed away on March 18 after battling leukemia.

As of 2012, Genscher's birth house houses a permanent exhibition called "Unity in Freedom." It includes exhibits and information on the history of liberalism in Germany, the division of the country after World War II, the peaceful revolution in the communist East and reunification in 1990, and the expansion of the EU. In office from 1982-1992, Genscher was instrumental in reunification.