The blue bag left on the platform at Bonn's central station in 2012 contained explosives that did not go off, but a city-wide manhunt unfolded. Marco G. was eventually arrested and charged with planting the bomb. Three others are charged with plotting to assassinate a politician from the far-right PRO-NRW party. Their group allegedly drew inspration from an Islamist movement in Uzbekistan.

In March 2011, Arid Uka shot dead two US servicemen waiting for a bus at Frankfurt airport prior to deployment in Afghanistan. "This is indeed the first Islamic-motivated terror strike to have happened in Germany," the judge said, adding Uka had sought revenge for military operations in Afghanistan. Uka, born in Kosovo, acted alone and was sentenced to life in prison in February 2012.  

The "Sauerland Cell" was a German cell of the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), a terrorist group on the Pakistani-Afghan border. The four German and Turkish men had planned large-scale bomb attacks against American targets in Germany from their base in the western region of the Sauerland. Arrested in September 2007, they were sentenced in March 2010 for up to 12 years. 

Sven Lau, a Salafist Muslim, was the man behind a well-known Islamist publicity stunt. In 2014, Lau led several men around the city of Wuppertal in orange security vests labeled "Sharia police." Acting as state authorities, they warned people visiting local clubs and bars to adhere to Sharia, or Islamic law. He is currently on trial for backing a terror group fighting in Syria.

Nils D., a Salafist from Dinslaken, joined the "Islamic State" in Syria in October 2013. He tracked down the group's deserters - armed with explosives and guns. He returned to Germany a year later, and boastful statements about his time in Syria eventually got him arrested. He confessed the names of other German Islamic extremists and was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail. 

On the final day of Harry S.'s July 2016 trial, he said "going to Syria was the biggest mistake of my life." The Bremen-born Muslim convert spent three months with "Islamic State" in Syria in 2015. He wanted out after civilians were murdered for a short recruitment film he helped make. He was sentenced to three years in jail for being part of a foreign terrorist organization.

Perhaps best known as composer Ludwig van Beethoven's birthplace, Bonn was transformed into the heart of German political life four years after World War II when it was made West Germany's provisional capital. But as Germany began the years-long process of reunification in the 1990s, the government was set to move to Berlin.

On June 20, 1991, Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, passed legislation to move itself, along with other government bodies, to Berlin. Part of the deal stipulated that a handful of ministries would remain in Bonn, including defense and economic cooperation.

The move to Berlin was a drawn-out process, one that Bonn's residents feared might negate the city's relevance in Germany's political life. However, the 1991 legislation provided nearly 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) to the city to lessen the impact of the move.

Bonn's diplomatic presence was most hit by the transfer of Germany's seat of government. The majority of diplomatic missions and embassies in Germany moved to Berlin following reunification. However, the former building of Germany's foreign ministry still houses a division of the justice ministry.

But how did business fare in the wake of the move? Jan Erik Ruelfs of Foto Brell, a store that opened in Bonn after World War II to sell second-hand cameras, told DW that although the move meant a loss in his diplomatic clientele, it didn't have a significant impact on business. "We still print the same quantity of photographs now as we did in the 1980s and 1990s"

A worker at the Bonn Minster, one of Germany's oldest Catholic churches, described the transfer of the capital as "uninteresting." She said the move had had no impact on the number of visitors and worshipers who frequent the church.

The Hofgarten in front of the University of Bonn was the site of some of West Germany's biggest demonstrations. In 1979, more than 100,000 people joined an anti-nuclear protest following the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the US. Today, the park is frequented by students, tourists and residents of Bonn.

The West German cabinet in 1969 decided that the Palais Schaumburg manor was insufficient for the needs of the chancellor, and decided to construct a new building. In 1976, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt became the first occupant of the new Chancellery. The building served as the chancellor's office and residence until 1999, when the move to Berlin was completed.

The former Bundestag office building in Bonn now belongs to the UN. It hosts 18 organizations and agencies, including the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It is known as "Langer (Tall) Eugen," a nod to former Bundestag President Eugen Gerstenmaier. The building behind it was planned to provide further government offices - but is now home to Deutsche Welle.