After more than half a century of nuclear energy, the last German nuclear power plants are shut down. Now the dismantling begins – or not?
Berlin. There was a time when many Germans dreamed of a bright future. There were hundreds of mills in green meadows across the country. In which radioactive material was divided in a controlled manner. In the 1950s, the first German nuclear minister, the Bavarian Franz Josef Strauss, saw a technical innovation that would change people’s lives in a similar way to the discovery of fire.
Over the decades, the grandiose plans turned into a roller coaster: At first, energy companies resisted the costly change. In the oil shock of the early 1970s, then Chancellor Willy Brandt (SPD) saw salvation in nuclear energy. Soon after, the first protests began, then came Chernobyl. In 1989, Germany’s youngest nuclear power plant went into operation, a model of the GDR which was soon closed again.