Wackersdorf reprocessing plant explained

The Wackersdorf nuclear reprocessing plant (German: Wiederaufbereitungsanlage Wackersdorf, abbreviated WAA Wackersdorf) is a reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf in Bavaria, Germany. Because of protests the plant was never completed. Today it is an industrial site with no special features.

Anti-WAA protest

In the early 1980s plans to build a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the Bavarian town of Wackersdorf led to major protests. In 1986, peaceful protests as well as heavy confrontations between West German police armed with stun grenades, rubber bullets, water cannons, CS gas and CN-gas and demonstrators of which some were armed with slingshots, crowbars and Molotov cocktails took place at multiple occasions at the site of a nuclear reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf.^{[1] [2]} The plans for the plant were abandoned in 1988. It is still unclear whether protests or plant economics or the death of the Minister-President of the state of Bavaria Franz Josef Strauß 1988 led to the decision.^[3]

The Anti-WAAhnsinns Festivals were political rock concerts which took place in Germany in the 1980s. (The name is a pun on WAA and Wahnsinn = madness.) Their purpose was to support protests against a planned nuclear reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf. In 1986, the fifth festival marked the peak of the protest movement against the plant.

Protest monuments

To this day there are still some monuments to the WAA resistance:

• Franziskus-Marterl (St. Francis shrine/chapel) with the "Cross of Wackersdorf" near the WAA. At the chapel-shrine in the mid-1980s, WAA opponents met every Sunday at 14:00 for an ecumenical prayer and then moved into the area or to the hoarding. This is the same place where today the "Marterlgemeinde" meet four times a year to a prayer: at the Chernobyl- and Hiroshima-commemoration in memory of the shrine's saint Francis of Assisi on 3 October and on Christmas Eve.^[4]
• Anti-WAAhnsinns Festival memorial stone at Lanzenanger in Burglengenfeld
• Anti-WAA ex-voto in the Kreuzberg Church at Kreuzberg in Schwandorf
• WAA resistance memorial in front of the lake facilities, Bregenz Festspielhaus (Austria)

• Anti-WAA Memorial ("Der Zaun des Anstoßes" / "The Fence of Capital Offence") in Salzburg (Austria)

Documentary films

Some German documentaries about WAA were filmed.

• (documentary film 1986) ^[5]
• (Fission processes - Wackersdorf 001: documentary film 1987) ^[6]
• (The Remaining Risk or the Arrogance of Power: documentary film 1989) ^[7]
• (The Eighth Commandment: documentary film against nuclear energy 1991) ^[8]
• (Half-lifes: documentary film 2006) ^[9]
• (The Nightmare of Nuclear Waste: ARTE-documentary film 2009 about the fate of nuclear waste and about the dangers of nuclear energy) ^[10]
• WAA Wackersdorf: Strahlende Zukunft für die Oberpfalz (WAA Wackersdorf: A Radiant Future for the Upper Palatinate: Monitor-documentary 1986 by Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, Ekkehard Sieker, Helge Cramer) ^[11]
• 18 Tage freies Wackerland (The 18 Days of the Free Wacker Land: Medienwerkstatt Franken, Bibliothek des Widerstands Band 19, BellaStoria Film) ^{[12]  [13]}
• Schreckgespenst WAA – Widerstand in Wackersdorf (The WAA Heartburn: Resistance in Wackersdorf: Medienwerkstatt Franken, Bibliothek des Widerstands Band 19, BellaStoria Film) ^[14]
• WAA-Schlachten (WAA Battles: Medienwerkstatt Franken, Bibliothek des Widerstands Band 19, BellaStoria Film) ^[15]
• Wackersdorf - ein Mythos? Was ist aus den WAA-Kämpfern von einst geworden? (Wackersdorf - a myth? What happened to the former WAA fighters? Medienwerkstatt Franken) ^[16]
• Lieber heute aktiv als morgen radioaktiv (Better active today than radioactive tomorrow: contribution by Lars Friedrich in the TV magazine ttt – titel, thesen, temperamente) ^[17]
• Zaunkämpfe (Fighting at the Fence: Medienwerkstatt Franken 1988, BellaStoria Film) ^[18]
• Kirche unterstützt Mahnwache am Wackersdorfdenkmal (The Church supports the picket at the Wackersdorf memorial, Salzburger Nachrichten) ^[19]
• Der Fahrradspeichenfabrikkomplex (The Complex of the Bicycle Spoke Factory: Hörbuch-Feature 2010 von Angela Kreuz und Dieter Lohr)

Many other films and documentaries are available at "WAA Wackersdorf" on video portals such as Vimeo or YouTube.

See also

• Anti-nuclear movement in Germany
• Armin Weiss - Anti WAA-Wackersdorf activist
• Hildegard Breiner - Anti WAA-Wackersdorf activist

References

49.3206°N 12.2325°W

Notes and References

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20080228221114/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,961509-2,00.html Energy and Now, the Political Fallout
2. https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE6DC1230F93AA35755C0A960948260 Germans Arrest 300 In Antinuclear Protests
3. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2306337,00.html Nuclear Power in Germany: A Chronology
4. see also (german)
5. http://vimeo.com/26976026 WAAhnsinn – Der Wackersdorf-Film
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cecE6X4HiDw Spaltprozesse
7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUCAC_4uYLA&list=PL68DE0F53D08D087D Restrisiko
8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS8AywhTiHA&list=PL68DE0F53D08D087D Das achte Gebot
9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI4i2OmF2v4&list=PL68DE0F53D08D087D Halbwertszeiten
10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLPTdIMYqOI Albtraum Atommüll
11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUpWWSej57E WAA Wackersdorf: Strahlende Zukunft für die Oberpfalz
12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCciBu_HH2Y&feature=endscreen 18 Tage Freies Wackerland 2-3
13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLmj3QYM9yg 18 Tage Freies Wackerland 3-3
14. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smnFlbSX3j8&feature=player_embedded Schreckgespenst WAA
15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvGj7SD7c4c&list=PL68DE0F53D08D087D WAA-Schlachten
16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF3wDaM0US4&feature=player_embedded Wackersdorf - Ein Mythos?
17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axUbMyzKMoo Lieber heute aktiv als morgen radioaktiv
18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNSQ-CQ20P0&list=PL68DE0F53D08D087D Zaunkämpfe
19. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stJhYjG9eJI Kirche unterstützt Mahnwache am Wackersdorfdenkmal