The Wackersdorf nuclear reprocessing plant (German: Wiederaufbereitungsanlage Wackersdorf (WAA)) was a planned 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. Even during the initial clearing work, demonstrators attempted to occupy the construction site, erecting the Free Republic of Wackerland shantytown in 1985. After 18 days, it was cleared in January 1986 in a large-scale police operation. The district administrator of Schwandorf (district), Hans Schuierer, also refused to sign the necessary permits for the plant's construction. To circumvent the district administrator's blockade, the Bavarian State Parliament passed the "Lex Schuierer". Many people and politicians from Austria also demonstrated against the construction of the nuclear facility in Bavaria. Following entry bans and border blockades, the WAA conflict between Bavaria and Austria escalated.

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. The plans for the plant were abandoned in 1989. It is still unclear whether protests, plant economics, or the death of the Minister-President of the state of Bavaria, Franz Josef Strauß, in 1988 led to the decision.

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.

  • Anti-WAA Wackersdorf protests
  • 1986
  • 2 February 1989
  • 2 February 1989
  • 3 March 1989
  • 26 March 1989
  • 1986-1988
  • 1980s
  • 1980s

Protest monuments

Franziskus-Marterl with the Cross of Wackersdorf
Anti-WAAhnsinns-Festival memorial stone in Burglengenfeld
Wackersdorf Memorial (Salzburg)[de] in Salzburg (Austria)

To this day, there are still some monuments to the WAA resistance against the plant (see List of monuments related to the Wackersdorf reprocessing plant[de]):

Documentary films

Spaltprozesse (film)

Some German documentaries about WAA were filmed.

  • 1986: WAAhnsinn – Der Wackersdorf-Film[de] (documentary film)
  • 1986: WAA Wackersdorf: Strahlende Zukunft für die Oberpfalz (WAA Wackersdorf: A Radiant Future for the Upper Palatinate: Monitor-documentary by Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, Ekkehard Sieker, Helge Cramer)
  • 1986: 18 Tage freies Wackerland (The 18 Days of the Free Wacker Land: Medienwerkstatt Franken, Bibliothek des Widerstands Band 19, BellaStoria Film)
  • 1986: WAA-Schlachten (WAA Battles: Medienwerkstatt Franken, Bibliothek des Widerstands Band 19, BellaStoria Film)
  • 1987: Spaltprozesse (Fission processes - Wackersdorf 001: documentary film)
  • 1988: Zaunkämpfe (Fighting at the Fence: Medienwerkstatt Franken 1988, BellaStoria Film)
  • 1989: Restrisiko (Dokumentarfilm)[de] (The Remaining Risk or the Arrogance of Power: documentary film)
  • 1991: Das achte Gebot (1991)[de] (The Eighth Commandment: documentary film against nuclear energy)
  • 1996: Wackersdorf - ein Mythos? Was ist aus den WAA-Kämpfern von einst geworden? (Wackersdorf - a myth? What happened to the former WAA fighters? Medienwerkstatt Franken)
  • 2006: Schreckgespenst WAA – Widerstand in Wackersdorf (The WAA Heartburn: Resistance in Wackersdorf: Medienwerkstatt Franken, Bibliothek des Widerstands Band 19, BellaStoria Film)
  • 2006: Halbwertszeiten[de] (Half-lifes: documentary film)
  • 2009: Albtraum Atommüll[de] (The Nightmare of Nuclear Waste: ARTE-documentary film about the fate of nuclear waste and about the dangers of nuclear energy)
  • 2010: Der Fahrradspeichenfabrikkomplex (The Complex of the Bicycle Spoke Factory: Hörbuch-Feature 2010 von Angela Kreuz und Dieter Lohr)
  • 2011: Kirche unterstützt Mahnwache am Wackersdorfdenkmal (The Church supports the picket at the Wackersdorf memorial, Salzburger Nachrichten)
  • 2012: Lieber heute aktiv als morgen radioaktiv (Better active today than radioactive tomorrow: contribution by Lars Friedrich in the TV magazine ttt – titel, thesen, temperamente)
  • 2017: Kampf gegen die WAA Wackersdorf (Fight against the WAA Wackersdorf), BR24
  • 2019: Ende der WAA (1989) - Pfarrer Salzl und Hans Schuierer feiern das WAA-Aus am Bauzaun (End of the WAA 1989 - catholic priest Richard Salzl[de] and District Administrator Hans Schuierer celebrate the WAA's demise at the construction fence), BR24

Movies:

  • 2018: Wackersdorf (film): In 2018, Oliver Haffner directed the film Wackersdorf starring Johannes Zeiler as Hans Schuierer, the fictional district administrator of Schwandorf who fights against the Wackersdorf reprocessing plant (WAA) in Bavaria.

See also

Literature

  • Astrid Mignon Kirchhof, Helmuth Trischler: in: ibid Pathways into and out of Nuclear Power in Western Europe Austria, Denmark, Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, and Sweden. Deutsches Museum Studies 4, 2020 pp.148-149, ISBN 978-3-940396-92-1

External links

  • Media related to Wackersdorf reprocessing plant (WAA) at Wikimedia Commons
  • Media related to Buildings of Wiederaufarbeitungsanlage Wackersdorf at Wikimedia Commons
  • Media related to Monuments and memorials to Wiederaufarbeitungsanlage Wackersdorf at Wikimedia Commons
  • (Wackersdorf Reprocessing Plant), Historical Lexicon of Bavaria