The Bavarian Model? Modernization, Environment, and Landscape Planning in the Bavarian Nuclear Power Industry, 1950-1980
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The Bavarian Model? Modernization, Environment, and Landscape Planning in the Bavarian Nuclear Power Industry, 1950-1980 A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Graduate School University of Missouri-Columbia In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy By KYLE T. MILLER Dr. Jonathan Sperber, Dissertation Supervisor MAY, 2009 The undersigned, appointed by the Dean of the Graduate School, have examined the dissertation entitled THE BAVARIAN MODEL? MODERNIZATION, ENVIRONMENT, AND LANDSCAPE PLANNING IN THE BAVARIAN NUCLEAR POWER INDUSTRY, 1950-1980 Presented by Kyle T. Miller A candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy And hereby certify that in their opinion it is worthy of acceptance _____________________________________ Professor Jonathan Sperber, Chair _____________________________________ Professor Richard Bienvenu _____________________________________ Professor Susan Flader _____________________________________ Professor John Frymire _____________________________________ Professor Clarence Lo ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As is always the case, research for this dissertation was a long and arduous task that required support from numerous sources. The faculty and staff of the Department of History at the University of Missouri deserve recognition for offering me financial aid and institutional investment throughout the dissertation process. Archival exploration was made possible by a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) fellowship, as well as two Department of History research grants. While I visited Munich, Professor Helmuth Trischler of the Deutsches Museum served as my mentor, offering helpful starting points for further research. For their help in finding relevant archival material, I would like to thank the directors and staffs of the numerous archives I visited, including the Bayerisches Haupstaatarchiv, the Deutsches Museum, the Bayerisches Rundfunk Archiv, the Hanns-Seidel Archiv für Christlich Soziale Politik, the Historisches Archiv der TU München, the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, the Stadtarchiv München, and the Bayerisches Staatsarchiv von Oberbayern in München. Finally, I would like to thank the friends I met in Munich, who made the visit enjoyable. Many individuals offered constructive criticism that helped formulate revisions. Above all, my project adviser, Professor Jonathan Sperber, promptly reviewed numerous versions of the chapters and continually challenged me to improve my style, argument, and prose. He deserves special recognition for his thoughtful direction throughout the development of this work. Nina Verbanaz provided editorial work and encouragement, while my graduate student colleagues maintained their continual support. I would also like to thank the members of my dissertational committee, Professors Richard Bienvenu, ii John Frymire, Susan Flader, and Clarence Lo, for reading the final draft and offering recommendations for future research and improvement. Finally, I want to thank my parents, Larry and Paula Miller, for their understanding and encouragement through this long process. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………..ii ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………..vi Introduction: The Bavarian Model………………………………………1 Chapter 1: Atomic Skepticism in the Fifties: Atomic Eggs, Radioactive Fallout, Climate Change…………………………………………………14 1.1 The Atommeiler and the First Public Debate………………..17 1.2 The Munich Research Reactor and the Isar Meadows near Garching………………………………………………..49 1.3 The Hydrogen Bomb, Climate Panic, and Sickness in Salzburg……………………………………………………..60 1.4 Conclusions………………………………………………….84 Chapter 2: The Consumer Economy, the Diminishing Landscape, and Nuclear Power…………………………………………………………..86 2.1 The Atomic Commission Plan...……………………………..90 2.2 The Sixties Syndrome: Transformation of Bavaria………….110 2.3 Two Examples: Gundremmingen and Garching…………….125 Chapter 3: The Forest War in Ebersberg Forest…………………………148 3.1 Is it a Heimat? .........................................................................158 3.2 Will it be used for Military Purposes?.....................................173 3.3 What is a Democracy?.............................................................178 3.4 Where would the City Sprawl?................................................194 3.5 What is Nature?.......................................................................198 3.6 Where will the People Recreate?.............................................207 3.5 What about Air, Water, Climate, and Radiation?...…………..212 3.6 What are the Benefits?………………………………………..223 3.7 The Answer: Jein……………………………………………...226 3.8 Some Conclusions……………………………………………..232 Chapter 4: Landscape Planning, Nuclear Power, and National Protest in the age of the Oil Crisis…………………………………………………236 4.1 Landscape Planning and Nuclear Power………………………237 4.2 The New Opposition…………………………………………...260 iv Chapter 5: Implementation and Retraction: Grafenrheinfeld and the Nuclear Power Program…………………………………………….……….295 5.1 Reaction to the Nuclear Plant Grafenrheinfeld………….………296 5.2 The Situation Intensifies……………………………….………..314 5.3 Momentum Lost………………………………………..………..334 5.4 The Brief Era of Nuclear Power………………………..………..341 Conclusion: Landscape Planning and Nuclear Power……………………….369 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………..383 VITA…………………………………………………………………………401 v THE BAVARIAN MODEL? MODERNIZATION, ENVIRONMENT, AND LANDSCAPE PLANNING IN THE BAVARIAN NUCLEAR POWER INDUSTRY, 1950-1980 Kyle T. Miller Dr. Jonathan Sperber, Dissertation Supervisor ABSTRACT Perhaps no state in the Federal Republic of Germany witnessed a more pronounced state sponsored modernization effort than Bavaria, 1950-1980. This vast transformation, particularly in the field of nuclear energy, required a continuous negotiation of landscape planning between state officials, scientists, and ordinary citizens. While ordinary Bavarians had little input in the technical or scientific aspects of the nuclear industry, they could shape the landscape policy, by offering environmental and cultural criticism on specific locations for reactors. Using material from the Bavarian State Archives (some, from the 1970s, only recently declassified), this dissertation compares the Bavarian landscape disputes over nuclear facilities in the nineteen-fifties with those featured in the widespread anti-nuclear demonstrations of the nineteen-seventies. As one of the few English language studies on the topic, this dissertation suggests considerably more continuity in landscape disputes than previous scholarship and offers a fresh look into the migration of skepticism towards the landscape use of nuclear power from political right to left over the course of thirty years. vi Introduction: The Bavarian Model When Christian Social Unionist, Max Streibl, promoted his State Development Program in the recently erected Bavarian Ministry for Land Development and Environmental Affairs in the 1970’s, he proudly coined the phrase “Bavarian Model” to describe the future continuation of the rapid transformation of Bavaria that had been occurring since 1945. 1 In this speech and his book of the same title that followed, 2 he suggested that the “Bavarian Model” of modernization achieved two unique goals, which he considered to be a feat largely unequaled in the rest of the Federal Republic. The first accomplishment was the quick modernization of Bavaria from the agricultural state that it was in 1945 to the high-tech industrial land that it had become by 1970. A state deficient in natural resources and dominated by parochial Catholic farmers, Bavaria had long been considered a region of Germany mired in ‘backwardness,’ with only a few industrial pockets in its northern, mostly Protestant third, Franconia. Bavaria’s stunning industrialization since 1945, featuring some of the more innovative sectors of the economy, such as aerospace, biomedical, and nuclear energy, had met or surpassed levels achieved in other previously economically dominant West German states. Bavaria’s second achievement, of which Streibl as Minister for Environmental Affairs was the most proud, was that it was able to retain much of its natural beauty ( Schönheit ) and rich cultural heritage while industrializing. Unlike the Ruhr Valley, which most Bavarians 1 See for instance: BayHSA: Abteilung V, NL Streibl, XIII.9.7-XIII.9.10, 22.04.1974-11.05.1974, Das Landesentwicklungsprogramm—Wegweiser für die Zunkunft Bayerns, pg. 6. 2 Max Streibl, Modell Bayern: ein Weg in die Zukunft (Munich: Carl Geber Verlag, 1985). 1 regarded as a failed modernization model that resulted in overly concentrated population and pollution, Bavaria had decentralized its industrialization efforts. 3 According to Streibl in 1985, Bavaria’s adoption of so-called clean industry, establishment of the first environmental ministry in the Federal Republic, retention of its beautiful landscape, and its pursuit of microelectronics in the nineteen-eighties made the state a success story akin to California—a concept he articulated in the phrase “Silicon-Bavaria.” 4 The meticulous historiography of the last decade has generally adopted one of Streibl’s categories—modernization or environmentalism—as its point of departure. Munich’s Institute for Contemporary History ( Institut für Zeitgeschichte or IfZ ), primarily through its detailed seven volume series, Bayern im Bund ,5 in cooperation with Munich’s German Museum ( Deutsches Museum), the largest European museum of science and technology, has been thoroughly analyzing the industrialization and structural