Wyhl, officially Wyhl am Kaiserstuhl (; ), is a municipality in the district of Emmendingen in

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

in southwestern

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It is known in the 1970s for its role in the

anti-nuclear movement The Anti-nuclear war movement is a new social movements, social movement that opposes various nuclear technology, nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified them ...

. Wyhl was first mentioned in 1971 as a possible site for a

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by ...

station. In the years that followed, local opposition steadily mounted, but this had little impact on politicians and planners. Official permission for the plant was granted and earthworks began on 17 February 1975.Walter C Patterson (1986)
Nuclear Power
Penguin Books, p. 113. On 18 February, local people spontaneously occupied the site and police removed them forcibly two days later. Television coverage of police dragging away farmers and their wives through the mud helped to turn nuclear power into a major national issue. The rough treatment was widely condemned and made the wine-growers, clergy, and others all the more determined. Some local police refused to take part in the action. Jim Falk (1982). ''Global Fission: The Battle Over Nuclear Power'', Oxford University Press, p. 105. Subsequent support came from the nearby university town of Freiburg. On 23 February about 30,000 people re-occupied the Wyhl site and plans to remove them were abandoned by the state government in view of the large number involved and potential for more adverse publicity. On 21 March 1975, an administrative court withdrew the construction licence for the plant.Mills, Stephen and Williams, Roger (1986)
Public Acceptance of New Technologies
Routledge, pp. 375-376.Gottlieb, Robert (2005)
Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement
Revised Edition, Island Press, USA, p. 237.
/ref>Wolfgang Rudig (1990). ''Anti-nuclear Movements: A World Survey of Opposition to Nuclear Energy'', Longman, pp. 130-135. The plant was never built and the land eventually became a nature reserve. The Wyhl occupation generated extensive national debate. This initially centred on the state government's handling of the affair and associated police behaviour, but interest in nuclear issues was also stimulated. The Wyhl experience encouraged the formation of citizen action groups near other planned nuclear sites. Many other anti-nuclear groups formed elsewhere, in support of these local struggles, and some existing citizens' action groups widened their aims to include the nuclear issue. This is how the German anti-nuclear movement evolved. Therefore, Wyhl is often referred to as the first great success of the German Anti-nuclear power Movement with an announcement effect for other similar conflicts like

Brokdorf Brokdorf is a municipality in the district of Steinburg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is located on the bank of the Elbe river, approx. 20 km east before the river flows into the North Sea. As of December 2019, the total population of B ...

, nuclear reprocessing plant Wackersdorf or Gorleben. Anti-nuclear success at Wyhl also inspired nuclear opposition in the rest of Europe and North America.

References

{{Authority control Emmendingen (district) Anti–nuclear power movement Anti-nuclear movement in Germany

See also

References