Research Site: GORLEBEN

Gorleben, a village in the Wendland region of Lower Saxony, lies on the western side of the nearby former East–West German border. Its name has become synonymous with anti-nuclear protests and nuclear waste management in West Germany. When commercial nuclear energy production began in 1960 with the commissioning of the Kahl Nuclear Power Plant, the issue of handling its waste quickly followed. In the 1970s, the state of Lower Saxony expressed its willingness to host nuclear waste disposal centers. However, when Gorleben was unexpectedly chosen as a waste site in 1977, it sparked a broad protest movement consisting of activists, farmers, and politically engaged citizens. This movement remains one of a kind and has left a lasting impact on the history of political resistance and protest in Germany. Although Ernst Albrecht, the former Minister-President of Lower Saxony (from the Christian Democratic Union party), declared in 1979 that plans for building a reprocessing plant for radioactive waste in Gorleben would be abandoned, the Gorleben salt dome continued to be examined for suitability as a potential nuclear repository for some time afterward. After decades of dispute over Gorleben as a site for a nuclear waste repository, the reprocessing facility for highly radioactive waste there is currently being dismantled. This is because scientific investigations of the salt dome ended in 2020 with the conclusion that Gorleben is not suitable as a repository. Beginning in 2024, four hundred thousand tons of salt are to be brought into the shafts to backfill them. However, this is not the end of the nuclear waste storage issue in the Wendland.

Nearby, the aboveground interim storage facility in Gorleben still contains 113 CASTOR containers holding high-level radioactive materials. CASTOR is an acronym that stands for “Cask for Storage and Transport of Radioactive Material,” and until 2011, when the last CASTOR arrived at Gorleben, protests against these transports regularly made national headlines. Without a final high-level storage solution, radioactive material will continue to be stored aboveground at Gorleben. According to the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE), a decision about the final repository is not expected before 2046, with other sources suggesting that the search may take as long as until 2076. This means that nuclear waste will likely remain at Gorleben for some time, even though the current interim facility license expires in 2034.

There is a belief that Gorleben’s selection as West Germany’s radioactive waste repository was a political choice. Since the GDR had its own repository located right on the border with Lower Saxony in Morsleben, some speculate that Minister-President Ernst Albrecht also chose a location near the border in retaliation. The anti-nuclear movement in the Wendland remains active today. For instance, the Gorleben Archive Association (Gorleben Archiv e.V.), which was founded in 2001, collects and preserves valuable materials related to Gorleben’s nuclear resistance. The Citizens’ Initiative for Environmental Protection in Lüchow-Dannenberg is still a key player and contact point for issues relating to nuclear waste storage and activist resistance. The self-organized Gorleben Prayers have been taking place every Sunday since 1989 near the interim storage site, where believers pray for peace, a definitive nuclear exit, environmental protection, a mindful approach to resources, and a non-violent triumph over exploitation, oppression, and injustice.