It is not what is being done now: Gorleben is not unsuitable as a repository because the Federal Agency for Final Disposal issued a corresponding expertise a year ago. The first expert opinion of the company, which is to look for a new location for a repository, only adapted its conclusions to the political situation. Several other possible locations were similarly "unfavorable" as Gorleben, but remained in the race. The fact that the exploratory mine in Wendland is being closed and refilled is done solely to let grass grow over a decades-long dispute.

Indeed, it is to be hoped that, as the Social Democratic Environment Minister of Lower Saxony Olaf Lies said, the wounds that were inflicted during this time may heal.

Unfortunately, like the Greens, the SPD does not think of the engineers, geologists, workers and employees who were attacked, but rather of the citizens, activists and politicians who did not shy away from violence.

Germany chooses the most convenient of all routes

For a long time they could feel that they were the winners of history. In the meantime, however, it is clear: First, Germany still needs a nuclear repository without knowing whether there is a better location than Gorleben; and secondly, the technology, which has been demonized via the detour of the search for a repository, is not as environmentally harmful in the age of climate change as has always been done. This is a life lie of the Greens, which is taken to extremes with the claim that earlier generations failed to protect the climate.

In other respects, Gorleben also stands for the fact that Germany chooses a lonely but also the most comfortable of all routes. Everywhere in the election campaign it is asserted that everything in energy policy must get much faster, bigger, better. But if you look at the panorama, you have to come to the conclusion that Germany is becoming an importer of electricity - including coal and nuclear power. Every shovel that Gorleben refills gives the impression that it is supposed to sweep something under the carpet.