1/ I've been asked several times now why Germans are so afraid of nuclear energy (although that mind-set is now changing at light speed). It's not much of an exaggeration to say this nice old lady played a key role: 
2/ Her name was Dr. Gudrun Pausewang (she died in 2020), a schoolteacher turned children's book author. Almost all of her books were written for young readers, and many of them had blatant anti-war, anti-establishment, and pro-environment messages.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gudrun_Pa…
3/ In the name of "treating her readers with respect" and "highlighting the dangers of the modern world", Pausewang gleefully subjected her young-adult heroes and heroines to unimaginable tortures.
4/ In her 1983 book "The Last Children of Schewenborn" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_… which depicts a nuclear attack on German soil, there are page after page of descriptions of burned and irradiated children dying slow, agonizing deaths in pools of their own vomit and feces.
5/ A baby is born without eyes. You get the picture.
But her classic, if you want to call it that, is 1987's "Die Wolke" (The Cloud), translated into English in 1997 under the title "Fall-Out". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Wolke.
But her classic, if you want to call it that, is 1987's "Die Wolke" (The Cloud), translated into English in 1997 under the title "Fall-Out". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Wolke.
6/ The fact that fallout only occurs after nuclear explosions, not radiation leaks, might convey an idea of Pausewang's scientific literacy (her Ph.D was in literature).
7/ She had no idea how nuclear power plants worked or why they were adopted in the first place or what kinds of trade-offs are involved in powering a modern industrial economy. She just knew that anything that involves splitting atoms is Evil.
8/ In "Fall-Out", Pausewang crafts another story ripped from yesterday's headlines, i.e. Chernobyl. Sure enough, an even bigger Chernobyl happens on German soil.
9/ The heroine, young Janna-Berta, is forced to flee the poison cloud with her brother, who is promptly run over and killed in the panic. German police shoot at the fleeing population.
10/ Janna-Berta then becomes severely ill with radiation poisoning, losing her hair, and watches other children die slow, agonizing deaths in a provisional hospital. She later learns that her parents and younger brother are all dead.
Strong tobacco! to use the German phrase.
Strong tobacco! to use the German phrase.
11/ Yet you may be asking: How can a couple of books instill fear in an entire generation? Simple: These books (along with other of Pausewang's alarmist screeds) -- especially "Fall-Out" -- became huge bestsellers.
12/ You can get an idea of the influence of these books by the fact that both have English-language Wikipedia entries.
*Much* more importantly, these scare-pamphlets were made mandatory reading in classrooms all over Germany.
*Much* more importantly, these scare-pamphlets were made mandatory reading in classrooms all over Germany.
13/ German schoolteachers are, like teachers everywhere, largely on the left of the political spectrum, and they were the core of Germany's anti-nuclear power movement.
14/ They forced literally millions of German schoolchildren to read all or part of "Fall-Out" and prepare reports and essays on it.
15/ Of course some isolated voices questioned whether children should be reading disaster porn intentionally *designed* to give them life-long nightmares (and turn them into life-long Green voters).
16/ But the European literary establishment loved these books and showered Pausewang with at least 15 prizes, according to her German-language Wikipedia page. In 2006, "Fall-Out" was filmed in German.
17/ If you'd like to enjoy scenes of desperate refugees and bald children on their deathbeds, you can watch the whole thing here:
After Fukushima, Gudrun went back to the trough yet again with 2012's "Noch lange danach" (For a long time afterward).
After Fukushima, Gudrun went back to the trough yet again with 2012's "Noch lange danach" (For a long time afterward).
18/ This time she paints the picture of German years after a nuclear-plant accident: Large stretches of Germany are uninhabitable, millions have emigrated, unemployment is rampant, sections of German cities are dangerous because of looting and diseases spreading among…
19/ …compromised immune systems. Those who remained suffer from depression and diffuse fear. Those who are keeping score at home may observe that some of these thing are starting to happen in Germany right now, but certainly not for the reasons Pausewang thought they would.
20/ Pausewang is not the sole culprit here, and she's merely the symptom of a disease that has its roots much deeper in German society (I'll get to that later).
21/ But if you had to name one person who, more than any other, spread exaggerated fears of nuclear energy in the German-speaking world, it would have to be Gudrun Pausewang.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
