Der Vision atomtechnischer Verhei ungen gefolgt: Von der Euphorie zu ersten Protesten – die zivile Nutzung der Kernkraft in Deutschland seit den 1950er Jahren

In the 1950s, the nuclear age was announced and propagated worldwide as a future blessing for mankind. “Atoms for peace” was the promising slogan, indicating that Western industrial nations denying the atomic salvation would be seriously threatening their own and the whole West’s economic prosperity. West Germany heavily embraced this technological utopia and relied on the development of nuclear technology since the 1950s. Despite continuous grassroot protest especially in West Germany, this resulted in a path dependency of a technical momentum (Thomas P. Hughes) in the system of the large-scale energy production until today, which only might have come to an end as a result of Fukushima’s super meltdown.