¹ Cioc, Marc, Pax Atomica: The Nuclear Defense Debate in West Germany during the Adenauer Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988)Google Scholar. In 1957, the famous theologian Helmut Gollwitzer published a small book with the title Die Christen und die Atomwaffen (The Christians and The Atomic Weapons), in which he decried the fact that some physicists were more outspoken against nuclear weapons than the German Protestant churches. See Gollwitzer, Helmut, Die Christen und die Atomwaffen (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1957), 8Google Scholar.

² Wittmütz, Volkmar et al. , eds., 1968 und die Kirchen (Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 2008)Google Scholar.

³ Fitschen, Klaus et al. , eds., Die Politisierung des Protestantismus. Entwicklungen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland während der 1960er und 70er Jahre (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011)Google Scholar; Damberg, Wilhelm, ed., Soziale Strukturen und Semantiken des Religiösen im Wandel. Transformationen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2011)Google Scholar.

⁴ From 1973 to 1992, the Umweltbeauftragter for all Protestant churches on the federal level was Kurt Oeser. Oeser had started out as an environmental activist against noise pollution while pastor of a congregation near Frankfurt am Main International Airport. He published widely and was honored in 1974 with the Federal Order of Merit. His life's work is commemorated in the following monograph: Hecht, Carmen R. and Rühlig, Cornelia, eds., Kurt Oeser. Gemeindepfarrer und erster “Umweltpfarrer” Deutschlands (Bad Homburg: VAS Verlag für akademische Schriften, 2008)Google Scholar; Barner, Konrad and Liedke, Gerhard, eds., Schöpfungsverantwortung konkret. Aus der Arbeit der kirchlichen Umweltbeauftragten (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1986)Google Scholar.

⁵ Spencer Weart offered an innovative approach in his pioneering study about the cultural representations of antinuclear resentment by calling his narrative “a history of images.” This, I believe, is worth exploring further within the field of environmental history. See Weart, Spencer R., Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

⁶ For example, see Burgess, John P., The East German Church and the End of Communism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Baum, Gregory, The Church for Others: Protestant Theology in Communist East Germany (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996)Google Scholar; Fullbrook, Mary, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR, 1949–89 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; or Maier, Charles S., Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

⁷ On December 1, 1976, a pastor from Bremen wrote to Bishop Eduard Lohse of the State Church of Hannover, “thousands of alert Christians have waited for your episcopal word.” This came after witnessing violent clashes near the construction site of the Brokdorf nuclear power plant. Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, II 104/2 Lohse (Dienst), Verhältnis Staat/Kirche “Atomenergie,” Dec. 1975-April 29, 1977.

⁸ For example, in a letter from around 1979 from a parishioner to the church administration in Hannover, stating that it was not the task of the church simply to “placate” concerns in connection with an “inhuman” technology. Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, L5e, gen 180, Bd. V (Gorleben).

⁹ Altner, Günter, ed., Atomenergie. Herausforderung an die Kirchen. Texte, Kommentare, Analysen (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1977)Google Scholar.

¹⁰ The late Detlev J. K. Peukert identified a logodicy, which replaces the older theodicy in modern times. Referring to Max Weber, he claimed, “At the turn of the century [i.e., circa 1900], then, the gap created by the decline of religious influence on everyday life in industrial society was so great, and the conquest of the world by secularized, scientific rationality was so overwhelming that the switch from religion to science as the source of a meaning-creating mythology took place almost without resistance. The result, however, was that science took upon itself a burden of responsibility which it would soon find a heavy one.” Peukert, Detlev J. K., “The Genesis of the Final Solution from the Spirit of Science,” in Nazism and German Society 1933–1945, ed. Crew, David F. (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 274–299, here 284Google Scholar.

¹¹ Jarausch, Konrad, ed., Das Ende der Zuversicht? Die Siebziger Jahre als Geschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008)Google Scholar; Kupper, Patrick, “Die ‘1970er Diagnose.’ Grundsätzliche Überlegungen zu einem Wendepunkt der Umweltgeschichte,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 43 (2003): 325–348Google Scholar; Doering-Manteuffel, Anselm and Raphael, Lutz, Nach dem Boom. Perspektiven auf die Zeitgeschichte seit 1970 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008)Google Scholar.

¹² Meadows, Dennis H. et al. , The Limits to Growth: A Report for The Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind (New York: Universe Books, 1972)Google Scholar.

¹³ See the online interview with Dennis Meadows, December 12, 2009, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,666175,00.html (accessed December 23, 2010).

¹⁴ The American sociologist Robert K. Merton first described the effects of self-destroying and self-fulfilling prophecies. Merton, Robert K., Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: Free Press, 1968), 477Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Several employees of the church in Hamburg had issued a pamphlet in December 1976 reacting to the official stance of the leaders of the Nordelbische Landeskirche (State Church of North of the Elbe, i.e., the city of Hamburg and the state of Schleswig-Holstein) asking whether the church should not exercise its prophetisches Wächteramt (prophetic calling of the custodian). Archiv der Nordelbischen Kirche, 10.01, Nr. 11.

¹⁶ Weber, Max, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, vol. III (Munich: UTB für Wissenschaft, 1983 [1920]), 285 ffGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷ For a critical theological interpretation of apocalyptism, see Körtner, Ulrich H. J., Weltangst und Weltende. Eine theologische Interpretation der Apokalyptik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), 18 ffGoogle Scholar.

¹⁸ Cioc, Pax Atomica.

¹⁹ Brand, Karl-Werner, “Transformation der Umweltbewegung,” in Neue soziale Bewegungen—Impulse, Bilanzen und Perspektiven, ed. Klein, Ansgar (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1999), 237–256CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hermle, Siegfried et al. , eds., Umbrüche. Der deutsche Protestantismus und die sozialen Bewegungen in den 1960er und 70er Jahren (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007)Google Scholar.

²⁰ An exhaustive listing of literature on the history of the Manhattan Project cannot be given here. For one of the most convincing narratives, see Rhodes, Richard, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986)Google Scholar.

²¹ Jordan, Pascual, Wir müssen den Frieden retten (Cologne: Verlag Staat und Gesellschaft, 1957)Google Scholar.

²² Making the case for future generations is an omnipresent argument in the archival sources. A parishioner to the Landeskirche in Hannover in a letter dated July 16, 1976, Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, L 6 (Landesbischof Lohse), no. 104/02 vol. 1.

²³ Mankind is endangered for “hundreds of generations” wrote a pastor to a critical parishioner after 150 pastors had held a service near the Brokdorf nuclear power plant construction site in January 1977. Archiv der Nordelbischen Kirche, Nachlass Hübner, 98.08, 125 II.

²⁴ “What remains of the credibility of our language when the euphemism Restrisiko describes a universal threat of apocalyptical proportions?” From a reader in a letter to the editor of the Protestant newspaper Evangelische Kommentare 19 (1986): 367.

²⁵ See the draft of a speech manuscript by Kurt Oeser, Commissioner for Environmental Affairs of the German Protestant Church, around 1973. Archiv der Evangelischen Kirche Hessen Nassau, 155, 3584.

²⁶ Weber, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, 340.

²⁷ Bishop for Hamburg in the Nordelbische Kirche in a letter to pastors and parishioners, May 4, 1979. Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, L5e, gen 180, vol. IV.

²⁸ For an example of this argument in a letter dated March 23, 1976, from Bishop Eduard Lohse to a critical parishioner, see Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, L6 (Landesbischof Lohse), no. 104/02 vol. 1.

²⁹ Winfried Hohlfeld, Commissioner for Environmental Questions in the Nordelbische Landeskirche, described this in his book Umweltkrise. Herausforderung der Kirche (Stuttgart: Quell Verlag, 1974)Google Scholar, 15.

³⁰ One pastor wrote of the “madness of growth” in a letter dated December 1, 1976, to his bishop. See Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, II 104/2 Lohse (Dienst) Verhältnis Staat/Kirche “Atomenergie,” 88, Dec. 1975-April 29, 1977.

³¹ Daecke, Sigurd M., “Friede mit der Natur,” Evangelische Kommentare 19 (1986): 8Google Scholar.

³² Ibid., 8; Amery, Carl, Das Ende der Vorsehung. Die gnadenlosen Folgen des Christentums (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1972)Google Scholar.

³³ Work group on the theology of the creation (a temporary committee of concerned parishioners and pastors in Lüneburg) in a memorandum dated July 2, 1980, for the Landeskirche Hannover. Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, L5e gen 180, vol. VII (Gorleben). For a sophisticated theology of creation, see Moltmann, Jürgen, Gott in der Schöpfung. Ökologische Schöpfungslehre (Munich: Kaiser, 1987).Google Scholar

³⁴ Famous theologian Dorothee Sölle in a talk given in 2001, “Beherrschen und Besitzen (Descartes)—oder Hüten und Bewahren—was wollen wir?,” http://www.lebenshaus-alb.de/magazin/001698.html (accessed December 23, 2010).

³⁵ According to a commentator in the Lutherische Monatshefte, around 1977. See manuscript in Archiv der Nordelbischen Kirche, Nachlass Hübner, 98.08, 125 l.

³⁶ That is why one parishioner felt the need to describe the potential risks and unresolved problems of nuclear technologies in a lengthy letter dated June 25, 1976, to Bishop Eduard Lohse of Hannover. Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, L6 (Landesbischof Lohse), no. 104/02 vol. 1.

³⁷ Engineers and managers of nuclear facilities, however, met with church officials on several occasions to try to understand each other. Protocol of a meeting of pastors on December 4, 1976, Archiv der Nordelbischen Kirche 98.120, no. 78.

³⁸ Bishop Karlheinz Stoll of the Nordelbische Landeskirche complained about the amount of “impatience” and “intolerance” he encountered on both sides of the conflict in a letter from around March 1981 to several pastors. Archiv der Nordelbischen Kirche, 10.01, no. 12.

³⁹ Despite a dwindling membership, the Nordelbische Landeskirche (Hamburg and Schleswig Holstein) today still has more than two million members in 594 congregations, according to statistics given on the Web site http://www.nordelbien.de (accessed December 23, 2010).

⁴⁰ Researchers at the FEST Institute in Heidelberg claimed that questions of nuclear technology were too dangerous to be decided by a simple majority. See Forschungsstätte der Evangelischen Studiengemeinschaft, ed., Tschernobyl—Folgen und Folgerungen (Heidelberg: Fest, 1986), 13Google Scholar.

⁴¹ The so-called Arbeitskreis Lebensschutz (Committee for the Protection of Life) in Tübingen published a pamphlet in March 1975 that used alarmist and agitated language, declaring the protest against nuclear technology an act of self-defense and justifying the illegal occupation of the construction site in Wyhl. The author was most likely Hartmut Gründler (a teacher, radical activist, and son of a pastor), who set himself on fire publicly in Hamburg on November 16, 1977. The date was significant as well: the German Protestant Church's day of repentance. See the document in Archiv der Evangelischen Kirche in Baden, 83.2, GA 9623.

⁴² Widman, Christian A., “Der ‘Linksprotestantismus’ und die evangelischen Kirchen in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren,” in Linksalternative Milieus und neue soziale Bewegungen in den 70er Jahren, ed. Baumann, Cordia et al. (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag, 2011), 211–236Google Scholar.

⁴³ From a letter to Bishop Karlheinz Stoll of the Nordelbische Kirche. Archiv der Nordelbischen Kirche, 10.01, no. 12. The anger was also directed at the symbols of an uneasy time and left-wing terrorism, and referenced the passing of popular student leader Rudi Dutschke.

⁴⁴ Sometimes the church had to reassure parishioners who felt excluded and who asked whether as proponents of nuclear technology they were still considered members of the Christian community. For the correspondence between the Landeskirchenamt (State Church Office) and several parishioners, see Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, Generalakten des Landeskirchenamts, B 1, no. 888, vol. IV.

⁴⁵ From a “dedicated nuclear engineer” in a letter dated February 23, 1977, to Bishops Hübner and Petersen. See Archiv der Nordelbischen Kirche, 10.01, no. 11.

⁴⁶ Several activists, among them members of the scientific advisory board of the Protestant Church in Germany (wissenschaftlicher Beirat), met with managers and engineers of the energy giant Rheinisch Westfälische Elektrizitätswerke (RWE) in April 1978, which proved that dialogue was possible. The arguments of the representatives of RWE also brought the notion of dangerous greenhouse gases into the discussion, which is remarkable given the date. For the minutes of that meeting, see Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, Generalakten, B 1, no. 888, vol. III.

⁴⁷ The program was called “Sendung mit der Maus.” See Westdeutscher Rundfunk, 1988, online archive of programs at http://www.wdrmaus.de/sachgeschichten/abisz (accessed December 23, 2010); on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnlwllqOVVU (accessed January 30, 2012).

⁴⁸ Several state churches formed committees and advisory boards to gather information and seek a dialogue with other parts of German society. Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, L5e Gen 180 Gen 180b (Gorleben) Jan. 1977-Oct. 1978.

⁴⁹ See Engels, Jens Ivo, “Geschichte und Heimat. Der Widerstand gegen das Kernkraftwerk Wyhl,” in Wahrnehmung, Bewusstsein, Identifikation. Umweltprobleme und Umweltschutz als Triebfedern regionaler Entwicklung, ed. Kretschmer, Kerstin (Freiberg: Technische Universität Bergakademie, 2003), 103–130Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ An activist among the German pastors felt the need to remind his bishop in 1980 that some of the major achievements in the field of human rights had to be asserted against the ruling powers, and he specifically referred to the civil rights movement in the United States. Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, L 5e, Lohse (Dienst), Gen 180 vol. VII (Gorleben).

⁵¹ A concerned parishioner to the church leaders in Hannover, March 21, 1977, Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, L 6 (Landesbischof Lohse), Nr. 104/02, Bd. II.

⁵² This thesis was brought forth prominently in Robert Jungk's Atomstaat (Atomic State), a widely read and scathing book about the technological and political risks of nuclear technology. See Jungk, Robert, Der Atomstaat. Vom Fortschritt in die Unmenschlichkeit (Munich: Heyne, 1977)Google Scholar; and Dannenbaum, Thomas, “‘Atom-Staat’ oder ‘Unregierbarkeit’? Wahrnehmungsmuster im westdeutschen Atomkonflikt der siebziger Jahre,” in Natur und Umweltschutz nach 1945. Konzepte, Konflikte, Kompetenzen, ed. Brüggemeier, Franz-Josef et al. (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 2005), 268–286Google Scholar.

⁵³ One pastor maintained in June 1980 that the state acted without regard for the will and well-being of its citizens because of its dependence on an industry that supported it, according to a note by one of his superiors. See Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, Generalakte no. 888, Atomfragen, vol. V, Dec. 1980.

⁵⁴ For one pastor's vivid account of a demonstration turned violent near the construction site of the nuclear power plant in Grohnde, Lower Saxony, in March 1977, see Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, Generalakten des LKA, B 1, no. 888, vol. III.

⁵⁵ Collection of newspaper articles in Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, I 104/02 Lohse (Dienst) Verhältnis Staat/Kirche “Atomenergie,” June 1976-November 1976.

⁵⁶ This had a sobering effect on some of the more outspoken pastors, who reached out and sought personal conversation with their bishop. See Archiv der Nordelbischen Kirche Kiel, Nachlass Hübner, 98.08, 125 I.

⁵⁷ See the article about demonstrations in Brokdorf, Schleswig-Holsteinische Landeszeitung, December 1, 1976.

⁵⁸ See the police report printed in Schleswig-Holsteinische Landeszeitung, Dec. 1, 1976. See also the letter dated Nov. 26, 1980, from the office of the Landeskirche to a pastor, in Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, L 5e, Lohse (Dienst), Gen 180 vol. VII (Gorleben).

⁵⁹ In an article in the Evangelische Sonntagsblatt für Westfallen Lippe from Dec. 5, 1976.

⁶⁰ A note in the files of the Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover stated on March 30, 1977, that the offices of a congregation were misused. See Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, Generalakten, B 1, no. 888, vol. III.

⁶¹ A critical parishioner in a letter to the church administration in Hannover, August 20, 1980. See Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, L 5e, Lohse (Dienst), Gen 180 vol. VII (Gorleben).

⁶² The original reads “Wir geben unseren Kampf nicht auf / trotz Schleswig, Kiel und alledem / Denn Widerstand ist unsere Pflicht / wo man das Recht mit Füßen tritt / Trotz alledem und alledem / Trotz Stacheldraht und alledem / Ihr treibt uns unseren Mut nicht aus / Mit Tränengas und alledem.” The provenience of this text is unclear. A copy of the lyrics was archived in the church administration's file in Hannover. See Archiv der Nordelbischen Kirche, Nachlass Hübner, 98.08, 125 II.

⁶³ For an understanding of the politics of history within the German Protestant churches, see Hockenos, Matthew D., A Church Divided: German Protestants Confront the Nazi Past (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004)Google Scholar. For more on German environmentalism's link with Germany's past, see Rohkrämer, Thomas, “Contemporary Environmentalism and its Links with the German Past,” in The Culture of German Environmentalism: Anxieties, Visions, Realities, ed. Goodbody, Axel (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2002), 47–63Google Scholar.

⁶⁴ The allusion to the confessing church did not please all parishioners. One of them wrote in a letter dated December 12, 1980, to his parish council, “Evoking the tradition of the confessing church should come with the recognition that our political system is fundamentally different from that of the Third Reich.” See Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, Generalakten des Landeskirchenamts, B 1, no. 888, vol. IV.

⁶⁵ This was the opinion of an unknown participant of a conference in Loccum (at the Evangelische Akademie) as noted in the minutes of that meeting, Jan. 18, 1978. See Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, L5e Gen 180 Gen 180b (Gorleben), Jan. 1977-Oct. 1978.

⁶⁶ The term was used in an article titled “Russland, Deutschland, China—Bemerkungen zur Außenpolitik,” http://www.erich-fromm.de/data/pdf/1961h-d.pdf (accessed January 10, 2010).

⁶⁷ Jungk, Atomstaat, xii.

⁶⁸ From a parishioner in a letter dated June 1, 1980, to Bishop Lohse. See Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, IV 104/2 Lohse (Dienst) Verhältnis Staat/Kirche, “Atomenergie,” “Umwelt,” beginning March 15, 1979.

⁶⁹ From a pastor in a sermon given on June 16, 1976. The manuscript is archived in Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover, L6 (Landesbischof Lohse), no. 104/02 vol. 1.

⁷⁰ From a statement by Winfried Hohlfeld in the epd (Protestant Press Service, an official periodical), May 10, 1980. Archiv der Nordelbischen Kirche, 98.08, no. 169, Nachlass Hübner.

⁷¹ Press release: “Umweltbeauftragter der EKD warnt vor Gefahren der Atomenergie,” http://www.ekd.de/aktuell_presse/news_2010_09_07_umweltbeauftragter.html (accessed December 23, 2010).