May 12, 2026
They chose this facility to be the long term nuclear waste storage, despite nowadays being in the middle of Germany, because back in the day it was right next to the border with the GDR. Like France building their nuclear reactors into an enclave within Belgium, it's always safe once it needs to be built in your backyard.Now, we're storing nuclear waste at the heart of this country.We had a meeting discussing its safety before and after the underground visit. Wherever we went, we were greeted by the old German miner's greeting “Glück auf!” literally meaning “may lodes of ore be opened” – not quite the timely statement as we hope that whatever is stored here is rather not opened any time soon.The meetings were strange. There was this energy the room I couldn't quite put my finger on. The political party I represented here isn't quite known for their pro-nuclear stance, rather the opposite is the case: when the name of a former member of Bundestag from Die Linke fell, Victor Perli, the room went dead silent. “He made us sweat many times with his questions” the leader of the facility said. Interestingly enough, by pure coincidence, I met Victor Perli at his first public presentation since leaving the Bundestag less than a month earlier, and he gave me a quick brief about Konrad, allowing me to ask the hard hitting questions."I can understand why you don't trust us. Our past actions have provided reasons for this." The leader of the facility said. Victor Perli was also supposed to be here himself, but sadly had to cancel last minute, I'm sure the owners of this facility were glad about that, as it probably wouldn't have helped the positive energy in the room they tried to create. Yet the two representatives from the AG Schacht Konrad (Working Group Mine Konrad), a local activist organization that has been opposing their town being turned into long term nuclear waste storage for the past 40 years, heated up many debates too.This whole event was lobbyism. They wanted Die Linke (The Left) to no longer oppose this facility and agree to it in case we enter the state parliament in the 2027 elections. Additionally, they wanted the now two representatives of the region who are now in the federal parliament (Bundestag), Cem Ince and Jorrit Bosch, both present, not hopefully not turn into a successor of Victor Perli. Since both once worked for Mr. Perli, that endeavor was lost before it started.