Klaus Traube

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Klaus Robert Traube (born February 25, 1928 in Hanover ; † September 4, 2016 in Oberursel (Taunus) ) was a German manager and environmental researcher. In the 1970s he transformed from a top manager in the nuclear energy industry to a declared opponent of this form of energy. After his change of heart, he was illegally wiretapped by the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution (mostly in 1976) . The political scandal that developed from it became known as the Traube bugging affair . Klaus Traube was one of the symbolic figures of the German anti-nuclear power movement .

Life

During the Nazi era , Klaus Traube and his family were exposed to anti-Semitic persecution; his father, a dentist of the Jewish faith , committed suicide in 1936. After the Second World War , Traube studied mechanical engineering and Romance studies at the Technical University of Braunschweig . He was a scientific assistant at the Institute for Thermodynamics at the Technical University of Munich , where he also received his doctorate .

From 1959 to 1976, Traube worked in the German and American nuclear industry: as director of the nuclear reactors department at AEG , at General Dynamics in San Diego and most recently as managing director of the Kraftwerk Union subsidiary Interatom . There he was responsible for the development and construction of the breeder reactor in Kalkar .

1972 Klaus Traube joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

In 1975/76, Traube was the target of eavesdropping by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution . The basis was the assumption that he had sought proximity to terrorists of the Red Army Faction (RAF). This assumption turned out to be completely unfounded. The affair uncovered by the magazine Der Spiegel on February 26, 1977 developed into a government crisis, as a result of which the responsible Interior Minister Werner Maihofer (FDP) resigned in 1978.

After the wiretapping affair, Traube became a respected environmental researcher who campaigned for the development and promotion of alternative energy sources in books and articles and also worked scientifically and expertly in the field of the environment and energy. From 1990 to 1997 Traube was director of the Institute for Municipal Energy Economics and Politics at the University of Bremen , after which he worked as a freelancer. Among other things, Traube was volunteer as the energy policy spokesman for the Federal Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND) and vice-president of the Federal Association of Combined Heat and Power (B.KWK).

Klaus Traube last lived near Frankfurt am Main . He died at the age of 88 and was buried in the main cemetery (Gewann IV 117).

Honors

1984 Klaus Traube was awarded the prize , the political book of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the March 2009 Federal Cross of Merit awarded first class.

Fonts (selection)

Monographs

  • Measurements of density layers in the vicinity of the critical state (gaseous - liquid) using an optical method (= communication from the Institute for Technical Thermodynamics of the Technical University of Munich ; VDI research booklet, 487, research in the field of engineering , edition B: supplement) . VDI, Düsseldorf 1961, DNB 458793396 (revised dissertation Technical University of Munich, Faculty of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, August 8, 1960, 122 pages DNB 480996261 ).
  • Do we have to switch? From the political limits of technology . 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1978, ISBN 3-498-06469-X .
  • Growth or asceticism? Critique of the industrialization of needs (rororo-aktuell, 4532). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1982, ISBN 3-499-14532-4 (EA 1979).
  • Against the nuclear state . 9th edition. Zweiausendeins Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1979 (together with Wolf Biermann , Otto Köhler, Günter Wallraff and Günter Zint ).
  • The future of progress. Socialism and the crisis of industrialism . Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, Berlin 1984 (together with Johano Strasser ).
  • Cheap nuclear power? How the interests of the electricity industry determine energy policy . Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 1982, ISBN 3-499-4947-8 (together with Ullrich Otto).
  • Saving energy from A to Z. A practical guide for everyone . Verlag CJ Bucher, Lucerne 1984, ISBN 3-7658-0325-1 (together with Meinrad Ballmer).
  • Autoverkehr 2000. Ways to an ecologically and socially acceptable road traffic (Alternative Concepts; Vol. 51). 3. Edition. Müller, Karlsruhe 1992, ISBN 3-7880-9847-3 (together with Helmut Holzapfel and Otto Ullrich).
  • Local energy policy. Decentralized energy industry: environmentally friendly, resource-saving, user-friendly . 2nd Edition. Kölner Volksblatt, Cologne 1986, ISBN 3-923243-12-X (together with Jobst Klien, Dorothea Schubert and others)
  • Plutonium economy? The financial debacle of the breeder reactor and reprocessing (rororo-aktuell, 5444). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-499-15444-7 .
  • Technology control in the risk society . Verlag neue Gesellschaft, Bonn 1988, ISBN 3-87831-463-9 (together with Albert Kuhlmann, Carl Böhret , Sylvius Hartwig, Rainer Hohlfeld, Karl Hans Simmrock , Christoph Zöpel ).
  • The nuclear scandal. Alkem, Nukem and the Consequences . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-499-12472-6 .
  • What can Germany learn from other countries regarding the accelerated expansion of combined heat and power? (Edition of the Hans Böckler Foundation ; Vol. 22). Hans Böckler Foundation, Düsseldorf 1999, ISBN 3-928204-93-9 (together with Lutz Mez and Annette Piening).
  • Current evaluation of the combined heat and power generation. Ecological and economic impact of a medium-term expansion of combined heat and power for local / district heating supply in Germany (Municipal Research and Practice; Vol. 3). Publishing house Peter Lang, Frankfurt / M. 2000, ISBN 3-631-37371-6 (together with Wolfgang Schulz).

Essays

  • Contribution in: Wolf-Dieter Narr (Ed.): We citizens as a security risk: professional ban and eavesdropping; Contribution to the constitution of our republic (rororo aktuell, 4181). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1977.
  • Contribution in: Evangelical Academics in Germany (Ed.): Live in solidarity, survive. Texts, reports, suggestions for a new lifestyle from the “Evangelical Academic Day in Königstein, Taunus” . Radius-Verlag, Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 3-87173-543-4 .
  • If the worst-case scenario really exclude us . In: After the worst-case scenario. Chernobyl and the consequences . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-499-15921-X , pp. 71-82.
  • It is still possible to exit . In: trade union monthly magazines , vol. 37 (1986), issue 6, pp. 371–379, ISSN  0016-9447

Audio book production

  • Klaus Traube tells from his life. “The past is something that I remember, but there is nothing more pressing about it” (Witnesses of a Time Edition). Paul Lazarus Foundation, Wiesbaden 2013, ISBN 978-3-942902-08-3 (1 audio CD).

literature

  • Christopher Kirchberg, Marcel Schmeer: The 'Traube Affair': Transparency as a Legitimation and Action Strategy between Security, Surveillance and Privacy , in: Stefan Berger, Dimitrij Owetschkin: Contested Transparencies, Social Movements and the Public Sphere. Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan 2019, ISBN 978-3030239480 , pp. 173-196.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Environmental researcher Traube died . hessenschau , September 5, 2016, accessed on September 5, 2016.
  2. ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Klaus Traube
  3. ^ Announcement of the awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany from April 1, 2009. ( Memento from May 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) On: bundespraesident.de . Commented on: Federal Cross of Merit for Klaus Traube ( memento from March 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) on the BUND website
personal data
SURNAME Grape, Klaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Traube, Klaus Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German nuclear power manager, later opponent of the peaceful use of nuclear energy
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH 4th September 2016
Place of death Oberursel (Taunus)