Helga Vowinckel

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Helga Vowinckel (born February 15, 1930 in Gerswalde , Uckermark ; † October 10, 1986 in Neuwied ) was a German business educator , senior teacher and, as an opponent of nuclear power, an important figure in the history of the anti-nuclear power movement in Germany . In 1977 it made a significant contribution to the construction stop of the Mülheim-Kärlich nuclear power plant , but due to its untimely death in the year it was put into operation, it could no longer experience the success of the shutdown two years later.

Life

Her father was a farmer and died on the Eastern Front in 1942. After the family fled to the West in 1946, she spent the post-war years in the Bethel settlement near Bielefeld , where she graduated from high school and then studied economics.

In 1953 she passed the diploma examination at the University of Munich . She found that a career in this field was not possible for a woman. Then she studied for two semesters at the business education seminar in Cologne. 1957 followed the assessor examination. She interrupted her school service to study biology at the University of Freiburg . She finished her studies for financial reasons and applied for a position at the Koblenz vocational school. She taught there until her death. In 1970 she was a co-author of the professional school book Medicinal Plants. A drug science .

Since 1970, Helga Vowinckel has been involved in the fight against the Mülheim-Kärlich nuclear power plant, which was built on a ground that was easily earthquake-prone. In order to be able to act effectively, she founded the citizens' initiative Atomschutz Mittelrhein with its headquarters in Koblenz. She led demonstrations, led awareness campaigns. Since 1975 she has been taking legal action, suing with Walter Thal against the partial permits - with varying degrees of success. Her commitment brought her approval and support, but she also had to contend with hostility and intrigue, among other things in her workplace. Eventually she had to be placed under police protection because angry construction workers threatened her with murder.

The focus of their argument against the operator RWE was , in addition to the references to the earthquake risk, procedural questions. The nuclear power plant was built in a different way than that provided for in the first partial license in 1975. The reactor building and the machine house were 14 m apart. The reactor building was erected 70 m away from the planned location. In 1977 Helga Vowinckel and Walter Thal achieved a temporary construction freeze.

Two years later she could not enforce the constitutional complaint before the Federal Constitutional Court against the decision of the Higher Administrative Court Rhineland-Palatinate of May 3, 1977 - 1 B 15/77. In 1985 she and Walter Thal lost the trial against the first partial approval in the appeal to the Higher Administrative Court. She did not give up and - already seriously ill - dictated the reasons for the revision to Walter Thal in the machine.

Helga Vowinckel died in 1986. In the same year, the Mülheim-Kärlich nuclear power plant supplied electricity for the first time. Walter Thal continued the work together with lawyer Gerd Klöckner. On September 9, 1988, Walter Thal obtained the shutdown of the nuclear power plant before the Federal Administrative Court in Berlin. The judges declared the 1st partial license to be illegal. They identified "identification and assessment deficits" with regard to the geological subsurface conditions and related to the non-approved structural engineering measures taken by the operator.

The Mülheim-Kärlich nuclear power plant was then no longer connected to the grid. The dismantling work is expected to be completed in 2029; the cooling tower was demolished in 2019. Helga Vowinckel did not carry out the actions alone. She got support from The Greens , of which she became secretary. The city of Neuwied passed u. a. 1986 also brought an action before the Higher Administrative Court.

literature

  • Ilse Schirmer-Vowinckel: Helga Vowinckel. David versus Goliath . In: From woman to woman. In search of the buried history of important women in Neuwied. Part II, published by Frauenbüro Neuwied, Neuwied, 1995, ISBN 3-9803266-5-9 .
  • Frank Benseler : On the death of Helga Vowinckel . In: Processes: Journal for Citizens' Rights and Social Policy. Vol. 25., Munich, 1986, No. 6., pp. 120-121.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ilse Schirmer-Vowinckel: Helga Vowinckel. David versus Goliath . In: From woman to woman. In search of the buried history of important women in Neuwied. Part II, published by Frauenbüro Neuwied, Neuwied, 1995, ISBN 3-9803266-5-9 , p. 29 ff.
  2. ↑ Compare DNB 800395077 in the catalog of the German National Library
  3. ↑ Black or red, we'll kill you. In: Der Spiegel 13/1977
  4. ↑ a b Joachim Scheer: Citizens' initiatives against the Mülheim-Kärlich nuclear power plant (as of 2008) (PDF; 200 kB)
  5. ↑ BVerfG, decision of December 20, 1979 - 1 BvR 385/77 (BVerfGE 53, 30 - Mülheim-Kärlich)
  6. ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung: The cooling tower of the Mülheim-Kärlich nuclear power plant is history. Retrieved December 10, 2019 .
  7. ^ Nuclear power plant dismantling in Mülheim: Tower falls! ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed December 10, 2019]).
personal data
SURNAME Vowinckel, Helga
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German business educator, senior teacher and nuclear power opponent
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Gerswalde , Uckermark
DATE OF DEATH October 10, 1986
Place of death Neuwied