How so? Germany and everyone else trades with Saudi Arabia. Do you lose freedom because of that? It is a business decision, same as Ukraine's decision to still collect transit fees for Russian pipelines.
These are the only published theories. The Ukrainian sailboat theory has been published in the WSJ just recently. If the downvoters know more, please introduce us to the third theory.
I'm doubtful it can be ruled out with a handwavy gesture. Given just how much Russia has invested into Elite capture you know they will set everything in their power to make the west suck up their Gas deliveries.
I'm doubtful it can be ruled out with a handwavy gesture.
That's not how things work.
You need to have some actual evidence for your pet theory of what happened. You don't just get to believe it (or assign it high likelihood of being true) because it sounds like a nifty narrative, and seems to connect some dots for you.
Meanwhile while the commenter above you is saying, being far from "handwavy", is entirely obvious to anyone with knowledge with knowledge of that country at the time. Anti-nuclear sentiment was everywhere, and it wasn't irrational, just misinformed against the backdrop of what we know today.
Soviet influence operations were ridiculously ineffective at the time (the movement goes back to the 70s-80s) and there's scant evidence of them having been able to influence much of anything in the West (even on issues they were greatly interested in and put out tons of propaganda about, the set of which never included nuclear power as a topic).
Germany is stationing nuclear capable missiles again, with the approval of the Green Party, which had been at the forefront of the anti Pershing-II protests but is now a war party:
They're conventional missiles, not nuclear. And nuclear capable is a bit misleading here as that capability was dismantled for the Tomahawk cruise missiles. Of course the US could add it back with some effort, but that goes for essentially every missile that is large enough.
The age of Nuclear is over and won't be coming back. The technology trajectories are now just in favor of solar and batteries. Everything else has no chance.
Authoritarian state still keeping a toe in for military and pragmatic reasons. With communistic 5 year plan system you can through sheer force build a few reactors to keep the option open.
For every passing year they’ve been pulling back their nuclear ambitions in favor of renewables.
If there isn't another "Energiewende" (two 180° turns would finally amount to Baerbock's 360° turn gaffe), or alternatively friendlier relations with various resource rich countries, Germany's future is bleak.
