An Utopian Intervention to Face the Apocalypse: Gorleben's "Free Republic of Wendland" as a protest performance, eco-village and founding moment of the German anti-nuclear movement

Gorleben’s “Free Republic of Wendland” as protest performance, eco-village and founding moment of the German anti-nuclear movement

Abstract

In 1980, anti-nuclear activists occupied an exploratory drilling site for a nuclear repository in a secluded region near the inner-German border. Here, the activists set up a provisional village, declaring it their micronation, the “Free Republic of Wendland”. Supported by a range of different artists, most notably the theater collective Theaterwehr Brandheide, a highly complex intervention and ecological performance was created. Through its inherent theatricality and its multi-layered engagement with the public, the invention achieved an immense impact and media reach.

It is a utopian articulation against an apocalyptic backdrop: in the face of nuclear dangers, the protest village and its artists create and (pre-)enact a utopian counter-narrative. The village becomes a model for a different, more solidary and sustainable way of life, experimenting with building from discarded materials, solar energy and grassroots democracy. Alongside this, the theater group experiments in a mixture of popular travelling theater, collective work and self-sufficiency. Both the village and the group strove for sustainability in different ways, many of which can be recognized in today’s forms of protest within the ecological and climate movements. In view of its topicality, it is overdue to examine this complex intervention which has thus far been overlooked in the field of cultural studies.