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Comment by cco | Hacker News Reader

Gerhard Schröder was one of the strongest political voices behind the de-nuclearization of Germany. After his chancellorship he was on the board of Rosneft and was appointed to Gazprom's board but I believe didn't end up taking it.

Read into that what you will, but it sounds very geopolitical to me.

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Gerhard Schröder did not care one bit about nuclear. He was in a coalition with the Greens who wanted to get rid of all nuclear power plants (whose fuel, by the way, mostly comes from Russia if I recall it correctly). He was Putin's best friend, though. When Merkel took over, she stopped or delayed the closing down of the NPPs only to speed it up again significantly after Fukushima.

> whose fuel, by the way, mostly comes from Russia if I recall it correctly

Currently, sure. But it's possible to load enough nuclear fuel from Australia on a rowboat to power Germany for 10 years (that would be about a suitcase).

An alternative explanation is the Greens didn't care about nuclear until Gerhard Schröder started to scare them with Fukushima.

That would have been quite a feat of divination. Schroeder was chancellor until 2005 while Fukushima happened in 2011 (during Merkel's government, which actually had pushed the nuclear exit further into the future at first and then rolled back that decision after Fukushima).

The important event was Chernobyl in 1986, from then on it was pretty much clear that Germany would leave nuclear power behind (and this was the Green party's main agenda, and what made them 'big' during the 90's).

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And why so exactly?

Why do you think?

I do not think that at all, hence why I asked.

He is considered to be aligned with the Putin regime:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sanction-gerhard-schr-de...

And that is enough to whish him ill? Hint, Schröder was long gone from power when Putin invaded Ukraine.

Not defending Schröder in any way, just pointing at some discurs issues.

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