Almost exactly ten years ago, the conductor Enoch zu Guttenberg gave an interview to the SZ, and this conversation will never be forgotten. Guttenberg, the quarrelsome, had at the time fallen out with the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND), which he co-founded in 1975 and then played a key role in shaping.
Guttenberg was agitated, he told how he had suffered in the 1970s from the “terrible land consolidation” and environmental destruction (“it was like excavators were running through my soul”). Once he had even allowed himself to be taken into police custody, which he said was worth fighting for. And then the break with the BUND?
When asked, Guttenberg could become emotional. He criticized the supposedly “uncritical enthusiasm” of his ex-colleagues for wind power; and spoke of “totem poles” that destroyed nature. This Zoff hurts him “terribly”, but it has to be. Guttenberg died four years ago, and nothing was known about the peace agreement with former friends.
Horst Seehofer has now been awarded the “Enoch zu Guttenberg Medal” and is the first prizewinner. The association for landscape conservation, species protection and biodiversity wants to recognize Seehofer’s “services for the protection of the landscape and species”. This is consistent insofar as Guttenberg and Seehofer had a special connection to each other. Guttenberg, the father of ex-minister Karl-Theodor, and Seehofer not only agreed when it came to judging Markus Söder. Also Seehofer’s “10-H-rule” may not have been insignificantly influenced by Guttenberg (the elder).
And yet a photo that is now in the North Bavarian Courier transmitted by the award ceremony at Guttenberg Castle, downright unreal. A still life that seems to have fallen out of time: the Guttenberg brothers, including Karl-Theodor, frame the beaming Seehofer. He says that “everything is correct” what the laudator said good things about him.
Would Enoch zu Guttenberg actually stick to his attitude, the unforgiving fight against wind turbines, even now – where war is in Europe and the whole world is looking at Bavaria and wondering why wind power is progressing so slowly there? Possibly, yes. Only: You can’t know that. And so questions will remain after this award.