If you drive through Bavaria with open eyes, you can only be amazed at how this country is becoming more and more disfigured. This is not due to the hated wind turbines, but to the lack of thought and culture, which finds its expression in the almost monstrous new buildings. No motorway access without logistics halls, no local model without Tuscany boxes complete with metal fences, black window frames, thuja hedges and rock gardens. Farms once gave the regions their unmistakable face, today the standardized industrial stables from the Rhön to Berchtesgaden are the same. For decades, committed architects and local curators have been preaching building that is bound to the landscape, but the answer, cast in concrete, is: you can all do us. Meanwhile, the historic cores of villages and communities and with them life in the countryside in general are becoming deserted, because many people find their new home made of vapor barriers, adhesive and styrofoam panels more attractive than a renovated house with history.
In view of this, the ideological tussle over wind power seems almost absurd. It’s been a long time since energy policy was discussed here. Populists are stirring up resistance to new plants along the lines of: The left-green elite will put their wind turbines in front of our door, but they don’t care if there’s still a doctor here. That’s the story in East Germany, but also in France and other countries. If you’re for wind power, you probably got vaccinated too.
The CSU rightly fears that the urban-rural conflict could deepen in Bavaria too, to its disadvantage. That’s why she invented the 10-H rule and thus effectively stopped the expansion of wind power, although it is more urgently needed than ever. The state government is now trying to free itself from this dilemma with all sorts of exceptions: Wind power yes – but only where it doesn’t bother and it doesn’t matter anyway. So along motorways, in commercial and industrial areas. The list of 100 specially protected monuments also fits into this concept. In fact, a wind farm in front of the Wieskirche or the Liberation Hall is difficult to imagine.
On the other hand, the state government must also expect people to be truthful: Wind turbines are the church towers of modern times. It doesn’t work without changes in the landscape, otherwise the Bavarians will be left in the dark at some point – in town and country alike.