About brutal state violence and successful resistance: illustrated book published on the WAA

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With 488 photographs by Herbert Baumgärtner, “WAA NIE!” tells the story of the resistance against the reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf.

Regensburg – To save his films from the police, photographer Herbert Baumgärtner sometimes changed into women’s clothing. Sometimes he deliberately tricked officers into empty rolls of film. But often enough they took the camera and film canisters from him, tore the films out with a loud “ratchet” and irretrievably destroyed the images of the day.

488 impressive images of violence and resistance

Despite all the obstacles, over 2,500 photos were taken that document the tough and ultimately successful protest. The 488 most impressive images have now been published, 40 years after the Chernobyl disaster, in an illustrated book by Edition Bunte Hunde.

Chernobyl had given additional impetus to the protests in Wackersdorf, just as the hut village there was being evacuated.

For Strauss, the protests were “the work of the devil”

The photos show the beginning of construction and the growing resistance, which ranged from left-wing autonomous groups to Christian conservative circles. But they also document the brutal violence with which Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauß used against his own population.

Fences, barbed wire, rubber truncheons, water cannons, tear gas. Strauß had police units from Berlin, which were no longer deployed there because of their harshness, brought to Wackersdorf specifically to break the resistance. Many images look like they are from a war zone.

Strauss called the protest against the WAA, which he wanted to easily enforce in the structurally weak Upper Palatinate, “the work of the devil”. His death on October 3, 1988 marked the end of the project.

A publisher who dares to tackle uncomfortable topics

The illustrated book published in Regensburg does not need subtitles or explanatory texts. The thematically arranged photos develop their own power. “Herbert simply has a fantastic eye,” says publisher Herbert Wittl, who has been running the Bunte Hunde edition with his wife for 26 years.

The publisher is known for children’s and hidden object books, but also for works that were not always welcome in Regensburg. Wittl published books about stumbling blocks and forced labor when such topics were still taboo in the city. At the time, the city’s tourist information office was reluctant to display these books.

The publisher also incurred the displeasure of city leaders with a publication about the “Fall of Man on the Donaumarkt”. She recalled how the city took possession of the Donaumarkt through expropriation in order to build a city highway there – a project that later failed.

The book project came “like an asteroid from the sky”

Wittl and Baumgärtner had known each other since the early 2000s and repeatedly talked about an illustrated book about the WAA. But the project fell through – until Baumgärtner exhibited some of his photos at AKUSO (Aktion Kultursocial eV) last year. “It hit me like an asteroid from the sky,” says Wittl.

He tackled the project together with Sabine Watzlawik, Wolfgang Otto and Ursel Wagner from AKUSO. “This only works as a team,” emphasizes Wittl. Now the book is finished – a memory for contemporary witnesses and a discovery for younger people.

The camera as a political weapon

How could the state act so harshly against its own citizens? And how did such a diverse protest movement manage to agree on a common goal? “That would sometimes be desirable today,” says Wittl.

Baumgärtner himself remains in the background at the book launch. He says he always saw his camera, a Nikon F2, as a “political weapon.” She should record what happened.

In order to identify himself as a journalist, he founded the Donau Press Agency (DPA) with a friend. His photos appeared in local newspapers and protest magazines. But not all of the images reached their destination: meaningful images of a death that he sent to the “taz” in Berlin disappeared without a trace. The long arm of CSU Prime Minister Strauss reached far.

No quarter for demonstrators

The illustrated book contains an introduction by Heribert Prantl. The prosecutor at the time was critical of the WAA, but was part of a system that brought protesters to court with questionable allegations.

Prantl remembers: If a demonstrator was carried away by the police, he was charged with ‘resistance’ because he had ‘made himself difficult’. Even if everything turned out differently in court, the prosecutor was not allowed to request an acquittal without first obtaining the consent of his superiors. And there was no such consent. No quarter.

A small resistance that had a big impact

Prantl writes that Wackersdorf’s resistance was small but achieved great things. He is “the moving force that continually renews law and the rule of law and protects them from degeneration.” On May 31, 1989, construction of the WAA was stopped after four years.

Herbert Baumgärtner: WAA NEVER! Images of resistance. Published by the AktionKulturSozial eV support group Edition Colorful Dogs. Regensburg 2026.