Article ID: CBB507814539

Proxy Wars. The Deutsches Museum and the Peaceful Atom (2022)

unapi

Frank Uekötter (Author)


Technikgeschichte: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Technik und Industrie
Volume: 89
Issue: 1
Pages: 63-86


Publication Date: 2022
Edition Details: Special issue: Technologies as Anchors for Societal Conflicts
Language: English

The article discusses presentations of nuclear power in the Deutsches Museum in Munich from the 1950s to the 1980s. The discussion serves a double purpose in that it discusses the museum’s history in its own right, with particular attention to the glaring leadership vacuum that allowed things to go off rails repeatedly, while at the same time treating museum debates as a microcosm of Germany’s nuclear history. Except for a 1955 guest exhibition in the context of the U.S. “Atoms for Peace” initiative, nuclear power received rather lackluster treatment until the 1970s. Growing attention was a result of the heated debates over civil nuclear power that saw determined efforts from industrialists and other pro-nuclear leaders to enlist the Deutsches Museum in the defense of an embattled technology. The result was an unabashedly partisan exhibit that was opened under police protection in 1978 and closed after a grace period. A second initiative took place in the context of culture wars over a perceived hostility towards science-led progress that the Bavarian prime minister Franz Josef Strauß, the towering figure of Bavarian politics in the 1980s, stoked with delight. The article chronicles a surprisingly inept attempt to use the museum’s resources in the fight for a controversial nuclear reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf. The attempt made national headlines and failed in the face of widespread protest. Culminating in 1986/87, the conflict mirrors the gradual transformation of the nuclear debate in post-war Germany: what had previously been a struggle over real-world projects increasingly bore the marks of a symbolic conflict over cultural capital.

...More
Associated with

Article Helmuth Trischler (2022) Technologies as Anchors for Societal Conflicts. An Introduction. Technikgeschichte: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Technik und Industrie (pp. 3-8). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB507814539/

Similar Citations

Book Wilhelm Füßl; Andrea Lucas; Matthias Röschner; (2017)
Wirklichkeit und Illusion: Die Dioramen im Deutschen Museum (/isis/citation/CBB199328495/)

Chapter Weber, Heike; (2008)
Das Projekt Technik im Bild um 1930 am Deutschen Museum (/isis/citation/CBB000953661/)

Article Wolff, Stefan L.; Vaupel, E.; (2010)
Das Deutsche Museum in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (/isis/citation/CBB001024569/)

Article DeVorkin, David H.; (2011)
Space Artifact or Nazi Weapon? Displaying the Smithsonian's V-2 Missile, 1976--2011 (/isis/citation/CBB001210149/)

Article Bayer, Florian; Felt; (January 2019)
Embracing the "Atomic Future" in Post–World War II Austria (/isis/citation/CBB247369548/)

Article Matala; (April 2019)
Flashy Flagships of Cold War Cooperation: The Finnish-Soviet Nuclear Icebreaker Project (/isis/citation/CBB880081249/)

Article Delicado, Ana; (2014)
The Past and Present of Medical Museums in Portugal (/isis/citation/CBB001421591/)

Book Colin Davey; Kermit Roosevelt III; Thomas A. Lesser; (2019)
The American Museum of Natural History and How It Got That Way (/isis/citation/CBB821898169/)

Thesis Gomoll, Lucian; (2012)
Performativity and Difference in Museums (/isis/citation/CBB001567354/)

Article Parezo, Nancy; Jones, Angelina; (2012)
Ten Commandments for Effective Anthropological Exhibits (/isis/citation/CBB001421581/)

Book Coffman, Douglass; (2013)
Reflecting the Sublime: The Rebirth of an American Icon (/isis/citation/CBB001422407/)

Article Paul-Fischer, Louis; (2006)
Trois momies coptes d'Antinoé à Lyon (/isis/citation/CBB000931795/)

Book Rader, Karen A.; Cain, Victoria E. M.; (2014)
Life on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of Science and Natural History in the Twentieth Century (/isis/citation/CBB001422031/)

Chapter Collingwood-Whittick, Sheila; (2010)
Skeletons in the Cupboard: Imperial Science and the Collection and Museumization of Indigenous Remains (/isis/citation/CBB001033299/)

Book Steven Lubar; (2017)
Inside the Lost Museum: Curating, Past and Present (/isis/citation/CBB335185013/)

Article Larson, Frances; (2011)
The Curious and the Glorious (/isis/citation/CBB001421578/)

Authors & Contributors
Röschner, Matthias
Matala, Saara
Lesser, Thomas A.
Sebastian Kasper
Davey, Colin
Bayer, Florian
Concepts
Exhibits
Museums
Natural history
Technology and politics
Collectors and collecting
Nuclear Power
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
20th century, late
18th century
Places
United States
Germany
Lyon (France)
London (England)
New York City (New York, U.S.)
Portugal
Institutions
Deutsche Museum
LVR-Industriemuseum Zinkfabrik Altenberg
TECHNOSEUM, Landesmuseum für Technik und Arbeit in Mannheim
American Museum of Natural History
Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine
Smithsonian Institution
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment