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This is a very common myth but fossil fuel plants did not take their place. Wind and solar did though. Both nuclear and fossil fuel plants are a smaller piece of the pie compared to when Fukushima happened and the Energiwende happened. [0]

[0] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...

Looks like the guy above me said the same thing, but at the time of writing it wasn't there yet.

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Do I misunderstand this issue when if say: "The loss of 8GW of nuclear electricity generation created new renewables projects immediately that would not have been constructed if that generation capacity was not lost."

To me, regardless of the change in energy mix in the meantime, every extra GW of other renewables would have decommissioned coal generation by some significant factor (maybe not the full 8GW less coal, but quite a bit). Instead those renewables were replacing missing nuclear capacity. The only way I see that decommissioning nuclear didn't result in more coal burning to meet the country's needs would be if it was immediately followed by a huge investment that would have otherwise not occurred.

ETA: Looking again at the link hard coal + lignite 45.5GW in 2011, 43.5GW today - not great! Relative decline is good but climate change demands absolute declines more substantial than this.

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