Centralized motivated groups have more political power than their "percentage" would suggest, that's why we have kosher/gluten/halal labels everywhere.

By 2011 hardly mattered anyway. Nuclear was doomed when Western countries stopped developing and building new plants in the 80s and 90s.

Merkel needed to ally. It was either the Greens, the communists, or the AfD. Of course the Greens came with closing the power plants.

During that fantastic decision making, Schroder and Merkel moved Germany onto Russia gas. (Of those 2, Schroder now holds management positions in Russian Gazprom, and Russian-German NordStream, the company that owns the pipeline). Brilliant decision making all around.

Their other decisions were to count on America for defense, refusing any investment into defense or defense tech (despite America objecting), and to use China as an export market.

Each of those decisions now, as it turns out, costs every German citizen 3000-6000 euros per year, on a large average, and EU citizens about 5000 euros per year.

Brilliant politician. One would almost think that, since a broken clock is right twice daily, these people weren't at all "wrong" (and certainly Schroder wasn't)