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Grimm's fairytale forest threatened: Gigantic wind turbines spark protests!
Construction work begins: 18 wind turbines in Reinhardswald despite complaints. Residents protest against the destruction of the fairytale forest.
Grimm's fairytale forest threatened: Gigantic wind turbines spark protests!
The peace in the magical fairytale forest of Reinhardswald in northern Hesse is brutally disturbed! Excavators and heavy machinery set out to raise massive wind turbines as the sky is clouded by dark diesel clouds. Construction work on 18 gigantic wind turbines begins, although nine lawsuits are still pending. Fairytale calm is exchanged for the uplifting rush of the green energy transition. To meet the energy needs of heat pumps and AI data centers, the ancient forest floor is being torn from its millennia-old dreams.
Imagine excavators leveling the ground for concrete foundations to be completed by 2025, like monsters in a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. 240 meters high, with rotor blades as long as an airplane – these wind monsters displace fairytale characters like Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty in the forest. Residents cry in horror at the construction fence, while the master of the wind turbines, Ralf Paschold, complains undauntedly that there is no risk despite legal hurdles and refers to his own legal report.
Open procedures and growing resistance
Despite the pending approvals for access roads and unclear safety precautions regarding fire and disaster protection, work has begun. The financial pressure is growing, costs are already exploding by 50 percent to 200 million euros. Nevertheless, the developer bravely marches forward, ignoring the pending lawsuits, while an angry response from local residents arises. Oliver Penner, a determined campaigner against the project, brands this approach as risky and disrespectful.
Resident Annette Müller-Zitzke raises her voice and speaks with emphatic words: “An attack on Germany’s fairytale forest,” she calls the project that brutally sacrifices the magical landscape for the price of the energy transition. The felled ground is irretrievably piled up, a coincidence of progress at any cost and the irretrievable loss of untouched nature where the world-famous stories were once collected.