Anti-WAAhnsinns Festival

The Anti-WAAhnsinns Festivals were political rock concerts, which took place in Germany in the 1980s. Their purpose was to support protests against a planned nuclear reprocessing plant Wackersdorf (German: Wiederaufbereitungsanlage Wackersdorf, abbreviated WAA Wackersdorf) in Wackersdorf. In 1986, the fifth festival marked the peak of the protest movement against the plant. With over 100,000 people attending on July 26 and 27, Burglengenfeld became the venue of the until then-largest rock concert in the history of Germany. The line-up included some of Germany's most popular music acts of the time such as BAP, Die Toten Hosen, Udo Lindenberg, Rio Reiser, Herbert Grönemeyer. The festivals resulted in an unexpected amount of media coverage for the anti-nuclear movement in Germany. Contrary to expectations of government agencies, however, the festival remained completely peaceful. As a result of the overwhelming protests the planned nuclear reprocessing plant was never built.

The first Anti-WAAhnsinns Festival took place in 1982 at the Lanzenanger venue in Burglengenfeld. Primary responsibility for the event was held by the local autonomous youth centre, where many such festivals had taken place before. Between 2,000 and 4,000 people visited the concerts each year. Because many members of the youth centre had actively been participating in the resistance against the recycling plant, the management decided to change the original festival into the Anti-WAAhnsinns Festival. The main purpose of the events was to attract public attention to the problems related to the WAA and the protests.

Because of their engagement in culture-related work, the youth centre very quickly managed to come into contact with many Bavarian musicians like Haindling or Biermösl Blosn who also argued against the building of the recycling plant. Because these festivals got more and more positive feedback from the public the idea began to emerge of encouraging big name performers, like BAP, Udo Lindenberg or Herbert Grönemeyer, to take part. Not least of all because of good relations to the management of BAP, the record label EMI Electrola was able to convince their - mostly left-leaning - artists to participate in the festival. In that same year, a live recording of the festival was released as a double LP by this record label. The proceeds of this album were used to support a citizens' initiative against the WAA.

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