The NUCLEAR-FREE FUTURE AWARDS

Honor Award (Lifetime Achievement) – 2022

“The fact that a woman supports the strugglers against the reprocessing plant with warm socks so that they don’t get cold feet” impressed us very much, emphasizes the NFFF jury. In any case, Irmgard also attributes the fact that the Bavarian state government abandoned the construction of the WAA in 1989 to her “resistance socks” – that is true in any case, but very modestly formulated.

Disobedience was not in the cradle of Irmgard Gietl, who is now 93 years old. Her youth in the Upper Palatinate was marked by poverty and quite a bit of deprivation. Knitting is therefore a necessity in her youth to get warm things. But knitting becomes her passion. For a long time, Irmgard Gietl leads a quiet life as a mother and housewife. But when it becomes known that a supposedly harmless nuclear reprocessing plant is to be built in her neighborhood near Wackersdorf, she becomes suspicious. The harshness with which the government will soon take action against demonstrating citizens drives Irmgard herself to the barricades. Caring for her family now means fighting against the reprocessing plant – with what she learned from an early age: knitting! “The fact that a woman supports the strugglers against the reprocessing plant with warm socks so that they don’t get cold feet” impressed us very much, emphasizes the NFFF jury. In any case, Irmgard also attributes the fact that the Bavarian state government abandoned the construction of the WAA in 1989 to her “resistance socks” – that is true in any case, but very modestly formulated.