One of Germany’s Newest Protected Monuments Is a Coal Plant
The Jänschwalde plant is slated to be converted to cleaner natural gas, a transition its operator fears the heritage designation will make impossible.
Illustration: Maggie Cowles for Bloomberg
When the Jänschwalde power plant first rose from the fields of eastern Germany in the late 1970s, it must have looked like a cathedral to coal. Six cooling towers — each taller than a downtown high-rise — billowed plumes of steam visible for miles, a clear symbol of the socialist state’s industrial ambitions. Decades later, the towers still dominate the horizon, and the plant remains enough of an emblem that it gets a mention on the local tourism website.
The communist-era complex, little changed in 40 years, is so iconic that in March, the Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation added Jänschwalde to its register of protected sites — rare for an active coal-fired station. The office described the plant as “an important element of the industrial culture of Lusatia,” a region that historically also included parts of Poland. Jänschwalde “has shaped the region for decades,” it noted, “visually and in terms of jobs and therefore the working lives of many people.”