20 Dinger in Büchel
For DIE ZEIT
2022
1,200 people, a bakery, an Aral gas station, this is Büchel in the Eifel – the entire still life of the village is cut through lengthwise by the main road. And then there are 20 atomic bombs. Most likely they are there, even if nobody officially confirms it.

During the Cold War, the US stationed thousands of nuclear weapons on German soil, and after the fall of the Wall, they were transported back piece by piece. But the "20 things in Büchel", as the then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder once said in good Schröder German, stayed where they were - and are still there today.

Picture editor: Maria Rohweder
Writer: Florentin Schumacher