DW is pro "anti-nuclear" so of course they're aren't going to say anything about what nuclear is being replaced with.
Unlike France, Germany is much more reliant on renewable energy and fossil fuels for its electricity generation than on nuclear power. That is because Germany decided to retire its nuclear units and promote renewable energy instead after the tsunami hit Japan’s nuclear reactors in Fukushima. While Germany gets 27.3 percent of its generation from non-hydroelectric renewable energy, it is also heavily dependent on coal and natural gas for base-load power and to back up its intermittent wind and solar power, generating over 50 percent of its power from fossil fuels.
https://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/france-germany-turn-coal/Increase in coal usage in Germany is directly related to nuclear phase out plans. Despite the Merkel's environmentally friendly rhetoric, Germany's is projected to increase throughout the 2020s as well. Renewables just aren't enough to fill energy gaps left by closing nuclear plants and an exponential increase of energy consumption in Germany.
The nuclear waste issue is another matter. It can only be stored safely in some parts of the world and are the people living there willing to take the responsibility for others? At the moment it seems much of it will be stored about 100 km where I live.
A lot of the waste is re-processed and re-used as fuel, the remaining like you said are either stored in stable geological environments or artificial facilities (usually on site). These are stored where naturally occurring isotopes with far more radioactivity are present. While we have waste like plut. with a half-life of 20K years, we also have isotopes like cesium that decay into harmless materials in ~30 years.
Modern containers also aren't an issue. You can surround high waste containers with TNT, detonate them, and you'd still find no leakage. In fact awhile back there was a simulation of a 1 ton projectile colliding with them and there was still no leakage.
I think the thread of terrorism and cyber attacks have contributed to the general feeling of security when it comes to nuclear plants. Not all radioactivity is the same as you must know and while any power plant can cause a lot of health damage to the surrounding population, an accident with nuclear power is not a minor risk...remembering a certain little incident in the former Soviet Union that also affected us
Chernobyl is a direct result of officials (whether engineers or bureaucrats) deliberately
ignoring safety protocols. Also modern reactors cannot experience a meltdown similar to Chernobyl, even out-dated ones like those of Fukushima failed to produce a fallout similar to Chernobyl despite being hit with a tsunami that happens several times per millennia. A radiation fallout that failed to kill anyone.
remembering a certain little incident in the former Soviet Union that also affected us
Understandable but then this becomes an issue of understanding risk. When a hydroelectric accident kills more people than the average nuclear accident and yet the former is considered the safer alternative is clear misunderstanding of risk. There is risk yes I won't deny that, but if we're assessing which alternative to use based on risk factors then nuclear clearly wins.
I'd advise you to read the Nuclear safety protocols and its records:
https://www.nei.org/Issues-Policy/Safety-and-Securityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_safety_and_securityThe way the German government handles nuclear debates especially after Fukushima isn't based on statistics to assess risk, energy efficiency, or even a serious consideration of what negative effects they'll have on the environment through its phase out. I frankly don't find using the worst examples of human error and natural disasters while ignoring the near perfect safety record of nuclear plants a convincing argument. The German decision is based on public fear, considering their positions directly contradicts the advice of German engineers and scientists.