IIRC he wasn't a big fan of the phase out. We had to force him. Also natural gas is mostly used for heating in Germany. Something the German nuclear power plants never could provide.
Actually, the (East-) German plant in Lubmin provided district heating for the city of Greifswald. It has been shut down and the district heating is now provided by---wait for it---a gas burner. NPP Gundremmingen, which is still operating, provides district heating on a somewhat smaller scale.
Besides, while most natural gas consumed in Germany may be for space heating and/or industrial heat, it also provides about 9% of the electricity, which is still a good chunk of money for Gazprom Gerhardt.
By the way, who is the "we" in "we had to force him"?
The East German nuclear plants went offline pretty quick after the unification. And yes there are a few natural gas plants, they would actually much better now than those annoying coal plants which were build recently. They are faster and way more efficient. (faster in the sense that you can turn them on and off w/o much lag.)
The heating in Grundremming is new to me, only found a press release from 2012 in which is mentioned. Anyway.
We is the basis of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In which there was a majority agains the usage of nuclear power for a long time now. It was part of the party platform in 1998.
Also it was his home state of Lower Saxony. The Wendland region was the centre of the resistance against nuclear power. And it was never about the safety of the plants itself but about what should we do with the radioactive waste. A question still unanswered to this day.
The issue in this discussion about Diesel and Gerhard Schröder is a different one. When he was Prime Minister of Lower Saxony and when he was the Chancellor, he always listened to the automotive industry. And this haunts us to this day.
The guy known as Gazprom Gerhardt, who coincidentally decided to phase out nuclear power? Yeah, sad story.