“Actually I think it was the result of Russian payoffs to German politicians.”
Probably not, more like VERY CHEAP gas from Russia, especially compared to LNG, coupled with an arrogance that Russia would never do anything along the lines of invading Ukraine.
The ideal for Germany was not any sort of natural gas, but nuclear or coal. These were entirely in-country under German state control. Natural gas would in any case be an imported fuel. There are some uses for nat gas that are actually hard to substitute, but the volume needed for that sort of use is a small fraction of what they ended up using for electric generation and heating.
Both of those are as cheap or cheaper, for electric generation, than nat gas. But of course politics, popular hysteria over meaningless risks, more politics, bribery, more hysteria, and there they are.
I find it rather laughable that in response to all the games Russia sanctioned its current German importers of natgas.
It means that the new companies need to be established and new contracts concluded. I am sure that there won’t be $300 per tcm prices in them anymore, but closer to the current spot prices of $1000+. The Germans are going to overpay enough in a few months to finance a couple of new pipelines from Russia to Asia. Then they can convert Germany to unicorn farts.