The Berlin Mittwochsgesellschaft, the Wednesday Society, was officially founded on 19 January 1863. It called itself a freie Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Unterhaltung, a free society for scholarly conversation. It had 16 members, at most 17, each a leading expert in his field, and it met every second Wednesday. Each member invited the others to his home twice a year and gave a lecture, which the group then discussed. In its last years its members included Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Werner Heisenberg and Ludwig Beck. After the attempt on Hitler’s life on 20 July 1944, Beck was shot on 21 July without trial. The society’s last session, the 1,056th, took place on Wednesday 26 July 1944, at the home of Paul Fechter.
Stammtisch
der Stammtisch — the regulars’ table. The same group meets at the same pub on a regular day. Duden defines it as a table in a restaurant where a circle of regulars meets regularly, and which is usually reserved for them. Traditionally, a sign on the table marks the reservation. The word also has a dismissive use. Stammtischpolitik, Stammtisch politics, means simplified political talk.
Sunday at Noon
Every Sunday around noon, six journalists from different countries discussed politics with Werner Höfer in the Internationaler Frühschoppen, the international morning drink. The program began on radio in 1952 and moved to television in 1953. Until 1970 it started at 11:30. When it was moved to 12:00, viewers protested, above all women. The series reached 1,874 broadcasts. It ended suddenly in 1987. It had emerged that in 1943 Höfer had written approvingly of the execution of the pianist Karlrobert Kreiten, and he was forced out. Just one week later, an almost identical program, the Presseclub, started in the same slot.
Agreed in Fourteen Articles
From 27 September to 4 October 1529, Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli and other reformers met at Marburg, at the invitation of Landgrave Philipp of Hesse. During the debate on the Lord’s Supper, Luther pulled back the tablecloth to show the words Das ist mein Leib, this is my body, which he had written in chalk on the table beforehand. The result was the Marburg Articles. In 14 articles the theologians recorded what they agreed on. The 15th article, on the Lord’s Supper, listed further points of agreement and then recorded in writing the one point on which they did not agree. They had not agreed dißer Zeit, at this time, whether the true body and blood of Christ are bodily present in the bread and wine. Both sides still promised each other Christian love, so fer yedes gewiessen ymmer leyden kann, as far as each conscience can bear. Ten theologians signed it, Luther and Zwingli among them. The document is dated 3 October 1529.
Words for Speaking Up, and for Saying Too Much
Schweigen im Walde — silence in the forest. Duden: out of embarrassment or fear, nobody dares to say anything.
sich einbringen — to bring oneself in, to take part and make one’s contribution felt.
den Mund aufmachen — to open one’s mouth, to speak up.
seinen Senf dazugeben — to add one’s mustard. Duden: to give one’s opinion on everything, unasked.
einen langen Senf machen — to make a long mustard. Duden: to use unnecessarily many words.
Stille Wasser sind tief. — Still waters are deep. Duden: behind quiet people who do not express their feelings and views, there is more than one thinks.
The Trainee Nurse and the Chancellor
On 11 September 2017, in the ARD program Wahlarena, citizens questioned Chancellor Angela Merkel. Alexander Jorde, a 21-year-old nursing trainee from Hildesheim, told her that the dignity of patients was violated thousands of times every day. He said that there were shifts with 20 patients for one nurse. Sie sind seit zwölf Jahren an der Regierung und haben in meinen Augen nicht viel für die Pflege getan. You have been in government for twelve years and, in my view, have not done much for nursing care. Merkel acknowledged einen riesigen Personalmangel, a huge shortage of staff. Jorde was praised on social media for his persistent questions.
Talking With Nothing Inside
die Worthülse — a word husk, a phrase with nothing inside.
heiße Luft — hot air.
schwafeln — to waffle, to talk at length and say nothing.
der Phrasendrescher — a phrase thresher, someone who threshes stock phrases.
die Sonntagsrede — a Sunday speech, fine words with no consequences.
der Wichtigtuer — someone who makes himself important.
mitreden können — to know enough to join in. Da kann ich nicht mitreden means: I don’t know enough about that to say anything.
The Hot Seat
Der heiße Stuhl, the hot seat, first ran on RTL on 15 January 1989 and was produced until 1994. Each episode began with one guest and his or her usually very provocative thesis. The guest sat on the hot seat, facing five people who held a completely different opinion. The source that describes the show also notes its weakness. Oft wurde die sachliche Diskussionsebene schnell verlassen und es wurde laut, polemisch und zum Teil auch persönlich. The discussion often left the factual level quickly and became loud, polemical and partly personal.
The Electric Chair
From 1947 to 1967, the writer Hans Werner Richter invited authors to the meetings of the Gruppe 47. Authors read unpublished texts aloud, and the others criticized them on the spot. The reader sat on the free chair next to Richter, which was jokingly called the elektrischer Stuhl, the electric chair. Zur wichtigen Maxime wurde, dass der Vortragende sich nicht verteidigen durfte, sowie dass die Kritik der konkreten Texte im Mittelpunkt stand. It became an important rule that the reader was not allowed to defend himself, and that the criticism focused on the actual texts. In 1958 Günter Grass read the first chapter of his still unpublished novel Die Blechtrommel at a meeting in the Allgäu and won the group’s prize.
The Effort to Find the Truth
In 1778 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was in a public dispute with Johann Melchior Goeze, the chief pastor of Hamburg. That year Lessing published 15 polemical writings against him. The duke then withdrew Lessing’s exemption from censorship and banned him from publishing on religion. In the same controversy, in Eine Duplik, a reply to the theologian Johann Heinrich Reß, Lessing wrote: Nicht die Wahrheit, in deren Besitz irgendein Mensch ist oder zu sein vermeinet, sondern die aufrichtige Mühe, die er angewandt hat, hinter die Wahrheit zu kommen, macht den Wert des Menschen. Not the truth that a person possesses, or believes he possesses, but the honest effort he has made to get to the truth makes the worth of a person.