an der Reihe sein — to be the one whose turn it is. Duden: to be the one who is now being served.
der Reihe nach — in a fixed order.
außer der Reihe — out of turn, as an exception.
aus der Reihe tanzen — to dance out of the row, to behave differently from everyone else.
sich vordrängeln — to push in ahead of others. Duden’s example: sie hat versucht, sich an der Kasse vorzudrängeln, she tried to push in at the checkout.
Wer ist der Nächste? — Who is next? The question at the bakery counter.
Ruth Cohn, born in Berlin in 1912, developed Themenzentrierte Interaktion, theme-centered interaction, in the United States from the mid-1950s. The method is taught at the Ruth Cohn Institute. One of its auxiliary rules is Nur einer spricht zur selben Zeit, only one person speaks at a time. Its best-known principle allows a break in the order: Störungen haben Vorrang! Disturbances take precedence.
In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul sets rules for speaking in the congregation. The Luther Bible renders them this way. Ihr könnt alle prophetisch reden, doch einer nach dem andern, damit alle lernen und alle ermahnt werden. You can all prophesy, but one after the other, so that all may learn and all be exhorted. If someone else who sits there receives a revelation, so schweige der Erste, the first should fall silent. The chapter ends: Lasst aber alles ehrbar und ordentlich zugehen. Let everything be done decently and in order.
On 16 January 2014, the ZDF host Markus Lanz interviewed Sahra Wagenknecht of the Left Party. Viewers objected that he kept interrupting her. A viewer from Leipzig started an online petition titled Raus mit Markus Lanz aus meiner Rundfunkgebühr, Markus Lanz out of my license fee, and 233,355 people signed it. ZDF’s director general, Thomas Bellut, answered her. He wrote that the insisting and the interruptions had come mit so viel Nachdruck, with so much force, that the debate on the substance was pushed into the background. ZDF kept Lanz.
Since the 2024–25 season, German football has applied one rule at every level, from the professional leagues to youth football. Nur der Teamkapitän darf sich nähern und den Referee ansprechen. Only the team captain may approach the referee and speak to him. A player who ignores this is cautioned with a yellow card. If the goalkeeper is captain, a field player is named before the match. A DFB referee official gave the reason. The referee no longer has to talk with several players at once while under pressure.
The Bundesrat usually votes by show of hands. If one state asks, the vote is taken by calling the states one by one. Die Länder werden in alphabetischer Reihenfolge aufgerufen. The states are called in alphabetical order. The most disputed call came on 22 March 2002, on the Immigration Act. When Brandenburg was called, Alwin Ziel of the SPD answered Ja, and directly after him the interior minister, Jörg Schönbohm of the CDU, answered Nein. The president of the Bundesrat, Klaus Wowereit, stated: Damit stelle ich fest, dass das Land Brandenburg nicht einheitlich abgestimmt hat. He then asked Minister-President Manfred Stolpe, who answered yes, and Wowereit counted Brandenburg as yes. On 18 December 2002, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that Brandenburg had not voted uniformly, and it declared the law void.
The Green Party’s women’s statute sets the order of speakers at its meetings. Its long-standing federal wording reads: Redelisten werden getrennt geführt, Frauen und Männer reden abwechselnd. Lists of speakers are kept separately, and women and men speak in turn. Ist die Redeliste der Frauen erschöpft, ist die Versammlung zu befragen, ob die Debatte fortgesetzt werden soll. When the women’s list is used up, the assembly is asked whether the debate should go on. The Cologne Greens write that the quota became binding in 1986, with the women’s statute. In 2023 the Greens in a Bremen district council proposed the same order for its meetings: the floor in der Reihenfolge der Wortmeldungen abwechselnd Frauen und Männern, alternately to women and men, in the order of the requests.
Speaking without the floor happens even in the Bundestag. Members call out remarks during speeches. These Zwischenrufe, interjections, are part of the debate, and they are not lost. Auch Zwischenrufe und Bemerkungen sind dort festgehalten. Interjections and remarks are recorded in the official minutes too. The stenographers identify who called out, because the video does not always show it. In 2018, sixteen stenographers worked on a sitting day, each relieved by a colleague every five minutes.
Wer zuerst kommt, mahlt zuerst. Whoever comes first grinds first. The saying goes back to the mill. In the Sachsenspiegel, the law book written by Eike von Repgow around 1230, the rule reads, as cited by the scholar of idioms Lutz Röhrich: die ok irst to der molen kumt, die sal erst malen, whoever comes to the mill first shall grind first. Peasants were obliged to use a particular mill, and the order of grinding followed the order of arrival. The rule served above all to keep the peace. By the 17th century, millers were sworn not to favor anyone. The saying is probably older than the law book.
The German Code of Criminal Procedure fixes the order of a trial. It begins with the calling of the case. The witnesses leave the courtroom. The prosecutor reads out the charge. After the evidence, the prosecutor and then the defendant speak. The prosecutor may reply. Then comes a well-known sentence. Dem Angeklagten gebührt das letzte Wort. The last word belongs to the defendant. Even if a lawyer has spoken for him, the court must ask the defendant whether he has anything more to say in his defense.