On 9 February 2025, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his challenger Friedrich Merz met for a 90-minute television debate on ZDF and Das Erste. The broadcasters’ rules said that speaking time would be measured in the control room. If the time became clearly unequal, the moderators would raise it. In the three-way debate of 2021, Annalena Baerbock of the Greens pointed out that the clock for her rival Olaf Scholz kept running while the moderators were speaking.
Walking Out of a Talk Show
On 12 July 2017, the ARD talk show Maischberger discussed the riots at the G20 summit in Hamburg. During the broadcast, the CDU politician Wolfgang Bosbach got up and left the studio. He said that the Frankfurt city councilor Jutta Ditfurth was unbearable, persönlich, vom Verhalten und ihrer Argumentation, personally, in her behavior and in her argument. Das muss ich nicht mitmachen. I don’t have to put up with this. Afterward he named the reason. Die permanente Mischung aus Dazwischenquatschen und Grimassenschneiden von Frau Ditfurth war eine echte Zumutung. Ms. Ditfurth’s constant mix of butting in and pulling faces was a real imposition.
The Vocabulary of the Floor
das Wort haben — to have the floor. Duden: to be the one whose turn it is to speak in a meeting.
sich zu Wort melden — to signal in a meeting that one wants to say something.
jemandem das Wort erteilen — to give someone the floor, said of the person who chairs.
jemandem das Wort entziehen — to take the floor away from someone.
jemandem ins Wort fallen — to interrupt someone, literally to fall into their word.
Lassen Sie mich ausreden! — Let me finish!
eins nach dem anderen — one thing after the other.
TOP — short for Tagesordnungspunkt, agenda item, as in TOP 3.
The Talking Stone
In many German schools, the class holds a regular Klassenrat, a class council, chaired and minuted by the pupils. The Bavarian state school portal for civic education publishes its rules of conversation as promises. Ich rede nur, wenn ich den Erzählstein/-ball habe. I speak only when I hold the talking stone or ball. Ich melde mich, wenn ich etwas sagen möchte. I raise my hand when I want to say something. Ich spreche nur über Themen, die gerade behandelt werden. I speak only about the topics now being dealt with. Ich lasse die anderen ausreden und falle niemandem ins Wort. I let the others finish and do not interrupt anyone.
Two Hands Up
At German party conventions and assemblies, people who want to speak on the item go on a list and are called in order. There is one way to jump the queue. A motion on procedure, an Antrag zur Geschäftsordnung, may be made outside the order. It has its own signal. The rules of the ÖDP’s federal party convention say: GO-Anträge werden durch Erheben beider Hände und der Stimmkarte angezeigt. Procedural motions are signaled by raising both hands and the voting card. The senior citizens’ parliament in the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament also uses both raised hands, and such motions must be dealt with at once.
Given the Floor
One rule in the Bundestag’s rules of procedure is short. Ein Mitglied des Bundestages darf nur sprechen, wenn ihm der Präsident das Wort erteilt hat. A member may speak only when the president has given him the floor. Members who want to speak sign up with the secretary who keeps the list of speakers. The president sets the order. After a speaker for the government, a different opinion should get the floor. The same rule runs down to small towns. In the council of Bakum, in Lower Saxony, the chair gives the floor in der Reihenfolge der Wortmeldungen, in the order in which people asked to speak.