In the scene Nacht in Goethe’s Faust I, published in 1808, Faust’s assistant Wagner says: Allein der Vortrag macht des Redners Glück, delivery alone makes the speaker’s fortune. Faust answers: Es trägt Verstand und rechter Sinn / Mit wenig Kunst sich selber vor! / Und wenn’s euch Ernst ist, was zu sagen, / Ist’s nötig, Worten nachzujagen? Understanding and true sense present themselves with little art. And if you are serious about having something to say, do you need to chase after words?
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 Authors read unpublished texts aloud, and the others criticized them on the spot.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 In 1958 Günter Grass read the first chapter of his still unpublished novel Die Blechtrommel at a meeting in the Allgäu and won the group’s prize.
How It Actually Was
In 1824 Leopold von Ranke published a history of the Romance and Germanic peoples from 1494 to 1514. In the preface he wrote that history had been given the office of judging the past and teaching the present. His book did not claim such high offices. “[E]r will blos zeigen, wie es eigentlich gewesen.” It only wants to show how it actually was. He also named his material: memoirs, diaries, letters, the reports of ambassadors and the original accounts of eyewitnesses.
Thirty Years, No Cost
In 1968 the sociologist Niklas Luhmann was appointed to a chair of sociology at the new University of Bielefeld. At the end of the 1960s he was asked there to name his research project. He wrote: “Theorie der Gesellschaft; Laufzeit: 30 Jahre; Kosten: keine.” Theory of society. Duration: 30 years. Cost: none. His main tool was a Zettelkasten, a card index he had kept since the 1950s. It grew to about 90,000 notes. His Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, The Society of Society, appeared in 1997, shortly before his death.
The Tone of the Tagesschau
The Tagesschau is credited with keeping a sober, informative format since 1960. As a rule, its newsreaders read the reports from a teleprompter. The journalist Willi Winkler described the news as delivered “im amtsmännischen Ton der reinen Sachlichkeit,” in an official’s tone of pure objectivity. When the program turned 70 in December 2022, its editor-in-chief, Marcus Bornheim, named what it values most. “Der größte Wert, den wir haben, ist unsere Glaubwürdigkeit.” The greatest asset we have is our credibility.
Vanity, the Enemy of the Matter
In his 1919 lecture Politik als Beruf, Politics as a Vocation, Max Weber named three qualities a politician needs. “Leidenschaft – Verantwortungsgefühl – Augenmaß.” Passion, a sense of responsibility and a sense of proportion. Then he named the danger. It is ordinary vanity, “die Todfeindin aller sachlichen Hingabe und aller Distanz,” the deadly enemy of all devotion to the matter and of all distance. Vanity tempts the politician to become an actor and to ask only about the impression he makes. In politics, Weber wrote, there are in the end only two kinds of deadly sin. One is Unsachlichkeit, losing sight of the matter. The other, often though not always the same, is irresponsibility.
Write It as an Opinion, Not a Verdict
German law students learn to write exam answers in the Gutachtenstil, the style of an expert opinion. It has four steps. The answer opens with a hypothesis in the subjunctive, such as “P könnte einen Anspruch gegen B aus § 433 I BGB haben,” P could have a claim against B. Then comes the definition of the legal rule. Then each element of the definition is checked against the facts. Only at the end comes the result. A first-semester guide of the Leipzig law faculty states the difference from a court judgment in one line. “Im Urteil wird begründet, im Gutachten geschlussfolgert!” A judgment gives reasons for a result. An opinion arrives at the result by reasoning.
Inform, Do Not Praise
German law sets the terms on which lawyers and doctors may advertise. A lawyer may advertise only soweit sie über die berufliche Tätigkeit in Form und Inhalt sachlich unterrichtet, as far as the advertising informs about the professional work in a factual way, in form and content. It may not aim at obtaining a particular mandate. The model professional code for doctors uses the same word. Doctors may give sachliche berufsbezogene Informationen, factual information about their work. Advertising that breaks professional rules is forbidden. The model code names three kinds in particular: advertising that praises, advertising that misleads, and advertising that compares.
Merkel and the Reproduction Number
On 15 April 2020, after a meeting with the state premiers, Chancellor Angela Merkel explained why most pandemic restrictions would stay in place and easing would be slow. At the end of the press conference, she did it with arithmetic. The reproduction number then stood at about one. If it rose by only a tenth to 1.1, she said, the health system would reach its limit in October. At 1.2 it would reach it in July. At 1.3 it would reach it in June.
The Football Professor
On 19 December 1998, Ralf Rangnick, then coach of SSV Ulm in the second division, was a guest on ZDF’s das aktuelle sportstudio. At a tactics board, he explained to the presenter Michael Steinbrecher how the Viererkette, the back four in a flat line, and pressing work. He explained in great detail. The appearance gave him a nickname he has kept to this day: der Fußballprofessor, the football professor.