DThe Federal President noted that he had overtaxed his audience’s patience. Frank-Walter Steinmeier had been speaking to the guests at the opening event of the 54th German Historians’ Day in Leipzig’s Nikolaikirche for 34 minutes when he raised his voice for the final appeal to once again directly tell the historians sitting in front of him that science is for the defense of democracy is needed. From the manuscript Deviating from this, the speaker added a retrospective remark about his speech at this point: “Hence the long approach, ladies and gentlemen.”
Half an hour plus an academic twelfth is actually not an overly long speaking time for the celebratory opening lecture of a specialist congress, especially when the organizers like to emphasize that they are organizing the largest humanities congress in Europe, and when the product of the subject that is presented with the greatest pride is still very long book is. The most important time unit of the congress, the section with three to five lectures on a special topic in a more or less loose connection to the main topic, which this time is called “Fragile Facts”, has been expanded and now lasts two and a half hours. Historical time is a particularly relative, ultimately psychological quantity; In addition to short centuries, a common figure in contemporary historiography, long lecture hours are known. Steinmeier probably suspected that he had actually said too little and that he had owed his listeners something.
#Kretschmer #Steinmeier #Historians #Day #Leipzig