Angela Merkel’s coronavirus address honoured as ‘Speech of the Year’
10221 Min Read
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s speech on March 18 calling on people in Germany to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously has been selected as the “Speech of the Year” for 2020 by a panel of rhetoric experts.
A panel from Tübingen University said in a statement that in her televised speech, “Merkel demonstrates in impressive manner […] how reason, helped by rhetoric, can prompt action and how good rhetoric can foster community feeling and cohesion.”
It said that the “historic” speech had been of central importance for the successful management of the first wave of the pandemic. “This televised address probably directly influenced the German population in a way that almost no other speech of the past years has done,” the experts said.
The panel said Merkel had drawn on all the rhetorical registers in her address. “The speech is vividly written and well-structured […] and uses repetitions and variations on central ideas to create a sense of urgency,” it said.
Main Photo: A screenshot from a video made available by the German TV station ARD shows German Chancellor Angela Merkel during her televised address to the nation on the coronavirus spread in Berlin, Germany, 18 March 2020. EPA-EFE/ARD / POOL
