Nothing less than the most prestigious club title is at stake: This weekend, over 100 debaters from Germany, Switzerland and Austria will converge on the small college-town of Tübingen for the Streitkultur-Cup, the open club championship of Streitkultur Tübingen. On Saturday, 27 teams of three debaters will face off in three preliminary rounds to take one of the two spots in the final (or one of the three spots for single speakers), taking place in the evening. Traditionally, the final takes place in the Old Anatomical Building. Streitkultur-Cup uses the Open Parliamentary Debate (OPD) format developed in Tübingen.

Particularly the widely varied teams and the talented newcomers should be an interesting aspect of the tournament. Streitkultur (liberally translated as “Arguing Culture”) is actively encouraging and aiding novice debaters. Thus only teams with at least one novice member are allowed at the tournament.

Anna Mattes, former president of Streitkultur Tübingen, promises the hardest break into the final round. In the past, the tournament has seen top teams. Tim Richter and Gudrun Lux (both Debattierclub Bonn) won the cup two times in a row, in 2008 together with Karsten Stölzgen, an old stager from Tübingen, and in 2009 together with Benedikt Nufer from Hamburg. Co-competitors of the teams both “Rheingold” (2008) and “Die Motten und das Licht” (2009) were renowned debaters, too: At Streitkultur Cup 2008 “Rheingold“ defeated Marcel Giersdorf, Sarah Kempf and Lukas Haffert, in 2009 it was again Lukas Haffert together with Viola Lutz and Daniel Grotzky who were defeated.

As a compulsory rule, at least one of the team mates of each team has to be a novice. As Anna from Tübingen is reported, the convenors rely on the participants’ honesty – and on their own knowledge of the German speaking debating circuit! Not a must is the rule to have both men and women on board of each team – this is allured to by a number of free drinks for those teams. The competition is part of Freie Debattierliga (FDL).

sol / fnp