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This article is not yet available in English. Please read the German version of this to learn more about how S.A.E.C.L.O. Greifswald hosted a public debate between representitives of the students and members of various fraternities. Angela Westphal / apf

Read more on Tübingen's Streitkultur Cup in the German version of this article and find out how Marcus Ewald won the audience, how Natalie Wieseotte won a version of "Who wants to be a millionaire" on OPD (the German format of open parliamentary debate) and how Pauline Leopold won in a competition on the rules of OPD but still felt ashamed. ...

Combining pleasant things with even more pleasant things - that is what Eva Schlindwein (Debattiergesellschaft Jena) experienced when she travelled to the Balkans for the Zagreb Open 2010. Read more on that in the German version of this article. ...

Marc Lenzke, Marcus Ewald and Isabelle Loewe (DC Bonn) won the prestigious Streitkultur Cup in Tübingen. They defeated as team for Debattierclub Johannes Gutenberg Mainz (DCJG) another DCJG team consisting of Sina Strupp, Jan Papsch and Nicolas Eberle. The final was completed by the three Free Speakers Lea Weitekamp (Bonn), Hauke Blume (Berlin) and Wladi Jachtschenko (München). Judges of the final were Mario Dießner, Jenny Bachmann (Karlsruhe) and Daniel Grotzky (München/Zürich), president was Gudrun Lux (Mainz/Bonn). The motions were: Round 1:  Sollen Volksentscheide bei Großprojekten verpflichtend werden? Round 2: Soll die Pressefreiheit bei Terrorgefahr eingeschränkt werden? Round 3:  Brauchen wir wieder Militärparaden in Deutschland? Final: ...

It’s fairly simple: Either you have a “boss” partner like Richard Robinson or you are from Leiden. In the latter case you can even win it as Ali Al Khatib and Rob Honig did from 2nd proposition against teams from Cambridge (1st proposition, Doug Cochran and Maria English), University College Dublin Law (1st opposition Christine Simpson and Mark Haughton) and Manchester (2nd opposition, Richard Robinson and Niels Schröter) on the motion “This house believes that Irish sovereignty can never be truly realized.” Due to their outstanding performance during the tournament as a whole I asked the two Dutch a question that ...

A limerick is not just a witty five-line poem, but also the name of an Irish town that hosts the University of Limerick (UL) where the UL Open 2011 will take place on 11 and 12 March. This competition is intended to be “undoubtedly the most fun IV of the year,” as is reported on the Facebook website of that Irish open. The team cap is 32 teams, format will be British Parliamentary Style, language of the debates is English. Chief adjudicators are Niall Sherry, winner of the Irish Times Debate 2010, and Patrick Rooney, octo-finalist of Worlds 2010 and winner ...

Reaching a broad public, debating controversial social topics, provoke thoughts – that’s the idea behind the Masters’ Debate. In this way the Berlin Debating Union (BDU) wants to perform its sociopolitical role. Furthermore the members of BDU want to show what is possible in a really good debate and that even difficult, controversial and contra intuitive motions can be discussed in a reasonable, ambitious and entertaining way. So early December's motion was a heavy one: “This house would allow disabled parents (in countries where pre-implantation diagnostics are allowed) to choose embryos with the same disability.” The Opening Government with Annette Kirste and ...

Georg Sommerfeld and Johannes Häger won for the Berlin Debating Union the Santa Claus Tournament in Münster.

The debating society S.A.E.C.L.O. Greifswald is going to host a public debate between fraternity representatives and the students' council on Wednesday, 1 December. Read more on the tensions between the two parties which are the reason for this debate in the German version of this article. msi / apf

The winners of this year's International Debate Academy Slovenia (IDAS) Tournament in Ljubljana have been announced: First came John Sadek and Jessica Bullock from Vermont, second were Filip Dobranic and Maja Cimerman from Slovenia (currently European champions in ESL). The other two teams who debated in the finals were Anna England-Kerr and Crt Podlogar from Lubljana as well as Goran Jankuloski and Pedrag Pevicevic from Belgrade. Anne Valkering chaired the final debate, alongside with her were judging John Hampson (British Council), Loke Wing Fatt (Singapore), TJ Senamngern (Thailand) and Maja Nenadovic (Netherlands). The motions: Round 1: This house would require migrants wishing to ...

In the grand final on Saturday evening, Victor Finkel and Fiona Prowse of Monash A won the Cambridge IV 2010 as opening opposition in the final debate on the motion “This house believes in the virtue of a disproportional military response”. Monash A prevailed over Durham A (Pam Cohn and Guy Miscampbell), Manchester A (Sam Block and James Dixon) and Sydney Union A (Tim Mooney and Naomi Hart). Monash University is based in Melbourne, Australia. Shortly before, Rob Honig and Ali Al Khatib as Leiden B had won the ESL final (i.e. the category for speakers of “English as ...

Heidelberg is going to be stage to the German Debating Championship (DDM) 2011, so many debaters in Germany see the Baden-Württembergian Open (BaWü) 2010 as a kind of dress rehearsal for DDM 2011. But superstitious minds in Germany have it that traditionally the dress rehearsal has to be a terrible disaster – if the real event shall be fine. However, neither the grouches nor the superstitious could find anything to mock about at BaWü 2010 last weekend. After Maike Jung, Jenny Holm and Kristina Seebacher organized the whole event smoothly, our reporter Gudrun Lux is really afraid that DDM 2011 ...

Lukas Windhager, Almut Graebsch and Marco Niedermeier have won BaWü 2010. Best speaker of the final was Magnus Schmagold from Göttingen. More information soon on Achte Minute.

Break to Semis at Baden-Württembergische Meisterschaft: Mainzelmünchen (Daniil Pakhomenko, Andrea Gau, Wladi Jachtschenko) Mainz Phyrgische Mütze (Thore Wojke, Nicolas Eberle, Sascha Schenkenberger) Debatte Karlsruhe (Michael Pruß, Christoph Baumhardt, Jenny Bachmann) München Friedensengel (Almut Graebsch, Lukas Windhager, Marco Niedermeier) Free Speakers (OPD style): Magnus Schmagold (DC Göttingen) Marcus Ewald (DCJG Mainz) Konrad Grießinger (DCJG Mainz) Johannes Vatanyutaweewat (DCGF Frankfurt) Nicolas Friebe (DC Göttingen) Simon Lehle (Streitkultur Tübingen) Adjudicators: Willy Witthaut, Anette Purucker, Jan Lüken, Jörn Hahn, Mario Dießner, Volker Tjaden, Lukas Haffert, Anja Pfeffermann, Yin Cai, Dominic Hildebrand. ...

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Pubs, comedians and potato salad: These things and even more were provided during the debating workshop of Debattiergesellschaft Jena (DGJ) from 12 till 14 November. Originally thought of as an internal event, the non-competitive debaters’ meeting did not only attract speakers from DGJ but also especially debating novices from other clubs like Dresden, Magdeburg and Munich. In a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere the debates were held in the established formats Open Parliamentary Debate (OPD) and British Parliamentary Style (BPS) but also in Wartburg style. Some speakers even tried to discuss under the rules of Disputation. It was very particular for this ...

On 4 November, the Debattiergesellschaft Jena (DGJ) organised its annual ZEIT DEBATTEN evening, which is a public debating contest between students and professors. In the last years, the exhibition debate that is generously supported by the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT had inspired a lot of spectators and made them familiar with debating in general. This year the team of professors consisted of Eberhard Eichenhofer (Law), Alfred Fahr (Biology/Pharmaceutics) and Andreas Freytag (Economics). Speaking for DGJ were Clemens Lechner, Friederike Meyer zu Wendischhoff and Jonathan Scholbach - Clemens being a German Debating Championship finalist of three times, Friederike and Jonathan finalists ...

John Ashbourne and Anser Aftab from the London School of Economics (LSE A) won the Oxford IV on the past weekend. ESL, the category for those who speak “English as a Second Language”, was won by Daniel Springer and Jeroen Heun from Erasmus Rotterdam, ranked 1 and 2 on the ESL tab of this year’s Euros in Amsterdam. The tab of the Oxford IV can be found online. Teams breaking to semis (main break): Cambridge A Cambridge B Yale C Manchester SR Durham A Manchester AJ Yale A Stanford B Monash Sydney TCD Hist B ULU C Princeton AL UBC A LSE A St Andrews ESL Break to semis: Groningen B MGMIO A (Helmut Kohl and East Germany; team broke third ...

The Berlin Debating Union won the Preußen Punk Potsdam tournament. The competition was held in German, the format was British Parliamentary Style (BPS). ...

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“Elternalarm – Parents coming!” was the slogan in Münster in late October: Students’ parents were welcome to discover Münster – and the Debattierclub Münster was part of this. Various events were arranged at all Münster universities and colleges. The debating society presented themselves to the mothers, fathers and siblings with an abbreviated format: Two speakers on each side – pro and con – held their respective four minute speech to convince the audience. The motion read: “Credit points for going to the theater – How much culture can students bear?” One credit point should be achieved by visiting the cultural events ...

Arguments by the river Rhine: On 9 November, the Debattierclub Johannes Gutenberg Mainz (DCJG) hosts another show debate. Three speakers from DCJG versus three professors are going to debate at Audimax/Alte Mensa at 6.30 p.m. The motion reads: "Should social networks be prohibited?" Read more on this in the German version of this article. glx / apf

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Tuesday, 26th November, the Berlin Debating Union (BDU) opened the new debating semester with the motion "This House would jaywalk“. About 60 guests were curious about the topic and were able to join an exciting debate about the borders of citizens duties. On the side of the Government, Julian Ohm (finalist North-German Championships 2010), Jonas Werner (German Champion 2009) and Johannes Häger (semi-finalist SOAS IV 2010) were stating that a responsible handling of governmental rules also implies to trespass them in particular cases. Only in this way can a healthy relationship to the governmental power be created and the citizens are ...

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The team Do not disturb! Seriously!, comprising of Anne Valkering from Amsterdam and Jens Fischer from Berlin won the UCU Open 2010. The competition was held on October 22 and 23 at the University College Utrecht, 36 teams competed over five prelims. Further teams in the final were PTB I (Sam Block and Maddie Grieve), Hot like Mexico, Enjoy (Vignesh Ashok and John Ashbourne) and Erasmus A (Lucien de Bruin and Daniël Springer). Into the semifinal had also progressed the teams The Real Real Deree (Chris Papadopoulos and Sophia Simunec), Erasmus C (Setry Rabejaona and Milen Petkov), Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ...

The SOAS Debating Society continues to establish its IV as one of the largest debate competitions in Europe. On October 16th and 17th, 116 teams competed over six preliminary rounds at the School of African an Oriental Studies near King’s Cross in London. For VDCH-debaters, this was a particularly successful weekend. The final was won by Harish Natarjan and Matilda Wnek (Cambridge H). They triumphed over Cambridge E (Maria English and Jack Watson), Loyola (Emily Ravencroft and Bobby Cashen) and KCL A (Daniel Berman and Jordan Anderson). The ESL final was won by the German vice-champion and current exchange student Filip Bubenheimer ...