Chancellor Angela Merkel's adress to the German Nation over COVID-19

Last night, March 18th, 2020, the chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, gave the equivalent of what we would call an "oval office address to the nation".

It was a serious speech about the dangers of the COVID-19 virus and the restrictions that are being placed on all who live within Germany.

Here is the YouTube video of the speech (which you can set for English undertitles).




I am going to ask every PFer to watch this speech and please, send it to others. For that, here the direct LINK to youtube. Don't forget to set the undertitles if German is not one of your languages.

In order to understand why I think this is so important, it's important to know that this kind of speech before the German people is extremely rare. Traditionally, German chancellors give a short, upbeat, jolly New Year's speech and that's that. The fact that Mrs. Merkel felt the need to directly adress all of the nation tells me how serious this is. And the fact that she grew up in the old East Germany (DDR), where these restrictions were practically daily life, is no less amazing. In fact, she pointed this out in the speech.

The speech is just a little less than 13 minutes long. I ask of you all to invest those 13 minutes and listen to / watch her. The English translation is *almost* perfect, with just a couple of (for me) humorous ticks.

Based on what I just saw and heard, I assume that Germany is just days away from a national curfew, possibly also the closing of the provincial borders within the country in order to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Finally, I am not making this thread to make any comparison between her and any other world leader, i.e., Macron, Trump, Johnson, Trudeau, etc. Each county is indeed individual and each leader has his or her own style. So, this is in no way an attempt on my part to make any other leader look bad. But I do think it would be extremely helpful for people here to hear her warm, calm, collected, serious voice and her methodical way of presenting things. The Germans have always respected "Angie" but right now, they practically hang on her every word over this pandemic threat to our entire world, in part because she has degrees in science, not politics.

Please forward this speech to friends, colleagues, family and acquaintances.

-Stat

A good source for a synopsis of the speech:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...34f2aa-6880-11ea-b199-3a9799c54512_story.html

 

Merkel's address is one that everyone should listen to, especially since she probably has more credibility on this subject than any other major world figure.

 

essentially the same speech from several other world leaders, it just sounds soothing coming from a soft spoken female voice...

prepare to be locked down, curfew time

 

Chancellor Merkel definitely hit it out of the ballpark with her speech.(Though I found it interesting she mixed in a little English here and there in her speech.). Particularly the fact that she made it clear at least in Germany that these restrictions would hopefully be temporary. And as you said, her harkening to her past in East Germany was key in reassuring the Germans that she's mindful of the powers they temporarily have and shouldn't be abused.

It's a speech that because we're all taking the same actions can definitely be forwarded to the world. I enjoyed listening to it.

 

AWESOME!

 

Actually, the English terms she used have already been incorporated into German.
A ton of American-English terms have become verdeutscht.

For instance, these days nonone says "Kneipe". They just say "bar"

 

This is very interesting as an American-German(American born, German ancestry on my mother's side. Father unknown.) The development of modern day Germany is something that I haven't looked too much into. I know it's neither here or there, but something has to distract me from the unfortunate death and sickness that now, hopefully temporarily plagues our planet.

 

I'll give an example of a long sentence in German and in spite of many verbs and nouns being in German, there are enough English words in the sentence that have been incorporated into the language that I bet you can understand it:

"Nachdem ich im Fitness Center war, ging ich mit meinen besten Bros in die Bar. Dort war eine sehr hübsche waitress. Wir haben alle longdrinks von ihr bestellt und danach eine großzügiges Tip gegeben"

 

I can't "understand" it, but I can speculate on it. The person is saying that they went to a Fitness Center, met their best bro there. (sometimes we'd say friend, but other times bro too in America.) and something about the waitress, they got some longdrinks(I guess that'd mean like large drinks) and then they left a tip for the waitress.

That's my best guess.

 

This is no worse than the flu or so some right wingnuts claim. Lol

That is why many nations are all over reacting! But perhaps these leaders know more about this virus than average people do.

Economies are thteatened ...the life blood of any nation. And yet these nations are shutting down economic activity! And that speaks volumes or should to those that dismiss this virus .

 

Volumes of incompetence? It's like "Okay, global pandemic isn't enough to screw you over. Let's give you a global self destruction of the financial system as well."

 

they're setting us up, using this pandemic for their agenda...

even trump hinted at the government taking part ownership of companies wanting a bailout...