Blood-sweat-and-tears speech
The blood-sweat-and-tears speech (also for short "Blood, sweat and tears"; English "Blood, sweat and tears") or "Blood, hardship, tears and sweat" speech (English "Blood, toil, tears and sweat ") is a short speech that the British politician Sir Winston Churchill on May 13, 1940 during the Second world war before the British house of Commons held. The “Blood, Sweat and Tears Speech” - which, along with the “ Iron Curtain ” speech held on March 5, 1946 in Fulton, Missouri, is usually considered to be the most famous Churchill speech ever - is that first address Churchill gave to the House of Commons three days after his appointment as Prime Minister of Great Britain. The speech was preceded by a vote in the House of Commons in which Churchill had the members of parliament express their confidence in the policies of his new all-party coalition government, which had replaced Arthur Neville Chamberlain's previous government, which consisted exclusively of conservative politicians .
This was the first of three famous speeches Churchill gave during the Battle of France in late spring / early summer 1940: The other two speeches are " We Shall Fight on the Beaches " on June 4th and " This Was Their Finest Hour " on June 18th June.
Naming
The words blood, toil, tears and sweat were first used by Giuseppe Garibaldi on July 2, 1849, when he was gathering his revolutionary units in Rome. Theodore Roosevelt also used this expression in a speech at the US Naval War School on June 2, 1897. Churchill's speech is named after her most famous passage, which says "I have nothing to offer but blood, hardship, tears and sweat" ( "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat"), a phrase that Churchill had already used in the circle of his ministers that morning and which he now used again in his speech.
"Blood, sweat and tears" versus "blood, hardship, tears and sweat"
In the German-speaking world in particular, the term "blood, sweat and tears" has become commonplace for Churchill's speech.
The reasons for the popularization are not completely clear, but from a linguistic point of view it is mostly argued that a three-level list as a rhetorical figure ( tricolon ) impresses the human memory better than the less catchy figure of the tetracolon (rhetorical quaternary) and the omission of the fourth “Sacrifice” could be explained by the instinctive feeling for language of the masses. Likewise, it is often emphasized that the words "blood, sweat and tears" would fit together more harmoniously than "blood, tears and sweat", that the order of the words was twisted, so to speak, because the majority of speakers follow this order due to the two-syllable nature of the Word tears would intuitively perceive as melodious.
content
In his speech, Churchill explained to his audience the program of his government policy and the goal he would pursue with it. Stylistically, the speech was an appeal with a double thrust: on the one hand, Churchill addressed the parliamentarians of the British House of Commons who had gathered before him, on the other hand, he also addressed the people of Great Britain and the British Commonwealth in general. He tried to attune both groups to the hardships and sufferings of the war ("We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering") by explaining to them the dangerousness of the then existing military and political situation for Great Britain and its people ("One of the greatest battles in history") and linked to this statement the evocation that great sacrifices were required to overcome the impending dangers.
Churchill's speech gains its effectiveness not least from its ruthless honesty towards the British: In contrast to the practice, which is often assumed by politicians, of playing down and glossing over problems and taking advantage of people's inner comfort by offering them the prospect of getting as much as possible for the lowest possible price Churchill stressed that great sacrifices in exertion (hardship and sweat) and suffering (tears and blood) would have to be made. So he turned away from the custom of describing everything in "rosy colors" in order to draw an uncompromising balance sheet of the unpleasant and frightening reality, based on which an improvement in the situation was intended.
Churchill's remarks on the British war aims and thus on the reasons that would require the great sacrifices cited in the title are also well known. These were literally:
"You ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terror - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival. "
“You ask what is our goal? I can give the answer in one word: victory. Victory at any price - victory in spite of all terror - victory, however long and hard the road may be, because without victory there is no survival. "
Aftermath
The MPs in the lower house applauded, but there were no big storms of applause. Churchill was known and his forceful way of speaking.
Churchill's speech is widely regarded as one of the most famous political speeches ever. In addition to Kennedy's address in front of the Schöneberg Town Hall in 1963 (“ I am a Berliner ”), Hitler’s address on the occasion of the outbreak of war on September 1, 1939 (“They have been fired back since 5:45 am”), Joseph Goebbels ' Sports Palace speech in 1943 (“Do you want the total war? "), Willy Brandt's government declaration from 1969 (" We want to dare more democracy ") and Kaiser Wilhelm's declaration before the German Reichstag of August 1914 (" I don't know any more parties, I only know Germans ") is" Blood, Sweat and Tears ”- in the German-speaking area - the most persistent and most extensive expression in the collective memory of the public from a political speech.
The effectiveness of Churchill's address can be seen in many ways: For example, a speech in which politicians or other important figures in public life address a broad group of people and promise them the necessity of making great sacrifices or the inevitability of these sacrifices trying to make believable, also generally referred to as a "blood, sweat and tears" speech without referring to Churchill's speech in particular. For example, Oskar Lafontaine's election campaign speeches from 1990, in which he - in contrast to his opponent Helmut Kohl - stated that great hardship would be necessary to achieve German unity, or Gerhard Schröder's government declaration on Agenda 2010 , in which he said: “We will cut government services, promote personal responsibility and demand personal contribution from each individual”, sometimes respectfully, sometimes ironically, as “blood, sweat and tears” apostrophes in the newspapers.
The popularization of Churchill's speech is also reflected in the frequent quotation of the eponymous phrase, particularly in English colloquial language and in the pop-cultural context: For example, a famous American jazz rock band called itself " Blood, Sweat & Tears ". In 2016 the Bank of England issued a £ 5 note with the quote.
literature
- John Lukacs : Blood, toil, tears, and sweat: the dire warning , New York: Basic Books, 2008, ISBN 9780465002870 .
Web links
- The Churchill Center: Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat , with a short introduction.
- Transcription and tape recording (MP3)
- Churchill speeches as MP3 files (the date can be seen in the respective link.)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Helge Hesse: Here I stand, I can't help it. Through world history in 80 sentences. 4th edition, Munich 2011, p. 277.