ZTwo million people watched Mahatma Gandhi’s funeral from their homes in 1948. When John F. Kennedy was buried in 1963, three days after the fatal assassination attempt, 180 million sat in front of the television. Then a few years later the moon landing – 1969, half a billion. Just as many as are said to have followed the memorial service for the late Michael Jackson in 2009. Or Elvis’ “Aloha” concert in 1973. The World Cup final in 2006 between Italy and France was watched by over 700 million and the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 is said to have seen a total of two billion.
Nothing compared to what was sitting in front of screens of different sizes around the world yesterday: an estimated four billion people watched Queen Elizabeth’s funeral. This breaks all previously known limits and breaks every viewing record. The event was historic simply because every second inhabitant of the world took note of it.
Poorly openly worded
But unlike in other regions of the world – such as China or Syria – people quickly tire of history in this country. It was at the end of a visibly long day when a few brave warriors got together in the studio of “Hart, aber fair” shortly before the gate closed to say something to the Queen again. You always have to discuss everything a bit on German talk show television, including the death of a decade-long regent. However, the initial question “Why still the cult of royal houses?” was formulated so unfavorably openly that it would not have passed as “motion” in any debating club in the world.
The conversation was as tense as the subject of the dispute. The former SWR3 correspondent in Great Britain Bertram Graf von Quadt zu Wykradt and Isny was connected from Baden-Baden and gave his professional opinion carefully. Katarina Barley, Vice-President of the European Parliament and daughter of a Brit, was a little impressed by the Queen’s sense of duty, but immediately added that she had also made “many mistakes”. Which exactly, she did not reveal.
James Hawes, the German studies scholar from Oxford who was often on the line recently, routinely categorized the Queen as a “dream dream figure” who had one of Thomas Mann’s favorite qualities: stamina. She is only to be understood as a “fantasy figure” – a friendly nod in the round. ARD nobility expert Mareile Höppner tried to bring some fervor into the conversation at the beginning, spoke briefly of the “we-feeling” that after the death of the Queen almost everyone, “from punks to bankers” in British society had to deal with then quickly agree with the moderate tenor of the group and hide behind pleasing characterizations such as “symbolic figure”.