If we want our future political and business leaders to offer compelling visions that bind us together we need to give them more opportunities to practise speechwriting and public speaking at school and university.
The most appropriate place in Europe to revive this study is Wittenberg in Germany with its strong historical associations with rhetoric.
Hamlet is one of the most familiar texts in the European canon. Prince Hamlet is a fictional student who studied rhetoric in Wittenberg under the tutorship of the German pastor, Melancthon.
In Shakespeare’s play, Wittenberg is symbolic of the huge cultural shift brought about by the Reformation. It was where Luther posted his 95 theses on the church door.
The University of Wittenberg was where Luther, William Tyndale and Giordano Bruno studied rhetoric. They used it to write their translations and sermons. Hamlet would have learnt rhetoric because it was part of the training for a prince, who had leadership responsibilities.
500 years later Wittenberg is a restored university town, only 40 minutes from Berlin, with the Melancthon museum, the Reformation Studies Library and a Luther museum.
It provides the perfect setting for an ‘immersive’ historical and cultural experience to inspire young people to study the humanities and reconnect with Europe’s intellectual and spiritual heritage.
Brian Jenner is the founder of the European Speechwriter Network. Over the past sixteen years Brian has organised twenty-four conferences in Oxford and Cambridge colleges and European cities.
In June 2025, Brian made a speculative visit to Wittenberg to see what facilities were available for organising conferences or residential workshops there. He discovered the Leucorea, which is a hall of residence similar in style to an Oxbridge college. It has bedrooms, kitchens, lecture theatres and seminar rooms.
Brian went to the town with the idea of creating a summer school or conference like the ones he curates for the speechwriters, but for students or schoolchildren.
Rhetoric can seem a daunting subject to get to grips with, but the play Hamlet, which most people have some familiarity with, dramatises the moral and philosophical problems that arise from the study of rhetoric, and is thus a fun way to understand how it works.
Coincidentally, the young principal of the Leucorea, initiated a three-day ‘Rhetorik – Grammatik – Dialektic’ conference in German in spring 2025 for schoolchildren in Saxon-Anhalt. 30 students were selected and paid for on bursaries to attend a three-day residential conference.
The theme was rhetoric modernised – with Berlin civil servants and academics delivering workshops on crisis communications and public relations.
Brian has extensive experience of running group public speaking exercises and competitions through Toastmasters International.
As a student Brian was a member of the Oxford Union and he saw how his peers practised public speaking and went on to get to the top of politics and broadcasting.
‘One of the most baffling aspects of modern education is that it is assumed that a young person who graduates from a top school with distinction will naturally have the ability to speak and present in public. This is rarely the case. This accounts for why we are often frustrated by the calibre of people who are fast-tracked to the top of organisations’, says Brian.
The retreats will be run by the European Speechwriter Network, using its extensive network of public speaking trainers, writing coaches and high-profile speechwriters based in the UK and Europe.
The three-day public speaking conferences in English in the Leucorea for students or schoolchildren will begin in the spring of 2026. This could be English students visiting from the UK or advanced students from European schools, who don’t have English as their first language.
Brian Jenner is keen to make contact with any teachers or students who share his vision of restoring the study of effective presence and performance to mainstream education.
You can view a sample programme here.
Please email us if you’re interested in taking part.