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I have read in a DW newscast:

Deutschland hat derzeit den EU-Ratsvorsitz inne.

Is there any difference in meaning between "innehaben" and "haben" / "besitzen" ? Duden definitions seem very similar to me.

besitzen

a. als Besitz haben; sein Eigen nennen

haben

1a. (als Eigentum o. Ä.) besitzen, sein Eigen nennen

innehaben

  1. (eine bestimmte Position, Stellung o. Ä.) einnehmen, besitzen;
Alan Evangelista
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    When they sound "very similar" - how is the written difference and what do you assume as difference by this? – Shegit Brahm Aug 19 '20 at 13:40
  • @ShegitBrahm I'm not sure what you meant with "the written difference". The three verbs are spelled differently, but that does not tell me anything about their meanings. – Alan Evangelista Aug 19 '20 at 16:05
  • You wrote "Duden definitions seem very similar to me." I expected you compared from https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/innehaben the given meaning "1. (eine bestimmte Position, Stellung o. Ä.) einnehmen, besitzen; bekleiden (2)" and "2. besitzen, über etwas verfügen" in contrast to https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/besitzen with meaning "a) als Besitz haben; sein Eigen nennen" and "b) haben". If you compared only the spelling - well, that is no def. I mean, you want to know the meaning, right? you check the meaning in dictionary, right? So why not explain the problem with found meaning? – Shegit Brahm Aug 19 '20 at 17:44
  • link and quote what you found and describe your problem - that is the usual pattern that I assumed. You did so with your example, you did not with the definitions. – Shegit Brahm Aug 19 '20 at 17:46
  • @ShegitBrahm OK, I understand now, after reading your last comments, that you meant "what are the similar Duden dictionary definitions of these three verbs" when you wrote "how is the written difference". Thanks for clarifying it. – Alan Evangelista Aug 19 '20 at 20:27
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    Regardless that you have already a sufficient answer - can you please include the definition part into the question? Thanks. – Shegit Brahm Aug 19 '20 at 20:43

2 Answers2

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Haben is the broadest term when you talk about having something. Hence, you will find various examples of usage for it. I will only give one:

Ich habe ein neues Auto.
(I have [got] a new car.)

Besitzen emphasizes that you have something at your disposal, i.e., you own or possess something:

Ich besitze zwei Autos.
(I own two cars.)

Innehaben is a higher-register term used when someone holds an office or occupies a good position, for example, at university or government. Used with things other than these, innehaben is considered stilted:

Er hat zurzeit den Chefposten inne.
(He currently holds the chief position.)

Ich habe eine Wohnung inne. (rather stilted)
(I own an appartment/ flat.)

Since it was asked for in the comments, I would also like to address the phrase über etwas verfügen. More than besitzen, it emphasizes your influence and power of disposition over something. I am not sure what the best English equivalent would be or if you would need more words to express the emphasis in English:

Ich verfüge über wichtige Kontakte.
(I have/ dispose of important contacts.)

Björn Friedrich
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    Thanks for the answer! I think you meant "own" instead of "owe" in the description of "besitzen", in the translation of the corresponding example to English and in the last example. In addition, I'd translate "Chefposten" as "chief position". – Alan Evangelista Aug 19 '20 at 16:07
  • @AlanEvangelista, o, of course. I corrected it. Thank you! – Björn Friedrich Aug 19 '20 at 18:20
  • This is an old answer but do you think you can throw in verfugen uber in the answer as well? I was curious about haben/besitzen/verfugen uber. Now I know about besitzen thanks to you :) – ck1987pd Apr 09 '21 at 15:26
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    @C.Koca, done! :-) – Björn Friedrich Apr 09 '21 at 15:48
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Innehaben means to hold or occupy an office and you can see that in your example

Deutschland hat derzeit den EU-Ratvorsitz inne 
Germany holds currently the EU Council presidency

and from this sense, it will also mean to posses sth. (besitzen, über etw. verfügen) physically like saying

Ich habe das Apartment inne
I own the apartment

or figuratively (etw. beherrschen, verstehen etc.) like saying

Ich habe die französische Sprache innegehabt
I mastered the french language

The last two examples appear more in literary writings rather than the colloquial language most of the time you will hear this verb used in the sense of holding an official position. There is a book called Using german synonyms, Martin Durrel the writer classified the verbs according to their usage in literary and colloquial language so R1 means the verb will be used in slang language R2 another verb with the same meaning but will be used in colloquial language R3 another one with also the same meaning but for literary language he even makes subgroups like R3,1 for language used in newspapers and media and R3,2 for language used in novels for example.
So you've to keep that in mind, that many verbs can share the same meaning but will only appear with such meaning in a certain level of speech.

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