Schrifterlass: Hitler's ban of Gothic script in 1941

by jansan • 3 years ago

2 4 3 years ago

jansan2• 3 years ago

QRD: Hitler considered Gothic script as "ungerman". He claimed it consists of "Schwabach Jew letters". Therefore, instead of Fraktur (the common Gorthic font), Antiqua was mandated to be used for official documents, newspapers and magazines (especially those sold abroad or with a non-German audience) and school books.

wrp• 3 years ago

I'm going on what I read many years ago, but as I recall, the story had more to it. In the 1930s, Germany was coming to the end of the Bauhaus period when the NSDAP came into power. The trend in German publishing at the time was toward sans serif typefaces. In fact, a complete works of Goethe had just been published using sans serif. In their general push for traditionalism, the Nazis pressed publishers to go back to Fraktur. Later on in the war, the party became more concerned with reaching an international audience and felt that Fraktur was a hindrance, so they changed their policy on typeface use. I think the reference to "Jew letters" might have been floated in public as a partial justification of the change.

jansan2• 3 years ago

In 1934 Hitler already mocked Gothic script as "backwards oriented" that does not fit into an age of "steel and iron, glass, concreate, of female beauty and masculine strength". It seems there was no consistent attitude towards Gothic script among the nazis.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiqua-Fraktur-Streit#Nationa...

bloak• 3 years ago

I suppose it's to be expected that the order to stop using Gothic script comes on headed writing paper that itself uses Gothic script: the order has to precede the execution.

Schrifterlass: Hitler's ban of Gothic script in 1941

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