The Antiqua–Fraktur dispute was a
typographical
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spac ...
dispute in 19th- and early 20th-century Germany.
In most European countries,
blackletter
Blackletter (sometimes black letter or black-letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule or Gothic type, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for ...
typeface
A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...
s like the German
Fraktur
Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. It is designed such that the beginnings and ends of the individual strokes that make up each letter will be clearly vis ...
were displaced with the creation of the
Antiqua typefaces in the 15th and 16th centuries. However, in Germany and Austria, the two styles of printing coexisted until the first half of the 20th century.
During that time, both styles gained
ideological
An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...
connotations in Germany, which led to long and heated disputes on what was the "correct" typeface to use. The eventual outcome was that the Antiqua-style typefaces prevailed when the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...
chose to put an end to the use of Fraktur in favor of "normal typeface" ().
Origin

Historically, the dispute originates in the differing use of these two typefaces in most intellectual texts. Whereas Fraktur was preferred for works written in German, for
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
texts the Antiqua-style typefaces were normally used. This extended even to English–German dictionaries; the English words would all be written in Antiqua, and the German words in Fraktur. Originally this was simply a convention.
19th century
Conflict over the two typeface styles first came to a head after the occupation of Germany and dissolution of the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...
by
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...
in 1806, which led to a period in the
history of Germany
The concept of Germany as a distinct region in Central Europe can be traced to Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as ''Germania'', thus distinguishing it from Gaul. The victory of the Cherusci, Germanic tribes ...
in which nationalists began to attempt to define cultural values common to all Germans. There was a massive effort to
canon
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western canon, th ...
ize the German national literature—for example, the
Grimm Brothers' collection of
fairy tales
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, household tale, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the Folklore, folklore genre. Such stories typically feature Magic (supernatural), magic, Incantation, e ...
—and to create a unified German
grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...
.
In the context of these debates, the two styles became increasingly polarized: Antiqua typefaces were seen as "un-German", and using them took on connotations of "shallow", "light", and "not serious". In contrast, Fraktur, with its much darker and denser script, was viewed as representing allegedly German virtues such as depth and sobriety.
During the
Romantic Era
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...
, in which the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
were glorified, Fraktur additionally gained the (historically incorrect) interpretation that it represented German
Gothicism
Gothicism or Gothism ( ; ) was an ethno-cultural ideology and cultural movement in Sweden, which took honor in being a Swede, for being purportedly related to the Goths. This was a result of a resolute decades long effort from Swedish writers, ...
. For instance,
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...
's mother advised her son to refrain from using the un-German Antiqua “for God’s sake”.
Otto von Bismarck
Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (; born ''Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck''; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898) was a German statesman and diplomat who oversaw the unification of Germany and served as ...
was a keen supporter of German typefaces. He went so far as to refuse gifts of German books in Antiqua typefaces and returned them to sender with the statement ().
20th century
The dispute between Antiqua and Fraktur continued well into the 20th century. Arguments for Fraktur were not only based on historical and cultural perceptions, but also on the claim that Fraktur was more suited for printing German and other Germanic languages, as their proponents claimed it to be more readable than Antiqua for this purpose.
A 1910 publication by
Adolf Reinecke, , claims the following advantages for using Fraktur as the German script:
* German script is a real reading script: it is more readable, i.e. the word images are clearer, than Latin script.
* German script is more compact in printing, which is an advantage for fast recognition of word images while reading.
* German script is more suitable for expressing German language, as it is more adapted to the characteristics of the German language than the Latin script.
* German script does not cause
nearsightedness
Myopia, also known as near-sightedness and short-sightedness, is an eye condition where light from distant objects focuses in front of, instead of on, the retina. As a result, distant objects appear blurry, while close objects appear normal. ...
and is healthier for the eyes than Latin script.
* German script is still prone to development; Latin script is set in stone.
* German script can be read and understood all over the world, where it is actually often used as ornamental script.
* German script makes it easier for foreigners to understand the German language.
* Latin script will gradually lose its position as international script through the progress of the Anglo-Saxon world (here the author states that "Anglo-Saxons in the UK, the United States and Australia are still 'Germanic' enough to annihilate the Latin-scriptler's dream of a Latin 'world-script).
* The use of Latin script for German language will promote its infestation with foreign words.
* German script does not impede at all the proliferation of German language and German culture in other countries.
On 4 May 1911, a peak in the dispute was reached during a vote in the . The ' ("Association for Antiqua") had submitted a proposition to make Antiqua the official typeface (Fraktur had been the official typeface since the foundation of the
German Empire
The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
) and no longer teach (blackletter
cursive
Cursive (also known as joined-up writing) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionality and m ...
) in the schools. After a long and, in places, very emotional debate, the proposition was narrowly rejected 85–82.
Nazi period
Nazis
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
had a complex and variable relationship with Fraktur.
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
personally disliked it. In fact, as early as 1934 he denounced its continued use in a speech to the :
Nonetheless, Fraktur typefaces were particularly heavily used during the early years of the
Nazi era
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
, when they were initially represented as true German script. In fact, the press was scolded for its frequent use of "Roman characters" under "Jewish influence", and German émigrés were urged to use only "German script". However, Hitler's distaste for Fraktur saw it officially discontinued in 1941 in a ("edict on script") signed by
Martin Bormann
Martin Ludwig Bormann (17 June 1900 – 2 May 1945) was a German Nazi Party official and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, private secretary to Adolf Hitler, and a war criminal. Bormann gained immense power by using his position as Hitler ...
, which asserted that it was falsely called "Gothic" and actually consisted of
Schwabacher
The German language, German word Schwabacher (pronounced ) refers to a specific style of blackletter typefaces which evolved from Gothic Blackletter#Textualis, Textualis (''Textura'') under the influence of Humanist minuscule, Humanist type desi ...
"Jewish letters".
[Facsimile of Bormann's Memorandum (in German)](_blank)
/ref>
One of the motivations seems to have been compatibility with other European languages. The edict mentions publications destined for foreign countries, Antiqua would be more legible to those living in the occupied areas; the impetus for a rapid change in policy probably came from Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief Propaganda in Nazi Germany, propagandist for the Nazi Party, and ...
and his Propaganda Ministry. Readers outside German-speaking countries were largely unfamiliar with Fraktur typefaces. Foreign fonts and machinery could be used for the production of propaganda and other materials in local languages, but not so easily in German as long as the official preference for Fraktur remained.
Bormann's edict of 3 January 1941 at first forbade only the use of blackletter typefaces. A second memorandum banned the use of handwriting, including , which had only been introduced in the 1920s. From the academic year 1941/42 onwards, only the so-called ' ("normal script"), which had hitherto been taught alongside under the name of "Latin script", was allowed to be used and taught. did remain in use until 1945 for some applications such as cloth military insignia badges.
After the Second World War
After the war, the Sütterlin
(, " script") is the last widely used form of , the historical form of German handwriting script that evolved alongside German blackletter (most notably ') typefaces. Graphic artist Ludwig Sütterlin was commissioned by the Prussian Ministry ...
script was once again taught in the schools of some states of Germany
The Federal Republic of Germany is a federation and consists of sixteen partly sovereign ''states''. Of the sixteen states, thirteen are so-called area-states ('Flächenländer'); in these, below the level of the state government, there is a ...
as an additional script, but it could not hold out against the usage of Latin cursive scripts. As a consequence, most Germans find it difficult to decipher their own grandparents' letters, diaries, or certificates.
However, the Fraktur script remains present in everyday life in some pub signs, beer brands and other forms of advertisement, where it is used to convey a certain sense of rusticity and oldness (compare the English '' ye olde''). However, many of these deviate from the traditional letterforms, specifically in the frequent untraditional use of the round ''s'' instead of the long s
The long s, , also known as the medial ''s'' or initial ''s'', is an Archaism, archaic form of the lowercase letter , found mostly in works from the late 8th to early 19th centuries. It replaced one or both of the letters ''s'' in a double-''s ...
(ſ) at the beginning of a syllable, the omission of ligatures, and the use of letter-forms more similar to Antiqua for certain especially hard-to-read Fraktur letters such as ''k''. Books wholly printed in Fraktur are nowadays read mostly for particular interests. Since many people have difficulty understanding blackletter, they may have trouble accessing older editions of classic works in German.
A few organizations such as the ' continue to advocate the use of Fraktur typefaces, highlighting their cultural and historical heritage and their advantages when used for printing Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...
. But these organizations are small, somewhat sectarian, and not particularly well known in Germany.
In the United States, Mexico, and Central America, Old Order Amish
The Amish (, also or ; ; ), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss and Alsatian origins. As they maintain a degree of separation from surrounding populations, and ho ...
, Old Order Mennonite
Old Order Mennonites (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania German: ) form a branch of the Mennonite tradition. Old Order Movement, Old Order are those Mennonite groups of Swiss people, Swiss German and south Germans, German heritage who prac ...
, Old Colony Mennonite, and Hutterite
Hutterites (; ), also called Hutterian Brethren (German: ), are a communal ethnoreligious branch of Anabaptists, who, like the Amish and Mennonites, trace their roots to the Radical Reformation of the early 16th century and have formed intent ...
schools still teach the Kurrent
() is an old form of German-language handwriting based on late medieval cursive writing, also known as ("cursive script"), ("German script"), and ''German cursive''. Over the history of its use into the first part of the 20th century, many ...
handwriting and Fraktur
Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. It is designed such that the beginnings and ends of the individual strokes that make up each letter will be clearly vis ...
script. Many German books printed by Amish and Mennonite printers use the Fraktur script.
References
Sources
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*
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
''Die Nationalsozialisten und die Fraktur''
''Bund für deutsche Schrift und Sprache''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Antiqua-Fraktur Dispute
Typography
Palaeography
German language
Martin Bormann
19th century in Germany
20th century in Germany
German nationalism