On October 17, 1911 German Reichstag building in Berlin, a place which had seen many a loud debate before, was a scene of one of the last chapters in a bitter political fight. Was it a clash between proponents and opponents of a new public insurance system? Was it about curbing the exceeding influence of the wealthy Pommeranian Junkers (noble families with vast land properties and equally vast clout)? Or about the need properly to integrate the Social-Democratic forces in the developing political landscape of the Wilhelminian state?
Hardly so. On that day German Parliament decided to settle an entirely different debate: they cast their votes in what came to be known as the Antiqua-Fraktur-Streit, or the „Antiqua-Blackletter-Feud“. Or about whose types are better and more German. In a nutshell.
Here’s a bit of a background.
Latin alphabet which we use to write and to print in Europe produced two main script families known, roughly speaking, as Blackletter and as Roman script or Antiqua.
The former is also known as Fraktur („the broken script“), although the actual Fraktur is only one of its several types. Like Textura used in the mid-1450s by Gutenberg to publish his first Bible.
Fraktur had not been implemented in print until 1531. Mind you, the blackletter script used both in calligraphy and typefaces evolved from the Gothic minuscule and is often to be found under that name, too.
At the same time, somewhere in the early fifteenth century Florentine humanists began to show vivid preference for a handwritten Roman script referred to as littera antiqua. By contrast, blackletter scripts would be called littera moderna. From Florence littera antiqua would spread all over Italy, and from there - like all good things the land produced and/or popularised - it travelled north.
Interestingly, by the sixteenth century German printers developed an increasing sympathy for antiqua, using it happily for non-vernacular texts. By the end of the century a clear demarcation line had been established: blackletter would be considered to be „Deutscher Schrift“ (German script), while Roman script would be referred to as „Lateinischer Schrift“, or Latin Script. Interestingly, most foreign words introduced into German (foreignisms) would be set in Roman script or antiqua. Until as late as late nineteenth century as historic editions of Berlin newspapers show.
Clearly, the issue of what shape letters should have began to take on bigger and bigger significance as all symbolically loaded items tend to. And, quite predictably for the human kind, one side would always try to convince or force the other to accept the superiority of their view.
In Germany of the late eighteenth century the men (with a tiny exception of women) of letters decided to settle the matter, and decide how everybody should henceforth be writing and printing their works.
In one corner we had the likes of Schlegel and Kant who claimed the blackletter superior and closer to the mysterious entity referred to by some as the „German soul“.
In the opposite corner stood Jacob Grimm (one half of the Brothers Grimm fairytale tandem, who with his sibling, Wilhelm, created the legendary compilation of German fairytales). He wasn’t alone there: his view was shared by the poet and publisher Christoph Martin Wieland, as well as by the great physician and author, Christoph Hufeland. They believed that Roman script should be implemented in print. Antiqua was easier on the eye and more universal as Fraktur.
The blackletter underwent some adjustments, too. New types such as Campe, Breitkopf or Unger aimed to make it more elegant and more accessible.
However, the question which was better - Fraktur or Antiqua - was still (and perhaps wisely so) without an answer. But in German schools it was the Fraktur that took the upper hand.
The typeface conflict erupted again in 1881 after Prussian entrepreneur and inventor, Alfred Soennecken, called for a reform. Antiqua should be taught and used in German schools as well.
In 1885 Soennecken, who was an office supplies manufacturer from Bonn, helped set up “Verein für Altschrift” (Altschrift = antiqua).
His was, by the way, a world-famous brand: Friedrich Soennecken invented a double-hole puncher and a broad pen nib (for which I am forever indebted). Here is a section of the stationary products and office supplies shop F. Soennecken in Mohrenstraße 58/59 in Berlin (image by M. Höhling, 1928).
Long story short, two camps got up in the arms, running for their respective Fraktur or Antiqua embellished flags, and the Fraktur-Antiqua-Streit erupted even more fiercely than before. One felt that everybody had to get involved - perhaps unsurprisingly considering the topic, everyone had something to say in this matter. Needless to say, Otto von Bismarck was Team Fraktur.
And like all emotionally-loaded political debates, it went on without a concluding point.
Until 1911 when on May the 4th the Antiqua-Fraktur feud was to take its first hurdle: be debated by the Reichstag. Unfortunately, after a particularly vicious nationalist and faux-patriotic campaign of Fraktur proponents (no other type for real Germans than Fraktur! Antiqua killed the Runnen-Spirit in German script! Round is „welsch“ (non-German“!), after a vote of 85:82 on whether the Reichstag should even debate the issue, the Soennecken petition was removed from the schedule.
However, the Reichstag had no quorum.
So on October 17, 1911 German Parliament eventually did vote on the issue. The winners - 75% of all present MPs - were blackletter fans.
Minutes of that Reichstag debate, again quite unsurprisingly, were printed and published in Fraktur.
In 1941 Fraktur would be thrown out of the window again. By, ironically, the Führer-in-Chief - the man whose curiously ignorant fans today seem to be especially fond of the blackletter type for decorating their T-shirts with cryptic, pseudo-patriotic paroles. But that, of course, is another story - a story to be told on its own soon.
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I always suspected Sütterin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sütterlin was an elaborate practical joke, alone the lines of the Voynich Manuscript it closely resembles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript .
My first thought when I see old commercial signage using it is that the interior is guaranteed to have nicotine-stained walls, flourescent lighting, and those awful padded bench-and-table sets built into the corners.
Fraktur is not easy on the eyes, but Suetterin gives me a headache.