http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature.php?id=98&fid=485

http://tinyurl.com/yafsph (book)

http://www.svettisku.cz/buxus/generate_page.php?page_id=1014

http://www.moorstation.org/typoasis/blackletter/index.htm

http://typophile.com/node/20252

Maybe that some people today associate blackletters with Nazism and violance. And your essay seams to insist there is a relationship "essay on the connection between blackletter and violent and extreme subcultures"

But there is'nt one.
Its not the fonts' guilty but the people ones.
Their associations are wrong. Why don't you write an "essay on wrong associations between blackletters and Nazism/violance."?

Herewith I send you a Fruehling (spring) from Rudolf Koch out of 1917. Very dramatic, mh? Shortly before the World War I ended. A real sign of the "Hunnen" :-)

Georg

www.bleisetzer.de

This is one of the latest contributions to this debate:

http://www.fontblog.de/fraktur-ist-auch-eine-nazi-schrift

"Fraktur is (also) a Nazi typeface"

Unfortunately only in German, though. You may try babelfish.

To Alessandro: Thank you for your feedback. I had actually already ordered the book from Amazon, so I hope that will be helpful for my essay. And the previous discussion here at typophile has also been helpful. No to mention the Eye article which seems to be very in tune with what I am trying to say. They often are…

And to Bleisetzer: I hope I have not offended you. I am as fond of blackletter as you seem to be. I am aware of the history of this style, at least to some degree, and that there is no relationship between the origins of blackletter and violence. But most people will not have that knowledge about the history of typography. As you point out I will need to explain why, and if, there is a conection between the two.

In my opinion it all comes down to the thing that is so frustrating and intriguing about type-design. That you are seldom able to control or predict what the type will be used for, and so the meaning of it evolves and changes through time. As it is pointed out in said Eye article.

Oh, and thank you Tim. Although I will need to dig up my Norwegian - German dictionary :-)

@ Thord

Oh no, I am not offended, why should I?

What I see again and again in discussions like the one Tim Ahrens postet:
http://www.fontblog.de/fraktur-ist-auch-eine-nazi-schrift

is that lots of the typography professionals in Germany (its a german forum discussion, what Tim listed above) are not familiar with their own history.

Example:
Just the start of the discussion shows two pictures:
Picture two (right side) is showing a poster for a 1. Mai "meeting". Its from 1938, when the Nazi government was established since 5 years. So it was not a 1. Mai demonstration of the workers, it was a Nazi demonstration and to go there was a duty.

The left picture has nothing to do with the Nazi. "Luftschutz" means proctection against air attack. These organisations were organized in all european nations since approx. 1923. Of course there was a german army "Reichswehr" before 1933. But this was not a Nazi organisation.

And of course the font for the word "Luftschutz" was a blackletter. Because this was the common font in the 20ies. I am sure no one of the discussion members know these details. But its typical. Exactly in this way the bridge from blackletter fonts to Nazism was built.

Blackletters in Germany were used since 16th century - 400 years. But only 12 years from 1933 up to 1945 the Nazi dictatur was present.

Georg

www.bleisetzer.de

The Nazis ruined everything. Jerks.

So what?

To agree with "Blackletter is Nazi stuff" means to let these fonts (and our freedom to use it) exactly these Nazis. Can this make sense? Why should we give up and let them occupy important and wonderful parts of our culture?

Take these fonts and use them for your designs, if possible.
This means to fight 'em.

Georg

www.bleisetzer.de

I understand exactly what you saying Georg. Much of the associations to Nazism may be based on misunderstandings. But it does not change the fact that this association is common among many people.

In Norway, and I suppose other countries as well, people associate it with Satanism. Largely due to the fact that Norwegian black metal bands have used it on their cover art. This is somewhat peculiar, when you consider the origins of blackletter, and its use in bibles and such.

>But there is’nt one.
>Its not the fonts’ guilty but the people ones.

Of course, the typeface is not 'guilty' or innocent for that matter. But the reality is that typefaces have emotional associations, deserved or not. In the US there are a number of associations of blackletter, one of them being with the Nazi party.

1. Church uses. Here there is no association with violence.

2. Newspaper Nameplates. Again no association.

3. Beer names. Here the association is with Germany, but not with the Nazi party.

4. Nazi party. Since, as Tim's link explains, the Nazis identified Fraktur in particular as the 'true German script' and used it in their propaganda until 1941--and post-war Germany largely abandoned black letter--this is one association.

5. Heavy metal bands. Here perhaps starting with the AC/DC logo heavy metal bands have used blackletter. This music tends to be angry or despairing, so there may be some emotional link with Naziism. Not with the AC/DC logo itself, I should note. However, a sub-genre of heavy metal are the 'skinhead' or neo-Nazi bands, so there is an association with both Naziism and violence here.

I'm sure there are other associations as well, but these are the first that come to mind.

To expand on Alessandro Segalini's recommendation of Paul Shaw and Peter Bain's book, the American Printing History Association (APHA) devoted a double issue of their Printing History journal (38/39) to all the information that was actually used in the exhibition, showing the various blackletter examples. It's a good companion.

http://www.printinghistory.org

I haven't personally researched the topic, but a very erudite designer I know who has worked for the music industry for decades told me that blackletter came back because it was just something people hadn't seen for a long time outside of it's traditional contexts. So when huge tattoos, graffiti images, etc. written in blackletter started popping up, they really stood out and became trendy.

Dear Bleisetzer,
Please tell me how a poster published by the Reichsluftschutzbund which was part of Hermann Göring's Reichsluftfahrtministerium can have „nothing to do with Nazis“ and not be a Nazi organization.
The Reichsluftschutzbund was just one organization being part of the whole Nazi machinery (among lots of other organizations) to prepare Germany for World War II and hammer Nazi ideology in people's brains.

Dear Bleisetzer,
i forgot to add that i completely understand your argument and where you're coming from in regards of usage of fraktur today (Although my personal opinion is different). But I think you're factually wrong regarding the Luftschutz poster only.

Dear Franz Heidl,
yes, I understand what you mean.
Of course I accept your opinion as you do with mine.

"Luftschutz":
I did not say that this organisation had nothing to do with the Nazi party. Of course they had from 1933, because all organisations were overtaken by them.

What I said is:
After World War I, which ended 1918, it was forbidden for Germany to have an army with more than 100,000 men. They were not allowed to build up an air force. The so called "Reichswehr" re-organized the army in a more or less tricky way. It was and it is no question that a nation is allowed to have an army? So Germany had one after 1918. And one part of it was an organisation for flight bomb attacks. This was organized long before Hermann Göring became Flight Marshall in 1933. And long before Germany spend more and more for arming up.

Back to the picture we speak about:
Every german soldier after 1933 was wearing a Nazi symbol from any organisation. This is exakt what is ment by "overtaking" (or, in german: Gleichschaltung). This soldier on the poster does not. His helmet is a model M 18:

From 1933 it was a model M 35:

----- This was too much with the pictures. Its easy to find it by Google. ------------

I know it is difficult, but this are the facts.
It shows how easy it is to think in cliches - for everyone, including myself.
Georg

www.bleisetzer.de

Dude, where's my archives?

hhp

Oh dear. This turned into a discussion about Nazism. I suppose its still a touchy subject. “Don’t mention the war” as John Cleese once urged.

And to jpad: I think you’re right, many fashions seem to come in cycles. But I think there will always be a reason why some things come back and some things don’t. And in that respect I think that some of the allure of blackletter might be taboos associated with it. The whole blackletter revival of the recent years has been closely connected to youth culture. And youth culture often adopts taboos to appear more “edgy”.

Speaking of which:
http://typophile.com/node/28921

hhp

Well, Thord, you were the one who spoke about a "connection between blackletter and Nazism", remember your first entry?

But hrant may be right: Let's better talk about hyphen:
http://typophile.com/node/28902

Georg

www.bleisetzer.de

Was reading Typology buy Louis Fili and they have a bit about German Expressionism (Die Brucke in 1905 and Der Blaue Reiter in 1911).

And that "Expressionists found a graphic means to communicate their raw emotions." Maybe their use of blackletter with violent or political means helped develop the association?

Also, "The Postwar Expressionists introduced rigid wood-cut lettering that gave the style its force. The letters grew out of the unforgiving wood medium."

I once heard it explained that, in the case of American gang culture, is that blackletter type has immediate associations of respect and authority. It's what they saw on newspaper mastheads, birth certficates, diplomas, and other official documents, bibles, and so forth, and therefore were adopted for those associations.

I'll have to dig up a reference on that , but that's the gist of it. I don't think any thought was given to Nazi, or even generally Eurpoean connections.

Thanks. That sounds like a very plausible explaination.

>very plausible explaination

But wrong. Gangs are violent, and seek power through violence. The Nazi association is definitely there.

I am not saying that black letter *should* be associated with the Nazis. It is quite unfortunate. Also as I said many contexts seem to have escaped the association--church, newspaper nameplates, diplomas, beer, etc.

Still the association is there, and those who are drawn to power through violence do often use black letter to express their ideal of domination through brutality. I am saddened by the association. But it's a reality.

Of course american members understand more about american gang culture I do as a german.
But as a fact: In Germany blackletters are not used by the youth gangs. They use fantasy fonts like in graffities. Hiphop musicians sometimes use blackletters, but not violance orientated gangs.

What we have are motorcycle groups, just from their outfit close to the american Hell's Angels. They use blackletters, too.

May be this combination of blackletters and violance is only found in the street gangs in the US? Could it be that they do not look for german blackletters, but for anglo-american ones?

A kind of natural combination of violance and blackletters, I do not believe that.

Tell me: Is this in your eyes close to violance?
In my eyes its historical:

And this is a joke. Once a week I am making internet radio:

Georg

www.bleisetzer.de

The whole blackletter revival of the recent years has been closely connected to youth culture. And youth culture often adopts taboos to appear more “edgy”.

I've always thought that it was more likely that most younger people simply don't know about the Nazi-era association of Blackletter, and with many of the Americans who remember it retired or dead, there aren't a lot of people around to keep it taboo, and that this is why Blackletter moved from underground culture into the mainstream,. I'm think that twenty years ago B'nai Brith would have had a field day with a lot of the fraktur use we're seeing in mainstream advertising right now.

>I’m think that twenty years ago B’nai Brith would have had a field day with a lot of the fraktur use we’re seeing in mainstream advertising right now.

What you are talking about? So far as I know no Jewish organization has ever criticized blackletter. It is the neo-nazis etc who keep using it and who keep up the unfortunate association.

I am trying to figure out what xactly an X-treme culture just might be... Are the Amish an eXtreme culture?

The Roman Empire was warmongering, imperialistic and violent. Do we get violence from looking at Trajan?

And now for a heavy metal interlude...

One of my favorite bands uses Fraktur for its logo. Blackletter is synonymous with "bad a$$." I love Blackletter, but I think as Bill pointed out there are other associations as well. Linotext and lighter weight blackletter faces are more closely associated with Christianity and "the church," at least to me they are.

Everytime I see blackletter I have an irresistible urge to invade Poland.

And on the heavy metal note, I'd like the wiki de-disinformationed. As been around metal for quite a LONG time now. I've probably seen a total of 3 or 4 bands with blackletter in their title. Is it Spinal Tap that makes everyone think that? Do a survey. Sharp spikey metal roman letters are the norm.

Thord, I think it's very difficult to generalize, and that each instance of "type specification" has its own multiplex cultural determinants, the combination of which is often quite whimsical and serendipitous. For instance, consider this:

Blackletter newspaper nameplates originated with the 1712 introduction of newspaper taxes in Britain, when the sudden increase in paper costs forced publishers to economize on the amount of space alloted to the title line, minimizing its type size and choosing the darkest type then available, which was blackletter. (John E . Allen, Newspaper Designing, Harper, 1947).

Quite by coincidence, when newspapers became a mass phenomenon around 1900 (due to various factors, notably the Linotype), the trendy style in typography was Kelmscott-inspired (William Morris) mediaevalist Arts and Crafts. Many papers which had Roman mastheads switched to Blackletter at that time, for instance the Birmingham News (Alabama), and have stuck with it to this day.

Nick, I think you’re right. I am starting to understand that my theme may be more complex than I had initially thought.

The university course I am taking is called visual rhetorics, and it deals mainly with pictures. Most of my fellow students are not that familiar with typography and the idea that a typeface communicates was quite new to them. This is partly why I chose this theme. When I presented samples of Fette Fraktur they all had different connotations to the style, and they had strong opinions about its use. I suspect that I would not have gotten the same reactions had I shown them a sample of for instance “Trajan capitals”, as Solipsism pointed out. Their interpretations may be based on prejudice and ignorance, but it is still the way they perceived it, and I suspect that many other perceive it in the same way. It seems like blackletter types have stronger emotional connotations than most.

As many of you have pointed out, there are a number of examples were the use of blackletter has nothing to do with violent or aggressive subcultures. But many of them seem to connect to a well-established custom. Beer labels, newspapers, churches and so on.

NAZI!

What you are talking about? So far as I know no Jewish organization has ever criticized blackletter. It is the neo-nazis etc who keep using it and who keep up the unfortunate association.

I'm under the impression that until recently people had avoided using blackletter under the assumption that the Nazi associations would offend, and that as more of the generation that directly remembered Nazism have died or retired from design jobs, it became acceptable to use blackletter again. Which is why I think that twenty years ago, when more people still remembered the association, it would have gotten the attention of anti-Nazi groups.

NAZI!

Does it ever seem odd to anyone else that VW uses type developed by a guy that the Nazis persecuted?

ahh they also persecuted the bauhaus! That's a definite benefite methinks. Although i wouldn't shrug blackletter because of i'ts association.

At least I thought they were associated. Maybe someone will post the post from the German student asking about new ways to use blackletter to help rid it of the connotations?

Best first step: set a book about Yiddish in blackletter.

hhp

Ignorant of the history of the face as a youth, I never missed the relation between lowercased blackletter and insuated violence. I think pointed bottoms are intentionally exploited to that end.

The same could be said of select grunge, theme or abstract fonts, or any where strong downward points will appear in some of the fonts. Curves, swirls and softly rounded edges appear peaceful, while barbed, jagged and pointy don't. In the relatively minor section of metal bands that do use blackletter in logos, they always pick the sharpest ones, like the hatebreed example up above.

When I was designing and naming !The Black Bloc, I was specifically looking to create a softer, or more ambigous version of blackletter, to challenge its datedness and screw with its violent reputation.

Turns out, it's been popular with 'tough girls'. Guess I didn't go far enough.~

On gangs, Cuttlefish nailed it. In America, today's youth are pretty far removed from the Nazi-era fashion (& not too apt to study type history. But the observation of the "officialness" of ornate blackletter caps has lent them a sense of melodrama that gangs, and other melodramatic teens/young adults enjoy.

I've observed tattooist and patrons mixing blackletter caps with latin lowercase, immediately after some newspapers began doing the same thing in the 1990's. And in those body-mod circles, it is referred to nearly exclusively as "Old English", even if it pulled directly from a German source.

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
The Snark

Hi Thord,
you say you're writing on blackletter and extreme cultures. There are some cultures which haven't been mentioned in this discussion, and those are the hardcore/vegan and skateboard/snowboard subcultures. Blackletter is widely used in these cultures, even though they're not "violence based" like satanism and nazism. Maybe these cultures sre drawing on the widespread association between violence and blackletter to communicate a somewhat aggressive or "dangerous" image. For some examples of violent aesthetics in the hardcore music scene, take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardcore_dancing . You'll find links to some hilarious dance clips here.

vennlig hilsen alex

Please disabuse me, I am not knowledgeable about gang culture in America, does the extensive use of blackletter in Mexico have any bearing on its use among hispanic gangs?

http://typophile.com/node/17496?from=50&comments_per_page=50

btw came across this
http://www.countrybookshop.co.uk/books/index.phtml?whatfor=0977282783

Tim

The title of Thord's threat is
"What is the connection between..."
and not
"Is there a connection between..."

This makes an open discussion difficult, does'nt it?
May be the job is to find hints and facts for the violence, he needs, and that's it.

Georg

www.bleisetzer.de

Georg,

I would say there is a connection. Like it or not, a lot of people who have little knowledge on the history of type and/or aren't german (which happens to be a substantial part of the world's population) associate blackletter/old english/schwabacher or whatever name they pick with «das dritte reich», violence, extremism of different kinds and so on. So the question is "why?". I mean, could Frankfurter ever be the typeface of choice for an aspiring dictator?

alex

Alex,
do you know the earth is a flat plate?
Look out of the window and you'll see it.

Some guys tell us this is'nt so? How silly they are.
"Like it or not, a lot of people who have little knowledge on the geographic of the earth associate mother earth with «a flat plate»."

So we should accept this and just try to find facts to take care not to go to close to this plate's end. Because we could fall into the big nothing.

I prefer facts. And if the mass of people think in a wrong way there is no reason for me to give up my way of thinking.

Best regards,
Georg

www.bleisetzer.de

Takk for tipset Alex. Thank you all for good suggestions.
Many of you have remarked that the Nazi-era associations have died out with the people who experienced WW2. I am not sure that I agree.
The war may be long gone but its presence in popular culture is still strong, through countless movies, computer games, books, comics, TV-series and endless documentaries. Thus people are subjected to the symbols of this era all the time, and although the taboo of these may be fading, the knowledge is still present. If anything I suppose one could argue that the associations to the Third Reich has been affirmed by the use of it in popular culture.
This does not mean that I see a connection between this and its use in gang culture. I too have far too little knowledge about American gang culture. And the extensive use of blackletter in Mexico seems like a very interesting and plausible connection.

Hypothesizing a little further spanish speaking gangs in LA may have adopted a style familiar to their environment and some other sub-cultures (like skateboarders, rappers) picked up from them associating the style with being outside the mainstream.
However the use of blackletter in heavy metal and particularly skinhead cultures may have come from mistaken associations with Nazism. It seems pointless to deny that there are associations, whether they are correct or incorrect, Georg is doing a good job of defending blackletter, however for the majority of visitors to this forum he is preaching to the converted (or those that never needed to be converted).

Tim

"And the extensive use of blackletter in Mexico seems like a very interesting and plausible connection."

Maximilian von Habsburg, Kaiser von Mexiko

He ruled Mexiko for some years in the 1860ies.
He was from Austria, a brother of Kaiser Franz Josef.

May be he brought these blackletters with him, full of violance.
By the way: France supported him with money and soldiers.
And the United States of America followed their Monroe doktrin and forced all french troops to leave the country.

They (the americans) brought lots of new blackletters to Mexiko, each of it full of aggressive power. This mixture - austrian/german and north american blackletter influence may be the reason the mexican street gangs are so aggressive.

Soon, in 2008 (if the Chinese do not give a veto) all blackletters in Mexico will be changed to flower-power fonts. Unicef said there will be a toll free exchange for all the sprayers of the gangs. They all geht orange, light blue and pink colours.

Life can be so easy following the rules of the masses :-)

Georg
(This was a joke. May be not a good one for everybode but I like it).

www.bleisetzer.de

Georg,
of course, that the average joe thinks that blackletter=nazi doesn't mean he's right. But it's still interesting why he thinks so.

allet jute aus oslo

alex

Along with jpad and others I believe this is where the association became to be. What was old is now new, and thus the world turns.

Just think of it as anti-modernism if that makes any sense...

I've always assumed that the connection between gangs and blackletter stemmed from US motorcycle gangs post World War 2 who took on various military themes and insignia: iron cross, swastika, "pickelhaube" spiked helmets, the term "Hells's Angels" from the Howard Hughes film.

> This makes an open discussion difficult, does’nt it?

Depends on you. Historically, Typophile thread titles have had little bearing on the actual aggregate contents of threads. :-)

hhp

Here's what I know about the association between blackletter and Nazis in the US. Prior to WW2 blackletter was used regularly in specific contexts: newspaper nameplates, headings for church documents, headings in diplomas, beer names and anything trying to appear 'olde English' or German.

These connections remained after WWII, but for most people the additional Nazi connection was added. This is because outside these very specific traditional contexts blackletter was rare. And so the films from and about the Nazi era were the main place Americans saw blackletter, particularly used as text. Hence the new connection.

Those who knew German--such as refugees, Jewish and non-Jewish--were of course aware that blackletter was far more general and historical. Hence Jewish organizations knew better than to have any bias against blackletter as a special Nazi invention.

As to inherent feel, I don't think blackletter is inherently agressive. It depends on how it is treated. Terminals can be made dagger-like, but so can roman fonts.

I would be interested in the story of why within Germany itself they avoided blackletter after WWII. Was there any association by Germans of fraktur with the Nazi era? Was it a product of the occupation by the Allies? Was it an extension of the Nazi ban on blackletter? A combination?

> Those who knew German—such as refugees, Jewish and non-Jewish—were
> of course aware that blackletter was far more general and historical.
> Hence Jewish organizations knew better than to have any bias against
> blackletter as a special Nazi invention.

There are two flaws in this:
1) It assumes all Jews are really into WWII-era German typography.
2) You can know something and still pretend not to.

The important thing about blackletter is that it's not just a fringe/grunge tool.
The US mainstream uses it to demonize things it considers the enemy:

What remains is to identify/admit who plays what role in driving the US mainstream. And if you're basing your views on official press releases, you can't get there from here.

(Of course now it's time for some textbook Anglo "Yeah, it's all a big conspiracy, ha ha ha!" escapist sarcasm. As if people with power have ever needed to conspire anything instead of simply going ahead with their obvious plans.)

hhp

>I would be interested in the story of why within Germany itself they avoided blackletter after WWII.

Blackletter isn't too easy to read, that would be a reason to abandon it in schoolbooks.

I have been told that the nazi regime abandoned black-letter (they called it schwabacher, i think) during the war, when they discovered it had jewish roots or so. If this is true, it would be interesting to know how the regime explained such a "mistake". Do you have any info on that, Georg?

Thord: Sorry to lead your thread even more astray :-)

alex

Dammit where's my archives dammit!! :-/
All this is in there, so we shouldn't have to re-correct people all the time!

BTW, blackletter is MORE readable.

hhp

No problem Alex. What you are talking of is the mentioned “Bormann Decree”. I also found a quote that might cast some light on your question about why it was abandoned.Although I suspect not everyone here will agree with the statements:

"The Nazi resurrection of Fraktur type offers another historically important example of ideology in typography. Fraktur, a typeface initially prized by the Nazis for its "German-ness," symbolized a totalitarian politics that valued style over content. Not surprisingly, once early victories "encouraged them to look beyond Germany's borders, the Nazis, quickly recognized the usefulness of a plainer, more 'European' style, banned Fraktur on 3 January 1941 as a 'Jewish invention."
Surrogate multiplicities: Typography in the age of invisibility
Visible Language, 2001 by Salen, Katie

Thord

"I would be interested in the story of why within Germany itself they avoided blackletter after WWII. Was there any association by Germans of fraktur with the Nazi era? Was it a product of the occupation by the Allies? Was it an extension of the Nazi ban on blackletter? A combination?"

One thing before:
There was a strikt order from Deutsche Wehrmacht for signs and posters in all occupied east european countries, Poland, Russia, to use only Antiqua or Grotesk fonts. The reason was: The people in these countries could not read "Fraktur"-Fonts (Blackletter). So it made no sense to hang up posters in blackletter.

After World War II.. its is difficult to explain for me, as a german, to you guys. I'll try to be honest and do not want to offend anyone, okay?

The "normal" german was lucky to survive the war. That's all. Everything was "kaputt" and everyone was missing husband or wife, children, brother or whomever. Lots of their beloved were dead. Winter '46 and '47 were very hard and most of the houses in the cities were bombed. The people wanted to eat, to sleep and to find their families. Nobody was interested in fonts.

I can only speak for the people in West Germany, I guess in East Germany it was worse. From end of the 40ies it became better. And the Allies in each zone of Germany set the standard: Music, newspapers, culture, and fonts. 12 years nobody was allowed to have his own suggestions. Now they believed in becoming freedom and a better life. Yes, I am sure that - for a while - the germans worked out a kind of mimikry "Let's look to the americans/english soldiers to know what is good music, fashion and culture."

The use of blackletter was old fashion. That's why it was not used anymore. But that's all. I do not think anyone in Germany thought blackletters are Nazi stuff. It was as old as "Deutsche Gemutlichkeit" (you know that "typical german having fun? argghh..)

Okay, I did my very best. Hang me.

Georg

www.bleisetzer.de

>when they discovered it had jewish roots or so.

No, the story has been related here before. As I remember the story, at some point the Nazis realized to administer their conquered territories they had to use roman, which was also the only thing available in local printing plants. So they made the ridiculous 'discovery' that blackletter was Jewish. This was just one of the piles of Nazi lies. Except for the original Roman caps, all the latin letter forms in the 15th century, when printing came in,had been of course developed by Christian scribes.

Here's a link to the 'Bormann Decree', which rejected blackletter.

> This was just one of the piles of Nazi lies.

Now they're gone, but new liars have replaced them,
and with similar lies, just more expertly crafted.

hhp

>The US mainstream uses it to demonize things it considers the enemy

Exactly why a youth culture would choose it.

>iron cross, swastika, “pickelhaube” spiked helmets, the term “Hells’s Angels” from the Howard Hughes film.

But not blackletter, preferring a tuscan style although the Nazi association exists of course those are also the things that a youth might choose to upset "the man" rather than any admiration or sympathy for Nazism, rather like Sid Vicious in 1977.

Tim

Interesting article that mentions the connection between blackletter and graffiti:

http://www.pingmag.jp/2006/10/19/bright-lights-big-city-los-angeles-graf...

"My interest is in its general use as a style associated with danger and violence."

...and newspaper logotypes, among other things. The fact that some these places are now and forever, echoes of previous uses for anti-humanist purposes is still, echoes and all, just one small branch of its use. It is our most primal form of type and as such, it is a "can't miss" font when you think about attraction of attention in the many places it is used.

It's all about volume (as in intensity), and how you play off that volume. The cultures and subcultures that use this aesthetic theme are making a loud and proud declaration. Some of it that I've seen, is pretty damn sexy stuff.

And kudos to those artists that are doing (and have done) kick ass work - whether it be for the nazi party or a snoope dogg birthday party.

Hiro

another thing, thord: you're writing on blackletter+extremism, i.e. rebellion and typography. maybe it would be interesting to mention or consider graffiti as youth rebellion through calligraphy, regardless of the aesthetic similarities between graffiti and blackletter. A band like Hatebreed communicates by choosing type, but a graffiti writer communicates by performing type.

god helg!

alex

That might be a good idea. What you mention about rebellion also has another dimension to it that has not been mentioned explicitly in this forum.
The nature of the modern use of blackletter in these instances; motorcycle gangs, black metal, American gangs and even neo nazis are quite different from its use in pre-war Germany, when the use was part of a national and government agenda. In other words; today it is used to upset “the man” as timd put it, whereas “the man” represented the use in that era.

"...today it is used to upset “the man” as timd put it, whereas “the man” represented the use in that era."

These pics are one week old from Vienna, Austria.
I think the shop which uses the gothik font (or the "bad Nazi Stiefelknecht-Fraktur font" how someone said in this thread) is a young fashioned hairdresser. I do not know it, but it could be "Chadim" is a jewish name? However, not so important, but would be another argument against your theory against blackletters. I do not believe jewish people would use blackletters if there is any relationship to Nazism.

I saw no Hell's Angel walking around, only the two young employees, astonished why I was making pictures. But laughing, when I told them the reason was their window with the gothic font. They heard Haydn - classic music. I could not see any HipHoppers or Grunge or Mexican street gang members anywhere around.

Can it be its the "cultural remembering" is different seeing blackletters from country to country?

Georg

>Can it be its the “cultural remembering” is different seeing blackletters from country to country?

I would expect this to be true, but I don't know; that's why I was asking about the story within Germany. There has to be more to the story than what you related above.

>it could be “Chadim” is a jewish name?

I don't know--the name seems to come from Bohemia. All Jews in Vienna were dispossessed of all their property in 1938-39 and almost all either left the country or were murdered--in Dachau or elsewhere. So if the shop owner is Jewish it couldn't actually have been continously 'in family possession since 1905'.

Georg, sorry, I can't leave you alone here: you're in denial.
Maybe travel would help.

William, you can't say "all". Also: maybe they weren't Jewish -in terms of religion- for the whole duration. Just like some Armenians converted to Islam to avoid being murdered by the Turks. Anyway, the bottom line is: you can't be so sure.

hhp

@ hrant

Is it possible to explain in more easy words what it means.
I cannot understand it:
"Georg, sorry, I can’t leave you alone here: you’re in denial.
Maybe travel would help."

Georg

www.bleisetzer.de

There is a jewish community in Vienna again, we visited the Jewish Museum and I spoke with a Zionis lady in the bookshop nearby. Some of the jewish came back to Vienna after 1945. Some of them might have continued their old business again. But, how I wrote, this was not the major point. Its one of the fonts some of the members here called "Nazi fonts". A Group Xa - Gothic font.

Georg

And kudos to those artists that are doing (and have done) kick --- work - whether it be for the nazi party or a snoope dogg birthday party.

You've got that the wrong way round.
Kudos belongs to those artists who decline to let the end (doing kickarse work) justify the means (being bankrolled by fascists and chauvinists).

Thanks for that, Nick.

hhp

Hrant, you are misinformed. Study and learn.

A recent newspaper account:

"According to historical records, of the roughly 200,000 Jews living in Austria before the country was annexed by the Nazis in 1938, some 65,000 perished in the Holocaust, mostly in Nazi concentration camps. Most of the rest were forced to leave or fled to escape certain death.

At the end of the war, only about 1,000 Jews had survived.

Jewish homes and properties were systematically looted by the authorities, Nazi party factions and private citizens..."

From other sources: By German laws (Austria had become part of 'Greater Germany') all Jews were dispossessed of retail business (such as the one pictured), manufacturing business and professional licenses, such as doctor and lawyer. Adolph Eichmann was in charge of the persecution in Austria, and his actions were taken as a model for persecution elsewhere.

Finally, Jewishness was not defined by the Nazis by religion, but by ancestry.

A fine press release.

My complaint is simply with your absolutism. I guess you can't see that you can't be sure that not a single Jewish business survived in Austria - that's a sign of fascism itself. Luckily the Nazi system, being made up of humans, wasn't a perfect machine - in fact it was less "efficient" than some other systems are today...

Study and learn... balanced, objective thought.

hhp

>Finally, Jewishness was not defined by the Nazis by religion, but by ancestry.

I'm guessing there weren't too many converts in Europe during the thousand year reich? I wonder how they "defined" gypsies, communists, mentally disabled and the others victimised at the time?

Any way back on subject - from our local "Bavarian" town...

wow thats funny. whats the explination to the sign?

>I’m guessing there weren’t too many converts in Europe during the thousand year reich?

Not so good a guess--I mean if you are talking about the already converted, who were persecuted.

The German and Austrian Jewish community was the most assimilated in the world at the time, I believe. Vienna in particular was a magnet for converted Jews. For example, the parents of my own teacher, the late Karl Popper, were Jews who converted to Christianity. And he was one of those who had to flee Vienna. That he was nominally Christian made no difference to the Nazis. According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, the Jewish community of Vienna in 1938 said that Austria had about 180,000 Jews, 90% in Vienna. Himmler's lists had 220,000 people targeted as Jews for persecution. In other words the numbers of converts and those of mixed descent numbered an additional 20% over the number of religiously identified Jews.

More press releases.
Then they wonder why the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

hhp

>wow thats funny. whats the explination to the sign?

It's a real Starbucks in a fake Bavarian town in WA state...
http://www.leavenworth.org/

All the shop signs have to conform to local font rules :-) Here's a fun one...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/akey333/69265825/

Our motel room was directly above the Starbucks - not much fun the staff arrived pretty early.

Although it sounds cheesy (and the gift shops are) the food is pretty authentic - we had some great schnitzel in an underground restaurant with imported German beer and a real German accordion player... here's a linkie if you're ever in the area... http://www.andreaskellerrestaurant.com/

Complaints of absolutism are irrelevant and simplistly ill-tempered. It also doesn't matter if William was grossly oversimplifying things. It is wiser to err in descriptions of WW2 on the side of horrorific, until it makes one externalize it. There were enough witness; "a good number" of the Jewish were persecuted, and their businesses were confiscated and destroyed. Existential doubts of existence beyond one's mind aside, arguing with that pretty much suggest a need for new medicine. Regardless, business prospects were poor for known Jews. If the name 'Chadim' was indeed obviously Jewish, it woulda gotten "some quantity" of grief. Of course, what we don't know is if:

It's been around since 1905, minus the war years
Same business, with a revised name sometime post-war
It was temporarily called Moe's Tavern for a tense era in the 40's
It was one of the few that somehow, through an odd quirck of fate, survived and stayed open, openly Jewish-owned

or, and this is why the parts you nit-picked are void,

Maybe it isn't a Jewish surname. Of course, no one found the answer, so what difference do attacks on that sub-thread make? And we can't presume an answer, for if it was indeed a Jewish surname, it would have likely have been trashed, but then, if it survived that, they would be very likely to subtlely advertise that today. The odds weigh against each other.

Okay, sorry everyone for taking the childish trollbait. I'm done.

Back to the topic at hand. I'd have to say that if there was a Nazification of Blackletter, it all happened so fast that that there certainly had to betons of Germans, including Jews that had been using it since the 19th century's end. Fonts were enduring, governments were not. What would they care if another government used the same font the last few had? If America were to change governments twice in our lives, then be taken over by an oppressive extremist party, and they started their regime endorsing Times New Roman (before dropping it), would that mean anything at all to even a typographer, or would there possibly be more pressing issues?

I would love to hear more about Thord's 3rd conjecture, regarding legibility, and clique adoption. It puts Blackletter forward as a sort of slang or jargon for creating exclusivity. Are there parallel examples with other faces?

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
The Snark

Absolutism is not something to glossed over - it a sign of disease. Of fascism.
And sadly it is common among fervently religious people.

But anyway, I'm sorry I'm just really bad at swallowing opportunistic propaganda like I'm supposed to. It's because, living in the US, I'm drowning in it. Maybe if I was born and raised here I'd be better at believing that the sewage was drinking water.

hhp

>sorry everyone for taking the childish trollbait

Lately I have avoided responding to Hrant's provocations as it just results in a torrent of insult and invective with little relation to the facts. However, here I did not want to let his attempt to minimise the holocaust pass. The result has, of course, been a stream of false and malicious insult and invective.

>Of course, what we don’t know is if: ...It was one of the few that somehow, through an odd quirck of fate, survived and stayed open, openly Jewish-owned

Choz, we do know. First of all, as I wrote, all Jews in Austria were officially dispossessed of retail business--by Goering's decree of 12 November 1938. Officially no Jew could own a business, and this is not my 'absolutism' but simply the absolutism of Nazi policy.

And we know the policy was ruthlessly and efficiently enforced by the Nazis, directed by Adolph Eichmann. It was also enforced by Nazi gangs who regularly went around beating Jews and destroying businesses. Then subsequently during the war Jews were systematically hunted down and killed. Hence it is inconceivable that any openly Jewish retail business could have operated in Vienna throughout the war. The 1000 out of 200,000 Jews who were still alive and in Austria at the end of the war didn't survive by being openly Jewish. They were either hiding or hiding their Jewishness. They certainly weren't openly running a retail business in Vienna during the war.

In any case, as the history of the Chadim shoe and leather repair business makes clear, it has only been called 'Chadim' since 1980; I don't know whether that is a Jewish name--it is certainly not a common one.

"It’s because, living in the US, I’m drowning in it."

Wenn man in Amerika lebt, einem Land, das niemals einen Krieg im eigenen Land hat erleben müssen, ist es wahrscheinlich einfacher, kluge Weisheiten von sich zu geben. Man hat dann ein so wunderschön enges Gesichtsfeld, gebildet aus 3-Min.-Nachrichten, von denen 2:50 Min. über das Inland berichten. Aber was solls..

"In any case, as the history of the Chadim shoe and leather repair business makes clear, it has only been called ‘Chadim’ since 1980, and earlier was owned by those with more clearly Germanic names, who were very unlikely to have been Jewish. I think it is also unlikely that the current owner is Jewish, though I may be wrong."

Okay, so the owner of the shop is not jewish. But, how I said, its not the point. The point is the gothic font he uses. What he - as all the Vienna shops - wants is an association to the "Kaiserzeit", "when the world still was going its correct way." He uses the gothic font as a marketing tool. And he seems to be successful. By the way: In the hotel, we lived, were a lot of american tourists. They all thought "lovely" and no one was thinking about Nazi fonts.

Georg

> minimise the holocaust

More warping of the facts. The only thing I was trying to do is minimize your absolutism, your faith in the Nazis when it suits your agenda, an agenda which: does not really involve type; and seems to trigger paragraphs of unsolicited off-topic elaborations at every iota of a pretext. "Officially no Jew could own a business"? Yeah, and officially anybody who drives over the speed limit gets a ticket. That world is one of paper, not flesh. And "openly running a retail business"? Improvise away to distortionland!! The main minimizing that's going on here is one of human nature. You guys made "Schindler's List", right? Go watch it again.

William, if you can't simply admit that "couldn’t actually have been" does not make sense, that something like "was very unlikely to have been" is the more balanced, human thing to say, then please at least give mensch.com (or however you spelled it) to somebody else. And send your resume to the White House.

hhp

How it is used is the key for usetoday. Blackletter shouldcrtainly be available as a typgraphic tool just like any other type style. When it is used with evil images as seen in horror films, it gets the evil devil look. When used in religious material it gets the old church look. When used on white supremicist skin-head propaganda, it gets the nazi look.

There is much more to typography than choosing a typeface. Content and context matter. Let's give graphic designers and typographers the option of using the tool in a good way. There was a great deal of typewriter text used by hate groips a few decades back when there were few options. Nobody stopped using typewriter for everything else.

If your thesis is to examine blackletter and hate groups, show blackletter used in the many other ways it has been used as well. Be careful of the self-fulfilling prophesy.

ChrisL

I recently came across a Hitler-era series of glossy German design magazines in an old paper sale, but unfortunatley decided the price was a bit steep, because they were very interesting. I particularly recall an article on the autobahn system, with lots of beautiful pictures of empty highways. The typographic layouts were justified-modernist, and the display typefaces were Futura Light all caps and blackletter. The whole effect was complex and very disconcerting,

"Be careful of the self-fulfilling prophesy."

Oh man. This is exactly my impression from the beginning of the thread.
Remember - the title is "What is the connection..." and not neutral "Is there any connection..."

This means, Thord, may be, is not searching if there is an interaction between blackletters and violance and Nazism, but its his theory and he now looks for references for his theory.

>If your thesis is to examine blackletter and hate groups, show blackletter used in the many other ways it has been used as well.

Here, here! I'll drink to that Corona's all round! :-)

>They all thought “lovely” and no one was thinking about Nazi fonts.

As I said, I think the association of blackletter and Naziism is very unfortunate. I am happy if it is fading.

>Yeah, and officially anybody who drives over the speed limit gets a ticket.

False analogy. Catching all speeders is impossible. Dispossessing all Jews of retail businesses with storefronts in Vienna was easy for the Nazis. Way easier than catching individual Jews, and of Jews they killed or drove out 99.5%. Making German lands 'Judenrein'--'cleansed of Jews'--was a top priority of the Nazi government. The idea that they couldn't find a Jewish storefront in the capital of Austria during seven years--1938-45--of systematic hunting and killing is absurd.

In US is and was never a duty to announce after finding a new place to live.
In Germany and Austria such an announcement was and it is an absolutely duty. Maybe this information is unknown by some of the americans..

>In US is and was never a duty to announce after finding a new place to live.

unless you're are a foreigner or registered sex offender.

Cheers, Si

>In US is and was never a duty to announce after finding a new place to live.

Or if you want to continue receiving your mail.