Yikes. I always knew there were sketchy ties between the Stempel type foundry and the Nazis, but I never realized it was such an explicit, marketed connection until I saw this page from a type specimen booklet for Tannenberg (c.1935) where they promote the larger wood type sizes by showing a poster for a speech by Joesph Goebbels and torch-light procession of Nazi stormtroopers. The photo of the poster is also credited to Hitler’s official photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicksherman/53033981172/
@armstrong @kupfers @letterror
Time to retract the claim that type is in itself innocent and only its uses, intentions and the historical context make for the political connotation of a particular typeface?
With those ›Schaftstiefelgrotesk‹ faces (other than Tannenberg: National, Deutschland, Deutschmeister, Element, …) it has more or less always been clear that those are the only real and fully intentional Nazi typefaces…
@nicksherman will you put that scan to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannenberg_%28typeface%29 as well?
@type @armstrong @kupfers @letterror @nicksherman i wonder though, would these typefaces not have been made in germany at this point regardless of whether the nazis came to power or not? they seem like the logical next step in modernization of germanic blackletter.
@kupfers @type @armstrong @letterror @nicksherman an interesting counter. though liberals vs nazis/conservatives isn’t really an accurate representation of what was happening culturally at that point as i understand it. for example the more staunchly catholic an area was, the less support for nazis, etc.
@kupfers @type @armstrong @letterror @nicksherman in any society i think there will be those who value traditional aesthetics regardless of political leaning. my grandma goldberg’s documents from her definitely non-nazi german settlement here in ontario around that time were done in blackletter too.
@sabbatical @kupfers @armstrong @letterror @nicksherman I came to think about this as two alphabets being available to a population. Some may be attributing a special meaning to their choice between the two, others may just be using any one.
Cf. Mistral or OCR-B being used for signage for computer shops, florists or hairdressers without any serious distinction...
The blackletter antiqua debate goes back to the late 18th century, so "tradition" is also on all sides!
@kupfers @sabbatical @armstrong @letterror @nicksherman well, the Nazis also continued using modern sans fonts, especially after 1941. E.g. https://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=vob&datum=19430302&seite=1&zoom=33 looks like Block (cw: Völkischer Beobachter digitized).
That's maybe part of the reasons why GDR conservative book design continued using old school Fraktur well into the 1960s -- lack of material etc played their role as well, but jumping back to traditional design rules before the Nazi regime sure motivates this...
@sabbatical @type @armstrong @letterror @nicksherman Logical step in modernising blackletter maybe but modern, liberal Germany had moved away from Fraktur/blackletter in the 1920s. It was the conservative who wanted to hold onto them as the most appropriate form for the German language and nation. Had the Nazis not come to power, we would have probably kept using Futura, Breite halbfette, Neue moderne Grotesk, Ohio, Koralle, Block, Signal, Bernhard, or whatever else for ephemera and posters