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The Fraktur font
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Until the mid 1940's most banknotes were printed using the Fraktur font type. Differences to the
Antiqua font types, as commonly used today, make
reading the text on those notes sometimes
a difficult excercise.
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The font type Fraktur (speak "frac-toor") had been developed in Germany in the 16th century.
Leonhard Wagner created the font for Emperor Maximilian I (1493-1519), who wanted to establish
a library of printed books. Fraktur belongs to the class of Gothic fonts. Its
name comes from the latin for "broken". The broken letters emulate handwriting.
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Five Million Mark will be paid to the deliverer of this banknote by the Reichsbankhauptkasse
in Berlin. As of
1. October 1923 this banknote can be called upon and retracted from circulation in
exchange against different legal tender.
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Famous German renaissance artists such as Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528) and Lucas Cranach
(1472 - 1553) used the Fraktur font within their works, which made it widely known. An additional
push for the font came from its political symbolism. The Protestant movement printed their political
and religious material in the Fraktur font, while the Catholics printed theirs in the
Latin font (Antiqua).
Fraktur was used as the "official" font type in Germany until mid of the 20th century. The Nazi regime
reinforced its use initially. In 1941, though, Hitler declared Fraktur to be "Jewish Letters"and
prohibited the use of this font type, because of its "non-Aryan" nature.
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Since 1945 the Fraktur font is hardly used in Germany anymore, due to its association to the Nazi period.
In line with most other Western European countries the Latin Antiqua font has been used since then
for books, newspapers, magazines and other print articles.
Fractur is only used these days in Germany in a decorative context.
Check out some frequent spelling problems on German banknotes.
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