German hand writing? You kidding me?

Handwriting is a typical example of a generational issue in Germany. About once a year, some paper will lament the dire state of German handwriting and invoke "culture" or "fine motor skills", the choice depending on the author's understanding of science or on the seasonal dictates of wordsmith fashion.

The other, more persistent lament, is "our youngsters are disrespectful and lazy". Apparently, every generation since Socrates said that about the offspring they had generated, tried to educate - and failed.

Handwriting is also a highly political issue, mixing cultural views with a certain view of history and patriotism.

So, German handwriting, do you feel up for a brief post on the subject?
You do not have to have the slightest idea of German, don't worry, all we want to do is show you something.

Start by clicking in this link to a recipe for rosehip wine in the standard German handwriting before World War II. In the first line, you might be able to identify the letter "F" as the very first one and the "i" in Liter.

Now look at this version used from about 1953:

We put boxes around the capital letters L and S because they are known to become indistinguishable at the hands of a hurried writer. 

One more, from 1968, and then we get to the point. This one is from East Germany but very much like its West German counterpart from 1972, so we just give you one.

Would you be surprised if we reveal to you that conservative German politicians are lamenting the loss of the 1953-ish version?

Yes, the version in which a capital L and a capital S can become indistinguishable at the hands of a stressed or careless writer.

Personally, we have an ambivalent attitude to the German alphabet mainly for the letter ß -- the "thing", the only one without its own capitalized version, rendered in the old days of the teletype and the ASCII printers as "sz" or "ss", and utterly useless as a letter despite a few issues with some words where replacing ß with ss could be confusing.

On a practical level, why would anybody prefer a complicated version to a simpler one, especially if you want stuff to be readable and writable by millions of foreigners who immigrate to your country?

So, the simple version makes you feel less connected to your history?

Well, well, for the real traditionalists in Germany that should mean going back to the old Gothic from the first example because the first simpler Latin cursive was introduced around 1941 by you guessed who.

At the end of the day, we bet our Susan B. Anthony dollar on simplicity. The latest push for tradition won't go anywhere.

Yes, we are aware of the Chinese writing versions and the value of calligraphy but that's a different subject.