German orthography reform of 1944

The planned German spelling reform of 1944 was a failed attempt to amend German orthography. Although one million copies of the new rules were printed by 1944 for school use, the reform was never introduced. Their preparation was initiated by the Reich Education Minister Bernhard Rust and they were drawn up by Otto Basler, Erich Gierach and Karl Reumuth.

Among the key changes were:

On the orders of Hitler, the introduction of the new rules in schools, which had been planned for the start of the 1944-45 school year, was postponed as it was considered "not important for the war effort". Otto Basler produced a slightly revised version of the rulebook in 1948, but the innovations contained in it were not implemented.

Some of the proposed changes, such as the comma before the conjunction und becoming optional and the hyphenation changes, were included in the German spelling reform of 1996.

Some of Rust's proposed spellings could be found in the dictionary up to the 1980s, such as the spelling Kautsch.

See also

References

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