The gods be praised, I grew up among old books (and German beer bottles). So I went to school in Germany in the 80ies/90ies, and in our history book, there was a page of an old Bible, the old Gutenberg bible even I think, the first page of the Psalms and our history teacher challenged the class to read it out loud. There was not much enthusiasm... I was confident enough to raise my hand because I knew the part more or less by heart anyway and the class' (and teacher's) reaction was kind of "wat".

I can read it quite fluently, be it in an old bible, a german pre-1900 book or, ironically, Mein Kampf, and it makes my heart break to see others squint, turn the book, keep it away or look over their glasses because they ſtumble over some of the finer details.

I still don't quite understand the Nazi rationale. From a propaganda standpoint, it was perfect, because it gave German(s|y) an even more distinct and unique identity - and, as its use now shows, one of "elegance" AND "badassery" - just what the ideology called for.

Anyone else find it a terrible idea to use Fraktur in all-caps (like Seinfeld)?

//edit: I'm stupid, it can't have been the Gutenberg bible, it was set in Latin, so it must have been a page from Luther's translation a few decades later.