01.08.2006
 
Heaps of Rubbish
“auf den Mullhaufen der Geschichte”

Prof. Augst gibt Geschichtsunterricht.

(...)

Linguistics was divided. Ickler denoted the reform as an "menschenverachtendes Massenexperiment" (inhuman mass experiment). To this, one has to know that this is a highly loaded expression, which characterized the criminal medical experiments carried out by the Nazis. Eisenberg, who critically worked out with the reform and who wrote Brochures to secretaries and students to learn, explained at the same time that the new/revised reform belongs to the "history’s heap of rubbish" ("auf den Mullhaufen der Geschichte"). He left the interstate commission and a few weeks later became a member of the commission of the German academy for language and poetry. Two scientists published a book "Rechtschreibreform und Nationalsozialismus" (spelling reform and National Socialism), in which they supposed that the new reform is the Nazis’ spelling reform that they did not accomplish in carrying out in 1944. The German academy for Language and Poetry took the book in one of their follow ups and their president presented it in the press. The potential suspicion of National Socialism was strengthened by Icklers conclusion that the old communist Dieter Nerius and the old 68er Gerhard Augst of the "Institut fur Deutsche Sprache" (Institute for German language) decided, behind the people’s backs, to force the spelling reform of the National Socialism upon the Germans.

(...)

(Conference Report Spelcon 2005. - International English for Global Literacy. University of Mannheim – Sixth International Conference 29th - 31st July 2005; vollständiger Text siehe hier)