“All quiet on the western front” indeed – Erich Maria Remarque wasn’t the only one, in his novel of the same name about World War I, to turn his focus to the west. For a long time, researchers, too, tended to concentrate on the endless trenches of the Western Front. But there are plans to change that by the time the hundredth anniversary of the start of the Great War arrives, in 2014: Professor Oliver Janz, a historian at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute, and Professor Nicolas Apostolopoulos, head of the Center for Digital Systems (CeDiS), will be working on an international online encyclopedia over the next three years.

The days of little hooks, curls, and loops are over – at least in Hamburg’s elementary schools, where cursive writing is being struck from the list of requirements in German classes. Computer and cell phone keyboards have largely replaced fountain pens, and those who can still decipher Grandma’s recipes are few indeed these days. Anyone who wants to read even older handwritten texts needs skills in paleography. The study of handwriting is taught at only a few higher education institutions in Germany – and Freie Universität is one of them.