Another letter of September 1932 - from Lissitzky to Tschichold - asked,
"What are the prospects for the new edition of the big book about new
typography?" 21
Economically and political ly, prospects for radical modernism in Germany
were then very bad. Almost 30 per cent of the working population was
unemployed (the figure had been 6 per cent in 1 928). Everyday life was
increasingly politicized, and German politics became increasingly violent
and extreme. In the elections of July 1932, the National Socialists more
than doubled their representation in parliament, taking 37 per cent of the
vote. In further elections in November of that year, the Nazi vote dropped:
a factor that only increased their determination to take power by any
means. The parties that might together have defeated right-wing reaction
the SPD [social-democratic party] and the KPD [communist party] - were
irrevocably opposed to each other. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler was
appointed Chancellor of Germany, and the National Socialist party seized
power. The elections of March, held under less than free conditions, con
firmed National Socialist power, and gave a semblance of legitimacy to the
rapid dismantling of the fragile democratic structure of the Weimar
Republic. Freedom of expression had been lost. It goes without saying that
a second edition of Die neue Typographie was out of the question.^22
THEMES OF THE BOOK
As its contents page indicates, Die neue Typographie is made up of two
parts: a historical and theoretical discussion of the "growth and nature" of
the movement; and detailed consideration of the "principal typographic
categories," with reference to particular examples. These different parts
have in common a pedagogic character: this is a "handbook," and
Tschichold is bringing knowledge to printers (in the first place) and to any
one who might take a special interest in typographic communication.
The opening pages of the book put forward the social and philosophical
grounds for the new typography. The ideas and the language that
Tschichold uses here are those that inform modernist texts of the period:
the manifestos and proclamations of the various groups and movements,
many of which are listed in the book's impressively detailed bibliography
(pp. 229-235).^2 3 Life has changed, it is mechanized, urban, faster; empha
sis is now on the social, the collective, rather than the individual; on the
impersonal and factual, rather than the romantically indefin ite; human liber
ation can come through the standardization of material artefacts, throughXX