INTERVIEW - Language critic Matthias Heine: «Gendering is the language of the powerful»

"Researchers have examined the skeleton of a sauropod," a major Swiss daily newspaper recently reported. Matthias Heine not only finds headlines with words like "researchers" annoying, he would prefer to banish them from the media. In his new book, "The Great Language Reorganization," he denounces all forms of supposedly progressive newspeak, from gender-based language to easy language to the use of so-called "unwords."

Heine works in the arts section of the "Die Welt" newspaper and has been studying language change for years. Among other things, he has written about terms invented by the Nazis or given new meaning. Despite alarmist undertones—Heine speaks of a "social catastrophe"—his latest book is a captivatingly written story about language changers who have existed since long before the invention of the gender star.

We learn that the Brothers Grimm wanted to abolish capital letters, the Nazis opposed Fraktur script, and if certain language reformers had prevailed, we would write "Fater" instead of "Vater." All of this, as Heine notes, was always propagated in the name of progress, just like gender language is today.

Mr. Heine, you recently provoked an outcry with your claim that Adolf Hitler was the first German politician to use gender equality. Were you surprised by the reactions?

Hitler wasn't the first politician to use phrases like "Dear fellow citizens," as I mistakenly wrote in the article. But I found it interesting as a curiosity. My intention was to tease the supporters of genderization a little, in the sense of: Don't imagine that genderization is inherently a good thing. I underestimated the response. Some AfD representatives believed they had found the ultimate argument against genderization. Leftists writhed in pain because I had supposedly associated them with Hitler. Others asked me what that was all about: whether I was trying to make Hitler sympathetic.

Perhaps the reactions were so fierce because criticism of gender language is often considered right-wing and reactionary. According to the "Tageszeitung," gender-based language only causes gasping for breath in men over 60, even though it's supposedly harmless. Why do you gasp for breath?

Because today, a radical, identity-political left is trying to restructure the language. The German language originated around 1,200 years ago; it is perhaps the only true public property that has ever existed. This ownership of the language is now suddenly being expropriated. The access is massive, and it also comes from state institutions.

In your book, you describe how authorities have always tried to change and purify language. What's new about current attempts?

It's no longer just about individual words, as it was before the First World War, when French words like "Portemonnaie" were suddenly taboo in Germany. Now it's also about grammar. People are trying to establish pronouns like "they" and "them," introducing auxiliary symbols like *, and saying "Geflüchtete" instead of "Flüchtlinge" (refugees). They want to change the structure of the language; this is different from previous language regulations. Not even the GDR and the Nazis went that far.

Supporters of gender language emphasize that language is changing and that progress cannot be stopped. You, on the other hand, claim that it's an authoritarian restructuring imposed from above. How do you come to that conclusion?

Real language change occurs when more and more people decide to use the so-called idiot apostrophe, even though the Duden dictionary has long banned it. And when the Duden then eventually caves in and says we'll now allow it in certain cases, such as in company names. Real language change also occurs when the Spanish greeting "adios" is so botched in nautical slang that it first sounds "atschüs" and then just "tschüs" or "tschüss" at the end. That is language change from below. It came about because hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of speakers and writers decided to speak that way.

So what we are experiencing now is not a real language change?

No, but it's always explained by language change. The current linguistic transformation is being driven by small interest groups that want to shape society through language. It's an international phenomenon: After the fall of the Berlin Wall and with the decline in the importance of the working class, a section of the left reinvented itself as an international of the discriminated. They were very successful in this because this discrimination isn't objectively measurable. Even a billionaire's son who identifies as a woman can portray himself as a victim if he's addressed with the wrong pronouns.

When I was at school, I often read the Wochenzeitung, which had already used the capital "I" in the 1990s. Back then, it was a quirk of a left-wing newspaper. How did it become mainstream?

Yes, as far as I know, the "WoZ" and Radio Lora were among the first to use gender equality. In Germany, people always think it was the "TAZ," but the Swiss were faster. As long as it was limited to left-wing publications and some Greens thought they had to speak like that in the Oberkleinkadillendorf city council, it hardly affected anyone. But now it's suddenly omnipresent. It's become the language of power.

In what way?

Many government agencies, universities, schools, and other institutions agree with opportunistic big business that the language must become "fairer." This triumph can be explained by the fact that press and communications departments are now filled with neo-humanities graduates who suspect discrimination everywhere. This semi-intellectual caste parrots all the theories fashionable at American universities. They want to dictate to the approximately 120 million German speakers around the world how they should express themselves.

Authorities and left-wing parties would contradict you: They say no one needs to use gender. Rather, it's the right wing that's waging a culture war.

This is a complete distortion of the facts. And of course, the claim that no one is required to use gender is nonsense. If authorities only award contracts if the applicant uses gender, it is a compulsion. In Germany, there are even state-funded NGOs like the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, which defames all critics of gender as misogynists and right-wing extremists. This also explains the "gasping for breath" that the language transformation is triggering among the population, and not just among men over 60. When you read that companies are requiring their employees to use gender, and my bank also uses gender for me, you suddenly realize how dominant this is. The compulsion is directed against the majority of the population, who, according to many surveys, do not want to use gender. Not even for today's 20-year-olds is gendering a given.

In the city of Zurich, an initiative that would have banned the administration from using the gender star was recently rejected. This means that a majority at least does not want to ban gendering.

The mere fact that such cases are referred to as a "gender ban" demonstrates the success of left-wing politics. It's simply a matter of adhering to the spelling rules. The Spelling Council, of which Switzerland is also a member, expressly advises against the use of these special characters. Only double forms like "Lehrinnen und Lehrer" (teachers and teachers) or forms like "Studierende" (students) are compatible with the spelling. If someone tells me I'm not allowed to spell "Schweizer" with a "tz," that's not a ban on misspelling. Rather, it's a request to please adhere to the spelling rules.

Gendering comes in many forms, such as "pedestrians*," "pedestrians:," and "pedestrians." Which one annoys you the most?

The colon is certainly the least noticeable graphically. The actually spelling-compatible form with the "Zufussgehenden" and "Klavierspielenden" annoys me almost the most because it seems so pompous and bureaucratic. Worst of all, I find a form that is already quite common in Germany, for example in the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" and other media: Sometimes the feminine, sometimes the masculine form is used. When listing professional groups, one speaks of bakers and butchers, craftsmen and judges. One creates a generic feminine form, but uses it inconsistently. This sometimes leads to total confusion because one doesn't know whether one means only certain female judges, or all of them.

In your book, you write that it's nonsense to think only of men when you hear words like "professor"—studies have proven this. My impression is that when I hear these words, I often only think of male professors.

You, like me, are a child of a time when you were told this. We constantly encounter double forms, and even I sometimes feel that this violates some kind of consensus. If you want people to think of women when they hear words like "professor" or "astronaut," you have to fill more professorships with women or send more women into space. My three daughters definitely don't think of men when they hear the word "teacher," because it's their reality that it's predominantly women. They say "my teachers," and by that they mean women. They probably haven't been gender-programmed long enough through school, politics, and university.

You describe the 1998 spelling reform, which originally proposed new spellings like "Keiser" instead of "Kaiser" and sparked loud protests, as the "original sin" of today's language transformation. Can you elaborate on that?

It was the first time that a relatively small group of experts attempted to push through a reform that an overwhelming majority of the population had rejected. They succeeded in convincing the German education ministers and the authorities in Switzerland and Austria that spelling absolutely had to be changed. Although they had to retract half of what they had planned because it was so disastrous, the message to activists remained that they could tinker with the language with impunity because government decision-makers wanted to be modern.

A backlash has been particularly noticeable since the election of Donald Trump. Companies like Audi no longer use the term "employee," and Trump is attacking undesirable terms with the same fury as left-wing activists. Is your book coming at the wrong time?

Not at all. These days, it's often said that international corporations are afraid of Trump. One could just as blatantly retort that all the diversity campaigns and gender offensives were also launched out of fear, to please the powerful people who were previously in office. Of course, what Trump is doing at universities is absurd and wrong, for example, when terms like "woman" are being banned or Black people are being removed from memorial pages. However, the universities have practically begged for this backlash with their political one-sidedness and the promotion of incompetent people. In the German-speaking world, I see little evidence of this development.

For what reason?

There is, of course, a growing popular movement that is annoyed by this. Some federal states have also enacted so-called gender bans in administration and schools, and the Federal Minister of Education has just banned her civil servants from using the gender star and similar special symbols. But the ideology underlying gender language continues to have an impact. Many are disappointed that the Merz government, under pressure from the SPD, is clinging to many of the initiatives initiated by the Greens, such as queer representatives and state funding for NGOs that promote language transformation. Public broadcasting continues to use gender-based language undeterred. Although there is probably little that has contributed more to its delegitimization.

In your book, you refer to George Orwell, who described the rape of language in a totalitarian regime. Isn't that a bit of an exaggeration?

Of course, we don't live in a totalitarian dictatorship like Winston Smith in the novel "1984," and no one is put in a rat cage for saying something wrong. But if you look at the grammar and newspeak chapter at the end of "1984," you'll be amazed at how many similarities there are. For example, the fact that words take on new meanings depending on who uses them. "Sprachpolizei" (language police) was long condemned in Germany as a right-wing term. When states like Bavaria and Saxony banned the use of the gender star, leftists themselves suddenly started talking about language police. The sorting of vocabulary into good and bad words is strongly reminiscent of "1984," as is the inflationary use of terms like "Hetze" (incitement).

Because the term was misused by the Nazis and in the GDR to persecute political opponents?

Incitement is a wonderful—or rather, a poor—example of historical ignorance. It was a central concept of Nazi propaganda. Incitement was always something others did, and it could be punished by death. It couldn't be called propaganda because the term was used positively under National Socialism. Even in the GDR, "subversive incitement" was a criminal offense. All of this would suggest a cautious use of the term. Instead, it serves as a legitimization for all sorts of activists to control discourse in a left-green sense. When Robert Habeck wrote the foreword to the German edition of "1984," he probably wasn't even aware of the irony.

Matthias Heine: The Great Linguistic Transformation. A Social Catastrophe. Langen-Müller-Verlag, Munich 2025. 236 pp., Fr. 36.90.