Why did black-letter type remain important in Germany for centuries?

Black-letter type remained important in Germany for centuries primarily because the Humanist movement—which championed the more legible roman (or Antiqua) type across the rest of Europe—was effectively blocked in Germany by the counter-impulses of the Reformation.1

While printers in Italy and elsewhere adopted roman type to align with the spirit of Humanism and classical revival, German printers maintained black letter as a national typeface. This persistence was deeply rooted in cultural and religious identity, as black letter was associated with the manuscript traditions of the Middle Ages and remained the standard for ecclesiastical and legal texts.12

The dominance of this style, often known as Fraktur in its later forms, continued until 1940–1941, when the Nazi government ordered its discontinuance. Before this, it was so deeply ingrained that it served as the primary medium for German printing, even as the rest of Western Europe shifted toward the more "modern" roman letterforms.123