The Lifestory of Hermann Zapf

I was no longer welcome on the parade ground. I was first sent back to the office and then to Jüterbog to train as a cartographer. From there I went to Dijon and then on to Bordeaux to the staff of the 1st Army.

In Bordeaux I drew secret maps of Spain, especially of the railway networks, from Irun on the French border near Biarritz down to La Linea in southern Spain. The plan was to conquer Gibraltar from the land side using heavy railway artillery. But Franco, that sly fox, mistrusted his "friend" Adolfo and only used narrow gauge tracks to repair the railway bridges destroyed during the civil war. Of course these tracks were of no use to the mighty railway artillery.

I was quite happy in the cartography unit. But these backup units were forever being combed for young soldiers who could be commissioned. We called it "stealing heroes". Being only 25 years old, my turn eventually came. But my officer in the cartography unit was anxious to keep me, and sang the praises of my special skill for drawing maps of Spain. While he was speaking, I took a fine brush and wrote out the general’s name without glasses or a magnifying glass. He took a close look at it, and his monocle fell off. Without a word of praise he continued on his way, and I remained the youngest cartographer in the German army. So you see the fateful effects that letters 1 mm large can have.

I had a reasonable amount of free time in Bordeaux and was able to do some work in my sketch book. In 1944 in Bordeaux I wrote out Hans von Weber’s "Junggesellentext" (see Fig. 1), which would be reproduced in its original size over 50 years later when Linotype was showing Zapfino®.

The amazing thing is that I didn’t need glasses or even a magnifying glass back then to write such small letters. What excellent eyesight I had!

At the end of the war I was held by the French as a prisoner of war in a field hospital in Tübingen. I was treated very well and they even let me keep my drawing instruments. They had a great deal of respect for me as an "artiste" and I think the French still have this respect today.

Since I was in very poor health, the French sent me home just four weeks after the end of the war. I first went back to my parents in my home town of Nuremberg, which had suffered terrible damage. It took a very long time before life in the city returned to normal.

I gave my first calligraphy lesson in Nuremberg in 1946. There were hardly any teachers in Nuremberg who were politically untainted. The lessons were part of a program aimed at building the German Federation of Trade Unions. We wrote out our letters in an old school building under very primitive circumstances. The classroom had almost no glass in the windows, some of which had merely been papered over, and we had to work by artificial light. The light bulbs had to be returned to the caretaker after the lesson. After all, they were in short supply in 1946.

In 1947 I went back to Frankfurt, where the Stempel type foundry had offered me a position as artistic head of the in-house printshop. I was not yet 30 years of age. I was not asked for qualifications, journeyman’s certificates, or references. All I had to do was show them my 3 sketch books from the war, which contained my drawings and writings, and the calligraphic piece I mentioned earlier.