I first saw a reference to Sütterlinschrift while reading Fatherhood: A Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets by Burkhard Bilger.
The author was researching his grandfather’s military service in the German army during World War I. Upon receiving the records, he discovered that they were written in the now-unused Sütterlinschrift, making them difficult to read.
The notes on the page were clearly written, but the clerk had used an outdated Prussian script known as Sütterlinschrift. Modeled on an old Germany chancery script, it has an almost whimiscal look on the page, full of loop de loops and letters round as smiley faces. Even older Germans find it indecipherable.
Sütterlinschrift went on to become a subject of furious debate in Germany: a culture war writ small. … From 1915 to 1940 it was taught in German schools. Then, abruptly, the Nazis banned it. … but Hitler never much liked it. The style was too backward for a nation destined to rule the world, he declared at the Reichsparteitag in 1934.
Bilger, Burkhard, Fatherhood: A Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets, pp 69-70
Wikipedia states that it was taught in some German schools until 1970, though never as the primary script.
It appears that German script evolved as nibs for fountain pens evolved.
