Hi. I have the book, but I’m in Berlin for the weekend. The earliest that I’ll see my book again is on Wednesday! If you want, I can get the text to you then. You can e-mail offlist at dreynolds [aaaaat] linotype [dottttt] com. But maybe by then someone will be able to get you a quicker answer.

Craig, I’ll e-mail this text to you, and send you a scan of the relevant pages offline. But here is German text for your passages.

Jan Tschichold, Die Neue Typographie: Ein Handbuch für zeitgemäß Schaffende, 1928. Berlin: Verlag des Bildungsverbandes der deutschen Buchdrucker. Pages 75–76.

Schrift
Alle Schriftformen, deren Wesen durch zum Skelett hinzutretende Ornamente (Schraffuren bei der Antiqua, Rauten und Rüssel bei der Fraktur) entstellt ist, entsprechen nicht unserem Streben nach Klarheit und Reinheit. Unter allen vorhandenen Schriftarten ist die sogenannte „Grotesk“ oder Blockschrift (die richtige Bezeichnung wäre „Skelettschrift“) die einzige, die unserer Zeit geistig gemäß ist.
Die Proklamierung der Grotesk als der Schrift unserer Zeit ist nicht etwa eine Modeangelegenheit, sie entspricht durchaus den allgemeinen Tendenzen, z.B. denen in der Architektur. Die Zeit ist nicht mehr fern, wo nicht nur die Künstlerschriften (die dieses Los zum Teil schon heute trifft), sondern auch die „klassischen“ Schriften allgemein dieselbe Ablehnung erfahren werden, die heute etwa den Muschelmöbeln der achtziger Jahre zuteil wird.
Es ist keine Frage, daß die heute vorhandenen Groteskschriften den Ansprüchen, die an eine vollkommene Schrift gestellt werden müssen, noch nicht ganz genügen. Die spezifischen Eigentümlichkeiten dieser Schrift sind noch kaum herausgearbeitet, die Formen insbesondere der Kleinbuchstaben sind noch zu sehr von der humanistischen Minuskel abhängig. Die meisten, und gerade die neuesten künstlerischen Groteskschriften (z.B. Erbar-Grotesk und Kabel) zeigen, zu ihrem Nachteil gegenüber den namenlosen älteren Grotesken, individuell modifizierte Bewegungen, die sie grundsätzlich in eine Linie mit den andern Künstlerschriften stellen. Als Brotschriften sind sie weniger gut als die alten Grotesken. Einen wesentlichen Schritt nach vorwärts bedeutet die Futura von Paul Renner.
Aber alle bisherigen Bemühungen, die Schrift der neuen Zeit zu schaffen, gehen nur um eine „Verbesserung“ der bisherigen Grotesk; es fehlt allen diesen Versuchen, die noch viel zu artistisch, zu „künstlerisch“ im früheren Sinne sind, die notwendige grundsätzliche Einstellung.
Ich persönlich glaube, daß es nicht einem einzelnen vorbehalten sein kann, die Schrift unseres Zeitalters zu schaffen, die von jeder persönlichen Linienführung frei sein müßte. Sie wird das Werk mehrerer sein, unter denen sich wohl auch ein Ingenieur befinden müsste.

Your specific questions

skeleton letters = Skelettschrift

“art” typefaces = Künstlerschriften

too like their “humanistic” counterparts = noch zu sehr von der der humanistischen Minuskel abhängig

modifications = modifizierte Bewegungen

bread-and-butter faces = Brotschriften
(commen German term for “text” faces)

too artistic, too artificial, in the old sense = zu artistisch, zu „künstlerisch“ im früheren Sinne

free from all personal characteristics = von jeder persönlichen Linienführung frei

Alle Schriftformen, deren Wesen durch zum Skelett hinzutretende Ornamente (Schraffuren bei der Antiqua, Rauten und Rüssel bei der Fraktur) entstellt ist, entsprechen nicht unserem Streben nach Klarheit und Reinheit. Unter allen vorhanden Schriftarten ist die sogennante „Grotesk“ oder Blockschrift (die richtige Bezeichnung wäre „Skelettschrift“) die einzige, die unserer Zeit geistig gemäß ist.
Jan Tschichold, Die neue Typographie (Berlin, 1928), page 75

Ruari McLean’s translation reads well, and his knowledge of German was certainly better than mine is, but I have never been happy with the way he handled that famous passage on the sanserif. It seems to me to soften some key words in a passage of which the language is quite strong and powerful. McLean’s version is:

None of the typefaces to whose basic form some kind of ornament has been added (serifs in roman type, lozenges and curlicues in fraktur) meet our requirements for clarity and purity. Among all the types that are available, the so-called ‘Grotesque’ (sanserif) or ‘block letter’ (‘skeleton letters’ would be a better name) is the only one in spiritual accordance with our time.

I would suggest something more like this:
Types of which the essential form is degraded by added ornaments – like serifs in roman type, the points and snouts of Fraktur – fail to satisfy our striving for clarity and purity. Of all the types that are currently available, the so-called ‘grotesque’ or ‘block letter’ (the right name would be ‘skeleton letter’) is the only one that adequately meets the spirit of our time.

It seems to me that Wesen is a far more powerful and elemental term than McLean’s bland “basic form”. And the ent prefix in entstellt suggests deviation, even perversion – so the essential meaning is “degraded”. Think of the modern paintings that the Nazis hated and destroyed. McLean’s reference to “added” ornament is quite neutral. And “requirements” seems an equally flat term for Tschichold’s Streben – “striving” for purity and clarity. And if you think, as I do, that such “striving for purity” has slightly sinister political and even racial overtones, then remember when and where this was written. It seems to me that, as a piece of writing, it inevitably reflects the spirit of his time, but it is also characteristic of the writer. Even in his later essays, the “classical” Tschichold could be very loud in denouncing tiny points of typographic detail that he thought were “wrong”.

As for the “art typefaces” (Künstlerschriften) some lines further on, the translator’s problem here is that they did not really happen in Britain or the USA, so there is no word for them. At least one can’t find easily find a type made with the same kind of intention as the one that the young Klingspor brothers commissioned from Otto Eckmann, and for which they gave him two closely-packed pages in the specimen to say what he was trying to do, which was to make a type than was neither as illegible as, so he claims, the types based on older models were (I think he had Jenson-style types like Morris’s Golden in mind) nor as ugly and banal as the more modern ones, presumably the English-style “modern” faces that were then used for some German technical and scientific printing.

Tschichold dismisses the “artists’ types” as self-indulgent exercises, which in many cases may have been true but is unfair on Eckmann, who had given up painting to turn to the design of handmade objects, and who complains of the unsoundness of furniture made from the sketches of designers who lack a sense of construction. Is there an English translation of his piece? Maybe someone should attempt one.

At any rate, can someone improve on my attempt at Tschichold’s paragraph.

> political overtones
for sure

> racial overtones
I dont‘t think he had these in mind when he wrote this. Back then, Tschichold took a strong internationalist stance.

> remember when and where this was written

If you want to understand Tschichold’s ideological position, you need to have a look at this one as well:
‚Sonderheft elementare typographie / typographische mitteilungen‘ (October 1925)
There was also a reprint in 1986, but it‘s out of print again:
Iwan Tschichold: Elementare Typographie. Sonderheft der Typographischen Mitteilungen 1925 | Reprint
ISBN 978-3-87439-129-9

Tschichold was editor of this special edition of Typographische Mitteilungen. On 24 pages, Tschichold gave a concise overview of the ‚new typography‘, as it was developed by Russian Constructivist artists and adopted in the Netherlands by De Stijl and in Germany by the Bauhaus. He showed samples of work by Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy and others, and he compiled a few short articles. Because of its compactness it has almost the characteristics of a manifesto, and in its style and language it is much stronger (and rougher) than ‚Die neue Typographie‘. ‚Elementare Typographie‘ was the rough sketch that shows the sources of its ideas clearer than ‚Die neue Typographie‘. It‘s a pity that it got somehow a bit forgotten and that there is no English translation available.

In his introductory article, Tschichold devoted a whole paragraph to a quote by Trotzky (from ‚Literature and art‘):

‚The wall between art and industry will come down. The great style of the future will be formative, not ornamental. (...) But it would be wrong to look at this as a liquidating of art, as a voluntary giving way to technique. (...) In accord with the entire tendency of industrial culture, we think that the artistic imagination in creating material objects will be directed towards working out the ideal form of a thing, as a thing, and not towards the embellishment of the thing as an aesthetic premium to itself.‘

Probably this quote helps to see the context Tschichold had (in my opinion) in mind when he wrote about the ‚Streben nach Klarheit und Reinheit‘.

> If you want to understand Tschichold’s ideological position, you need to have a look at this one as well: ‚Sonderheft elementare typographie / typographische mitteilungen‘ (October 1925)

I agree. (I’ve got the reprint.) That’s where he calls the Grotesk, with its light, semibold, bold, and condensed to wide versions, the ‘elemental letterform’ (elementare Schriftform). Or does he just mean ‘basic’?

Another relevant text (although I don’t think he concerns himself with the choice of type) is of course Moholy Nagy’s essay in the Bauhaus catalogue of 1923, which used the title The New Typography before Tschichold did. (Although you can’t see the detail in this low-res image, I love the way in which the fourth E in the title is made up of thick rules. Presumably there were only three cap E’s in the fount. You couldn’t do that with roman or gothic types. Another plus for the sanserif.)

In the context of Künstlerschriften I cited Eckmann’s sober defence of attention to legibility and respect for function. However I’ve been trying to keep up my German with the 1908 printing of Die Nibelungen in the 1908 edition with illustrations by Czeschka and set in the Eckmann type (Insel Verlag pocket version). Looks stunning, but for reading, I’ll take Tschichold’s lucid pages any day.