Discussion about a prohibited character for historical reasons
spixi opened this issue · comments
This issue is to discuss the addition of a prohibited character which appeared on German typewriters between 1930 and 1945. The SS rune was the symbol of the Schutzstaffel, a radical paramilitary organization of the NSDAP, which was instrumental for the genocide of millions of Jewish people. The shape of the rune resembles a double RUNIC LETTER SIGEL LONG-BRANCH-SOL S (U+16CB) and was used as abbreviation of the Schutzstaffel in public administration.
At this point I clarify that I strongly dissociate myself from right-wing ideas of all kinds. This special character is proposed only for reproduction of historical documents. Contemporary documents must use the spelling SS (double LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S (U+0053)) to prevent any sort of (even unintentional) propaganda.
In the Nazi reign, many typewriters included the SS rune. See also this article for more information. I wonder if this character would qualify for an official Unicode character, similar to other prohibited characters like RIGHT FACING SVASTI SIGN (U+0FD5), HAMMER AND SICKLE (U+262D), RUNIC LETTER OTHALAN ETHEL O (U+16DF) or CELTIC CROSS (U+1F548).
On the one hand, we know that the proposal for the North Korean symbols HAMMER AND SICKLE AND BRUSH (U+2614) and CIRCLED HAMMER AND SICKLE AND BRUSH (U+2615) has been rejected. On the other hand, there is no evidence that one of these characters ever appeared on any typebar.
In fact, the SS rune can actually be represented with the sequence <U+16CB U+16CB>. However, this would mix different scripts (Latn and Runr) and does not carry the semantic of that special symbol. The abuse potential of a dedicated character would be high, but it is required for detailed reproduction of historical documents for research and educational purposes. All in all, I am undecided, whether it would be a benefit to add this character at all.
What do you think?
Iʼm pretty confident this has been brought to the attention of the Unicode Consortium before, which would suggest that they found it inapplicable for encoding, perhaps for the same reason they will not include the Apple logo although it has been available on Mac keyboards for decades. They could also consider it two runes, which are already available, entered by a single keystroke.
Otherwise, it would probably meet the criteria for inclusion.