Doyche shprakhe yber alles

It is 1951, just after the establishment of the German Democratic 
Republic.  Consolidation of Soviet powers over the new satellite states 
is underway, as well as the tension between (former) Soviet and western 
occupation zones.  To underline the need of the working people of the 
East Germany, a committee, sanctioned by the East German government and 
centered around Duden authorities (in Leipzig), is created with the 
purpose to "establish the base for an effective and efficient 
orthography of the German language, because the traditional orthography 
is a relict of the history, not connected with the popular speech". 

Of course, one has to be stupid not to see the political background 
behind this, that is, separating (culturally) East and West Germany, 
taking the Moldavian language example. 

The rumour says that Joseph Stalin Himself is personally interested in the 
matter. This might even be true, given his interest and knowledge in 
linguistics (his essays are widely cited throughout the USSR linguistic 
circles, obviously), that took more practical turn this time, using his 
experience as a former People's Commissar for Nationalities. 

Whatever the motivation and goals, the work continues well.  There are 
several proposals, some of the most fantastic or far-stretching are 
rightly debunked as nonsense - while there were some dubious attempt to 
use cyrillic for the German language in the Königsberg area, proposals 
to switch the German orthography to cyrillic are nothing more than 
personal attempts to obtain a quick politically boosted career climb, 
and are dismissed as unnecessary and historically unsound. Also the 
attempts to replace standard German with a language based on different 
dialects is not approved - East Germany is not linguistically 
homogeneous, low German has very low social status and all the proposals 
are rather silly. 

"díse noje dojče rechtšrajbung" looks too slavic, and falls in the 
  trap "write as you speak no matter what" 

"diize noye doytche rekhtshraybung" looks like yiddish (though nobody 
  says this aloud) and was proposed by an apparent anglophile 

"dīze noie doiċe rextṡraibung" is better, but seems to be taking 
  matters too far away. 

"diese noie doitŝe rechtŝraibung" might be the right one - not so 
  disconnected from a German tradition of digraphs, keeps 
  diacritics down to a sensible level, keeps the distinction between 
  short and long vowels connected with single or double consonant 
  following (not seen in our example), and is much simpler than the 
  traditional orthography. 

Whatever the result, the change is pushed forward on all the levels. New 
textbooks are printed, books are rewritten, newspapers switch overnight.   

While undoubtedly politically motivated, the new orthography is rather 
sensible, keeping just the right mixture of etymological and phonemic 
principles (though etymology is very strong, much stronger than in e.g. 
Russian or Italian). 

In theory, the committee was speaking in the name of all Germans, and, 
again in theory, West Germany and the rest of German speaking world was 
expected to follow the lead. However, the west remains shocked and the 
new orthography remains confined to East Germany (and to schoolchildren 
thought the Soviet block, who are being taught German as a foreign 
language exclusively in this new orthography). 

Would the division shatter German linguistic unity outside of East 
Germany?  Probably not so much, although Switzerland might go a bit 
further than displacing the ß letter. 

Cold war goes on, generations come and go, and by 1989, when the 
Honecker's regime falls, we have a nation still speaking standard 
German, but thoroughly used to a new orthography. 

However, the situation is not quite symmetric - the eastern Germans can 
read western orthography rather fluently, due to exposure - there are 
still many old books, western TV broadcasts and an occasional book or a 
journal leaking through the border. 

The western Germans, however, prefer not to read the eastern texts if 
they do not need to (which they do not). The text is readable by an 
average western citizen, though slowly and with a noticeable effort, 
just needs a bit of getting used to. Much like the situation between 
Czech and Slovak today. 

So, what happens after the fall of the Berlin wall? Does the division 
hamper German reunification? Probably not. 

Would the new orthography replaced by the traditional one in the new 
federal states?  Most probably, even if the new orthography has clearly 
its advantages, but the political taint is too much to bear. Or could 
these two orthographies remain side by side in the unified Germany, 
enjoying (at least de iure) equal status? Maybe, see Norway. However, 
the social status of the "eastern" orthography would be declining 
steadily. 

Or would the German speaking countries try to establish a compromise 
spelling?  IMHO impossible, the new orthography is too far away from the 
old one. 

In any case, the differences between the eastern and western Germans is 
more profound, and the new Bundesländer have it more difficult to 
integrate.