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The spelling alphabet, and the year it was rewritten
The German spelling alphabet is standardised, which is why Frau Weber does not have to ask what Alex means by A wie Anton. It has also been rewritten recently, and the reason is worth knowing. The traditional table is the one most people still use: Anton, Berta, Cäsar, Dora, Emil, Friedrich, Gustav, Heinrich, Ida, Julius, Konrad, Ludwig, Martha, Nordpol, Otto, Paula, Quelle, Richard, Samuel, Theodor, Ulrich, Viktor, Wilhelm, Xanthippe, Ypsilon, Zeppelin. In 1934 the Jewish names in that list — among them Nathan, Samuel, David and Zacharias — were replaced by the Nazi authorities with others. After the war some were restored and some were not, so the version in daily use carried that history unevenly and mostly unnoticed. In 2022 the standards body DIN published a revised DIN 5009 that replaces the personal names with city names — A wie Aachen, B wie Berlin, C wie Chemnitz, D wie Düsseldorf — explicitly citing that history as the reason for starting again with a neutral list. The new table is official; the old one is what you will still hear from most people, and either will be understood. If you want a rule: use whichever the other person used. Two practical notes about phones in Germany that have nothing to do with spelling. First, the answering machine is still normal in working life, and a German outgoing message expects a name and a number, in that order, slowly. Second, many offices genuinely do not answer outside core hours, and the recorded Geschäftszeiten are not a formality — a call at 17:30 on a Friday to a Behörde will not be picked up. Lesson 66 has more on that. Finally, the thing worth taking from this whole lesson: ringing to ask a question before applying is normal and slightly advantageous in Germany. It gets you a name for the salutation, it shows you can conduct a call in German, and it is remembered. Alex now has Frau Weber, which is why the letter in lesson 55 can be addressed to a person.