Endfüßchen

Endfüßchen is the term used in German typography for the closing quotation mark, the counterpart to the opening quotation mark (Anfangsfüßchen). Together they form the pair known as Gänsefüßchen, named for their appearance resembling goose feet. In standard German typesetting the opening mark is „ (low double comma) and the closing mark is “ (high double quotation mark) or, in some fonts, the corresponding closing form “”.

The Endfüßchen serves to enclose direct speech, quotations, or titles. Punctuation that belongs to the quoted material is placed inside the Endfüßchen; punctuation belonging to the surrounding sentence is placed outside. For nested quotations, German often uses additional quotation marks or different nesting styles, depending on the convention being followed.

In typography and publishing, Endfüßchen are part of the broader system of quotation marks. With digital text, typographic quotes can be produced by fonts or input methods that provide the proper characters; in plain ASCII contexts, straight quotation marks are sometimes used, though they are considered less typographically correct for German. Style guides, such as DIN 5008, prescribe the use of the correct opening and closing marks and their consistent application throughout a document.

Variants and localization exist: some fonts or regional conventions may slightly alter the visual form of the marks, and nesting rules can differ in multilingual texts. Nevertheless, the Endfüßchen remains the closing element of the German quotation pair.