Professor Dr. Hartmut Günther was a professor at the German Seminar of the Faculty of Education at the University of Cologne (later Institute for German Language and Literature II of the Faculty of Philosophy) from 1996 to 2011, and Dean of the Faculty of Education from 1999 to 2003. From 1981 to 1996 he was in charge of the Written Language Study Group of the Werner Reimers Foundation, and from 2005 to 2011 he edited the Duden Language Book for Primary Schools. His work focuses on German orthography and the acquisition of written language. Since 2013, he has been advising the Mercator Institute on the development of diagnostic and support materials for elementary schools, among other things as part of the project Lesen macht stark.