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German: Deutsches Institut für Normung e.V. (DIN; in English, the German Institute for Standardisation) is a German non-profit organization and acting as national organization for standardization. DIN is the German ISO member body. DIN is headquartered in Berlin. There are around thirty thousand DIN Standards, covering nearly every field of technology.
Founded in 1917 as the German: Normenausschuß der deutschen Industrie (NADI, "Standardisation Committee of German Industry"), the NADI was renamed German: Deutscher Normenausschuß (DNA, "German Standardisation Committee") in 1926 to reflect that the organization now dealt with standardization issues in many fields; viz., not just for industrial products. In 1975 it was renamed again to German: Deutsches Institut für Normung, or 'DIN' and is recognised by the German government as the official national-standards body, representing German interests at the international and European levels.
The acronym, 'DIN' is often incorrectly expanded as German: Deutsche Industrienorm ("German Industry Standard"). This is largely due to the historic origin of the DIN as "NADI". The NADI indeed published their standards as German: DI-Norm (German: Deutsche Industrienorm). For example, the first published standard was 'German: DI-Norm 1' (about tapered pins) in 1918. Many people still mistakenly associate DIN with the old German: DI-Norm naming convention.
One of the earliest, and probably the best known, is DIN 476 - the standard that introduced the A-series paper sizes in 1922 - adopted in 1975 as International Standard ISO 216. Common examples in modern technology include DIN and mini-DIN connectors for electronics, and the DIN rail.
DIN SPEC 3105, published in 2020, is "the first German standard to be published under an open license (CC-BY-SA 4.0) [...] to implement an open standardisation process".[1]
DIN is a nonprofit organization by German law. The nonprofit owns DIN Solutions GmbH, which produces the DIN contents and DIN Media (formerly Beuth Verlag), which sells the DIN-standard manuals. DIN is shareholder of DIN Bauportal GmbH and DQS Holding GmbH.[2]
The designation of a DIN standard shows its origin (# denotes a number):
Some of the DIN standards dating back in the time of Nazi Germany. For example, Standard DIN 5009, which describes the German Phonetic spelling code is based on the postal spelling table, that was heavily edited by the Nazis. Until 1934, spelled "D" for David, "S" for Samuel, "Z" for Zacharias and "N" for Nathan. However, this went against the Nazis' ethnic-racial ideology and they decided to revise the letter board. The postal spelling table was partially revised 1950 and formed the basis for the first version of the standard in 1983. The standard was revised in 2022, the new version uses city names instead of person names.[3] [4]
See main article: List of DIN standards.
DIN standards are not freely accessible to the public. DIN is selling the subscriptions with the descriptions of the DIN-standards via DIN Solutions GmbH and DIN Media.
For four EN standards, which are available as DIN-EN standards for a fee from DIN Media GmbH (formerly Beuth Verlag),[5] [6] [7] [8] the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decided on March 5, 2024 that these must be made available free of charge because these standards are part of European Union law. [9]
How DIN creates standards is not transparent. The majority of the standardization committees consist of representatives of the companies that are affected by the standards. DIN keeps secret who is on the committees.[10]
In 2023, the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building launched an initiative to question the specifications of the German Institute for Standardization because the standards are considered a cost driver. “A central goal is to speed up planning and construction and reduce construction costs in order to create more affordable housing. “The building standards are now being reviewed,” said a spokesman for Klara Geywitz’s (SPD) ministry in 2023.[11]