The aim of a German edition is not to establish a text in the sense of critically shaping it. An edition provides as its edited text, rather, a segment or slice from the text’s history. In practical terms, an edition commonly prints, or reprints, an historically defined version of the work as edited text. Around and toward it, the edition organizes the entire textual history in apparatus form. License to modify the edited text is restricted to an absolute minimum, emendation functioning exclusively to remove the textual error, or ‘textual fault’ (Textfehler), with debates of definition over what should be allowed as Textfehler.