diff --git a/lang/german-utf-8.inc.php3 b/lang/german-utf-8.inc.php3
index 241335aeb..04cae8934 100644
--- a/lang/german-utf-8.inc.php3
+++ b/lang/german-utf-8.inc.php3
@@ -9,7 +9,8 @@
  *     Alexander M. Turek <rabus at users.sourceforge.net>.
  */
 
-$charset = 'iso-8859-1';
+$charset = 'utf-8';
+$allow_recoding = TRUE;
 $text_dir = 'ltr';
 $left_font_family = 'verdana, arial, helvetica, geneva, sans-serif';
 $right_font_family = 'arial, helvetica, geneva, sans-serif';