Advice on German Culture

As commonly known German has some special characters in the alphabet, e.g. the "umlaut": ä, ö, and ü. Less known is that we also have a special "s"-character, an "s-z-ligature" from old alphabets. The old German (and French) alphabet had two sorts of "s", a character for the soft (s) and a character for the sharp s (∫) which is today known in mathematics as sign for the integral. A merger (ligature) of this old sharp s and the old z (the "tailed z" ℨ that derives from Greek zeta) became a new standard character in the German alphabet: 
∫ +ℨ = ß
It looks a bit like Greek (small) beta and you find it in word like "Zeiß" (the family name) which is internationally written "Zeiss" to mirror the correct pronunciation (as a sharp "s").