Germany alone has a dozen "major" dialects which are only mutally understandable for speakers of adjacent regions. Austria and the German speaking part of Switzerland only extend this problem.

It exists since at least 1000 years and won't go away. Even though Luther and the Grimm Brothers did their best in the manifestation of a common German language. Also, there is much trade and people moving around Germany since at least 200 years. Especially miners and early industrial workers from poor southeast Germany brought their upper German dialects to the industrial regions of northern and western Germany. In that process the dutch-alike Plattdüütsch variety of German nearly died out while the upper German dialects stick around and new mixed dialects in the north arised.

And that's why German speakers have to settle on a common standard when speaking or writing to unknown people. There are just too many dialects and you limit your audience greatly if you speak/write dialect to an unknown public.

Germany alone has a dozen "major" dialects which are only mutually understandable for speakers of adjacent regions. Austria and the German speaking part of Switzerland only extend this problem.

It has existed for at least the past 1000 years and won't go away. Even though Luther and the Grimm Brothers did their best in the manifestation of a common German language. Also, there has been much trade and people moving around Germany for at least the past 200 years. Especially miners and early industrial workers from poor southeast Germany brought their upper German dialects to the industrial regions of northern and western Germany. In that process the Dutch-alike Plattdüütsch variety of German nearly died out while the upper German dialects stick around and new mixed dialects in the north arose.

And that's why German speakers have to settle on a common standard when speaking or writing to unknown people. There are just too many dialects and you limit your audience greatly if you speak/write dialect to an unknown public.