Variations in Understanding Variants: (Hidden) Concepts of Text in German Critical Editions

German textual scholarship developed different models of genetic presentations. While each genetic model requires a special concept of text, this concept is not always obvious at first glance. This article examines for what reason, for example, editors omit remarking on the precise variation process in the manuscript, why (and how) they indicate the position of the variants on the manuscript, why they abstain from presenting a reading text but opt to present the textual genesis only, why they add facsimiles and transcriptions to the genetic and the reading text presentation, or why they provide only facsimiles and transcription, but no reading text