[bflesch]

I'm also German and have never seen such weird quotes. Maybe this is some weird windows charset issue but definitely not widespread way of quoting text.

[dxyms]

It definitely exists in German as well as some other European countries, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark I checked a few German newspapers, some use it, some don’t

[actionfromafar]

I don't know why, but in my browser, the closing quote is showed correctly (forward slanting) in the edit box, but backwards slanting when submitted. Weird.

„how“

[vanderZwan]

Different fonts, most likely (I can't say for sure because I customized the CSS for HN using the Stylus browser extension)