Mathematical Fraktur Small E

It is a math letter whose meaning depends on the writer.

Mathematics uses letter styles as distinct alphabets: 𝔢 can name a different object from plain e or italic e in the same work. The writer defines it; no universal value belongs to this particular letter.

In LaTeX math mode, \mathfrak{e} typesets this letter with the amsfonts, amssymb, or eufrak package.

Where did Fraktur come from?

It grew out of Schwabacher in early German printing.

In 1515, Emperor Maximilian I commissioned a typeface based on Schwabacher for books in his imperial library. Albrecht Dürer’s large carved-block print called The Triumphal Arch helped publicize it; his Underweysung der Messung, a manual on measurement, was also printed in the type. Its angular, broken-looking strokes gave Fraktur its name.

Fraktur later became associated with German identity and competed with Antiqua, a Roman-style type used widely elsewhere in Europe. On 3 January 1941, a Nazi Party circular made Antiqua the “normal type” and falsely labeled Schwabacher blackletter as Jewish, reversing the nationalist story around Fraktur.