Indeed, as der79sebas said, reading van den Hoogen's texts in German is no problem with respect to understanding what he says (if you are native German). There is a certain difference between written and spoken German as calyptorynchus mentions, and actually, when I write a text in German it's different from the way I speak as well. However, this
I understand that an increasingly small and ageing population of academics insist on writing in a style of German which is incomprehensible to most German speakers, even well-educated ones.
is something I would certainly not confirm.
As I said, it's a matter of taste with van den Hoogen's texts. I know there is a good deal of people who enjoy them. That's fine, but they are not my cup of tea. Regarding the two examples Colin gave, to me they sound very much like "German English", and therefore, it might actually be easier to understand them as a German reading English than as a native speaker. I should say I do understand them as well, but I strongly assume this is because I automatically translate them to German when I read them.
