diff --git a/.htaccess.in b/.htaccess.in
--- a/.htaccess.in
+++ b/.htaccess.in
@@ -18,6 +18,58 @@ order allow,deny
 Deny from all
 </Files>
 
+# See: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6987929/preparing-php-application-to-use-with-utf-8
+########################################
+# Locale settings
+########################################
+
+# See: http://php.net/manual/en/timezones.php
+php_value date.timezone "Europe/Berlin"
+
+SetEnv   LC_ALL  de_DE.UTF-8
+
+########################################
+# Set up UTF-8 encoding
+########################################
+
+AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
+AddCharset UTF-8 .php
+
+php_value default_charset "UTF-8"
+
+php_value iconv.input_encoding "UTF-8"
+php_value iconv.internal_encoding "UTF-8"
+php_value iconv.output_encoding "UTF-8"
+
+php_value mbstring.internal_encoding UTF-8
+php_value mbstring.http_output UTF-8
+php_value mbstring.encoding_translation On
+php_value mbstring.func_overload 6
+
+# See also php functions:
+# mysql_set_charset
+# mysql_client_encoding
+
+# database settings
+#CREATE DATABASE db_name
+#   CHARACTER SET utf8
+#   DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8
+#   COLLATE utf8_general_ci
+#   DEFAULT COLLATE utf8_general_ci
+#   ;
+#
+#ALTER DATABASE db_name
+#   CHARACTER SET utf8
+#   DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8
+#   COLLATE utf8_general_ci
+#   DEFAULT COLLATE utf8_general_ci
+#   ;
+
+#ALTER TABLE tbl_name
+#   DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8
+#   COLLATE utf8_general_ci
+#   ;
+
 AuthUserFile @base_dir@/lib/.htpasswd
 # AuthGroupFile .htgroup
 
@@ -25,4 +77,3 @@ AuthUserFile @base_dir@/lib/.htpasswd
 AuthType Basic
 AuthName "Urlaubseinstellungen"
 require valid-user
-