Encoding of German umlauts when using readOGR

The encoding-parameter is ignored, if iconv is not set to TRUE.

Julian is right.

file_name <- "../gis_data/bw/AX_KommunalesGebiet.shp"
shape_kommunal <- readOGR(file_name, layer = "AX_KommunalesGebiet", use_iconv = TRUE, encoding = "UTF-8")
data_kommunal <- shape_kommunal@data
head(data_kommunal)

returns the string correctly:

  GKZ                NAME
0 08236074           Kämpfelbach
1 08425052           Grundsheim
2 08435067           Deggenhausertal