[tex-eplain] ngerman.sty doesn't work anymore

[Helmut Jarausch]

Hi
with textlive 2014 I cannot use ngerman.sty anymore.

I have extracted the following snippet:

\DeclareTextSymbol{\ss}{OT1}{25}
\def\UseTextAccent#1#2#3{%
    {\let\@curr at enc\f at encoding
     \fontencoding{#1}\selectfont
     #2{\fontencoding\@curr at enc\selectfont #3}}}%
\def\ProvideTextCommand#1#2{%
    %%% misses \RobustTextCommand{#1}{...etc.etc...}!!
    \expandafter\providecommand\csname #2\string#1\endcsname}%
\def\ProvideTextCommandDefault#1{%
    \ProvideTextCommand{#1}{U}}%

\ProvideTextCommandDefault{\"}{\UseTextAccent{OT1}{\"}}

\bye


When I tex this eplain I get the follow error messages

eplain TTT.tex
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.15 (TeX Live 2014) 
(preloaded format=eplain)
 restricted \write18 enabled.
entering extended mode
(./TTT.tex
Babel <3.9l> and hyphenation patterns for 19 languages loaded.
! Undefined control sequence.
\@startdef ->\expandafter \def \@commandname 
                                             
\@newcommand ...expandafter \@startdef \@paramdef 
                                                  {#1}
\reserved at c ->\@newcommand \U\" 
                                [0]
<to be read again> 
                   {
l.12 \ProvideTextCommandDefault{\"}{
                                    \UseTextAccent{OT1}{\"}}


Can somebody shed light on this, please?

Many thanks,
Helmut