The narrow-gap semiconductors PbTe, SnTe, GeTe and their alloys exhibit a tendency for a ferroelectric displacive phase transition from a high-temperature rocksalt structure to a rhombohedral phase at low temperatures. The critical temperatures vary within an exceedingly wide range: −70 K(PbTe) up to 650 K(GeTe). Owing to the outstanding simplicity of their crystal structure and their well-known electronic properties, the instability and the chemical trends of Tc can be understood in terms of a quantitative pseudopotential model (Sect.5.2). Phenomenological models explain the temperature dependence of the soft mode outside the critical regime fairly well (Sect.5.1). Critical phenomena, however, deserve further attention: the anomalies of the static dielectric constant (Sects.3.1 and 5.3) and the influence of defects are possibly related to a central peak. Additional systematic investigations on the nature and influence of defects are required to obtain more insight into this highly interesting field of general importance.