diff --git a/src/pretix/base/templatetags/rich_text.py b/src/pretix/base/templatetags/rich_text.py
index c4a8a53d7e..f75188f325 100644
--- a/src/pretix/base/templatetags/rich_text.py
+++ b/src/pretix/base/templatetags/rich_text.py
@@ -46,6 +46,8 @@ from django.urls import reverse
 from django.utils.functional import SimpleLazyObject
 from django.utils.http import url_has_allowed_host_and_scheme
 from django.utils.safestring import mark_safe
+from markdown import Extension
+from markdown.inlinepatterns import SubstituteTagInlineProcessor
 from tlds import tld_set
 
 register = template.Library()
@@ -168,6 +170,21 @@ def abslink_callback(attrs, new=False):
     return attrs
 
 
+class EmailNl2BrExtension(Extension):
+    """
+    In emails (mostly for backwards-compatibility), we do not follow GitHub Flavored Markdown in preserving newlines.
+    Instead, we follow the CommonMark specification:
+
+    "A line ending (not in a code span or HTML tag) that is preceded by two or more spaces and does not occur at the
+    end of a block is parsed as a hard line break (rendered in HTML as a <br /> tag)"
+    """
+    BR_RE = r'  \n'
+
+    def extendMarkdown(self, md):
+        br_tag = SubstituteTagInlineProcessor(self.BR_RE, 'br')
+        md.inlinePatterns.register(br_tag, 'nl', 5)
+
+
 def markdown_compile_email(source):
     linker = bleach.Linker(
         url_re=URL_RE,
@@ -180,7 +197,7 @@ def markdown_compile_email(source):
             source,
             extensions=[
                 'markdown.extensions.sane_lists',
-                #  'markdown.extensions.nl2br' # disabled for backwards-compatibility
+                EmailNl2BrExtension(),
             ]
         ),
         tags=ALLOWED_TAGS,
diff --git a/src/tests/base/test_rich_text.py b/src/tests/base/test_rich_text.py
index d669c1c6ea..921b1efd20 100644
--- a/src/tests/base/test_rich_text.py
+++ b/src/tests/base/test_rich_text.py
@@ -61,3 +61,21 @@ def test_linkify_abs(link):
     assert rich_text_snippet(input, safelinks=False) == output
     assert rich_text(input, safelinks=False) == f'<p>{output}</p>'
     assert markdown_compile_email(input) == f'<p>{output}</p>'
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("content,result", [
+    ('a\nb', '<p>a<br>\nb</p>'),
+    ('a  \nb', '<p>a<br>\nb</p>'),
+    ('a\n\nb', '<p>a</p>\n<p>b</p>'),
+])
+def test_newline_handling(content, result):
+    assert rich_text(content, safelinks=False) == result
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("content,result", [
+    ('a\nb', '<p>a\nb</p>'),
+    ('a  \nb', '<p>a<br>\nb</p>'),
+    ('a\n\nb', '<p>a</p>\n<p>b</p>'),
+])
+def test_newline_handling_email(content, result):
+    assert markdown_compile_email(content) == result