An apparatus for deflecting sheet material from a first transport direction to a second transport direction while maintaining the orientation of the sheet material comprises a deflecting area (5) with a sheet-material supply zone (5a) and a sheet-material removal zone (5b), as well as at least one slider (11) with slider elements (12), which engages on the trailing edge of the sheet material to be deflected. By moving the slider from the sheet-material supply zone to the sheet-material removal zone around a rotation axis (13) the sheet material is deflected by the desired deflection angle. The sheet-material transport path preferably has two steps and the rotation axis (13) of the sliders (11) is preferably arranged in such a fashion that the slider elements (12) substantially only engage with the sheet-material transport path in the deflecting area (5) and emerge from the sheet-material transport path both upstream of the sheet-material supply zone (5a) and downstream of the sheet-material removal zone (5b).