Die Relativpronomen

A relative pronoun connects a noun to a clause that describes it. The man who came in, the book that I read, the woman whose car broke down. In German the relative pronoun is mostly the definite article wearing a slightly different hat. Der, die, das, die in the four genders and the plural, with two adjustments: the dative plural is denen (not den), and the genitive forms are dessen, deren, dessen, deren (not des and der). Sixteen cells, two surprises.

The hard part is not memorising the forms. The hard part is choosing the right one. Gender and number come from the noun outside the clause; case comes from what the pronoun does inside the clause. Two different sources for one little word. That split is where every learner stumbles for the first month.

The full table

Compare this to the definite article and you will see they are almost identical. The article table reads der, die, das, die / den, die, das, die / dem, der, dem, den / des, der, des, der. The two cells that change in the relative pronoun:

1. Dative plural is denen, not den. The article den is so overworked (it doubles as masculine accusative singular) that the plural relative gets a longer form to keep it distinct.
2. All four genitive forms are dessen and deren. These are unique to the relative system. They look strange the first time you read them, then they become the most useful pronouns in your reading vocabulary, because they let you absorb possessive relatives at a glance.

Everything else lines up with the article table. If you already know the article paradigm (and at B1 you do), you know fourteen of the sixteen relative pronoun cells.

The three rules for picking the right form

This is the whole grammar of relative pronouns in German, compressed:

1. Gender and number come from the antecedent. The antecedent is the noun the relative clause describes. Der Mann is masculine singular, so the relative pronoun is in the masculine singular column. Die Frau is feminine singular, so feminine singular. Die Kinder is plural, so plural.
2. Case comes from the role inside the relative clause. Forget what case the antecedent is in. What matters is what job the relative pronoun is doing in its own clause. Is it the subject? Nominative. The direct object? Accusative. The indirect object? Dative. Possessing something? Genitive.
3. The verb in a relative clause goes to the end. Relative clauses are subordinate clauses, so the conjugated verb migrates to the final position. This is the same rule as for dass and weil clauses. See wortstellung-nebensatz for the full subordinate-clause word-order picture.

Three rules. Apply them in order. The form falls out.

Worked examples for each case

The same antecedent (der Mann, masculine singular) appears in all four examples. Only the role inside the relative clause changes, and only the case changes with it.

Nominative

Der Mann, der hier wohnt, ist mein Onkel. The man who lives here is my uncle.

The man is doing the living. He is the subject of wohnt, so the relative pronoun is nominative. Masculine singular nominative is der.

Accusative

Der Mann, den ich gestern gesehen habe, ist mein Onkel. The man whom I saw yesterday is my uncle.

I am the subject. The man is what I saw. He is the direct object of gesehen habe, so the relative pronoun is accusative. Masculine singular accusative is den.

Dative

Der Mann, dem ich das Buch gegeben habe, ist mein Onkel. The man to whom I gave the book is my uncle.

I am the subject. The book is the direct object. The man is the recipient of the giving, so he is the indirect object of gegeben habe. Indirect objects take the dative. Masculine singular dative is dem.

Genitive

Der Mann, dessen Auto kaputt ist, ist mein Onkel. The man whose car is broken is my uncle.

The man does not appear directly inside the relative clause as a subject or object. He is the possessor of Auto. Possession takes the genitive. Masculine singular genitive in the relative system is dessen.

In all four sentences the antecedent (der Mann) is in the nominative because it is the subject of the main clause (ist mein Onkel). That nominative does not propagate. The relative pronoun is in whatever case its own job demands.

Preposition plus relative pronoun

When the antecedent is the object of a preposition inside the relative clause, the preposition stays at the front of the relative clause and pulls the pronoun along with it. The case of the pronoun is whatever case the preposition normally requires.

Der Mann, mit dem ich gestern gesprochen habe, ist mein Onkel. The man with whom I spoke yesterday is my uncle.

Mit governs the dative. The masculine singular dative relative is dem. So the cluster is mit dem. Note that German cannot strand the preposition the way English does. You cannot write Der Mann, dem ich mit gesprochen habe. The preposition and the relative pronoun travel together to the front of the clause.

Das Buch, auf das ich warte, kommt morgen. The book that I am waiting for comes tomorrow.

Warten auf (to wait for) takes the accusative. Neuter singular accusative is das. So the cluster is auf das. English speakers want to write das Buch, das ich warte auf. That is wrong. The preposition has to lead.

This pattern combines two skills: knowing which preposition each verb takes (the famous warten auf, denken an, sich freuen auf list), and knowing which case that preposition governs. Both are recognition skills you build by reading. Once they are automatic, the relative pronoun follows.

The wer and was relatives

German has a second set of relative pronouns for cases where there is no antecedent at all. These are wer (whoever, for people) and was (what, for things and abstractions).

Wer Hunger hat, soll essen. Whoever is hungry should eat.

Was du sagst, stimmt nicht. What you say is not right.

Wer declines exactly like the question word wer: wer, wen, wem, wessen. The relative version follows the same paradigm.

Wem ich vertraue, dem helfe ich. Whomever I trust, that one I help.

Was is invariant; it does not change form. It functions only as nominative or accusative.

A second use of was is mandatory after certain indefinite or abstract antecedents:

• alles (everything): Alles, was ich weiß (everything I know)
• etwas (something): Etwas, was mich überrascht (something that surprises me)
• nichts (nothing): Nichts, was mir gefällt (nothing that I like)
• viel (much): Viel, was wir gelernt haben (much that we have learned)
• wenig (little): Wenig, was ich verstehe (little that I understand)
• das Beste, das Schönste, etc. (the best, the most beautiful): Das Beste, was ich je gelesen habe (the best thing I have ever read)
• a whole preceding clause: Er kam zu spät, was mich ärgerte (he came late, which annoyed me)

The rule: when the antecedent is indefinite, abstract, a substantivised superlative, or an entire clause, the relative is was. Use das only when the antecedent is a concrete neuter noun (das Buch, das Kind, das Auto).

Welcher, welche, welches as a stylistic alternative

There is a second set of relative pronouns: welcher, welche, welches. They decline like dieser (the strong-ending pattern) and they cover the same nominative, accusative, dative jobs as der, die, das.

In modern German they are rare. The one situation where welcher still appears is to avoid the awkwardness of consecutive der-words.

Die Frau, welche der Junge sieht, ist meine Tante. instead of Die Frau, die der Junge sieht, ist meine Tante.

Both sentences are grammatical. The first uses welche as the relative to put one syllable of distance between the relative pronoun and the following definite article der. Some careful writers and most older texts prefer it. In speech and modern prose almost no one bothers. Recognise welcher when you read it. Do not bother producing it.

The genitive forms (welches, welcher) are unused even in writing. Dessen and deren always win for the genitive job.

The comma rule

This one is non-negotiable. Every relative clause in German is preceded by a comma. Always. There are no exceptions. The 1996 spelling reform left this rule untouched. Even short relative clauses get a comma.

Der Mann*,** der hier wohnt**,** ist mein Onkel.* Das Buch*,** das ich lese**,** ist gut.* Die Frau*,** mit der ich spreche**,** ist meine Lehrerin.*

If the relative clause is in the middle of the sentence, you get two commas: one before the clause opens, one when it closes. If it is at the end of the sentence, you get one comma when it opens and a period when it closes.

English allows you to skip the relative pronoun (the man I saw) and to skip the commas around restrictive relatives (the book that I read with no commas). German allows neither. The relative pronoun is mandatory; the commas are mandatory.

This is one of the few German rules you can set and forget. If you see a relative pronoun, put a comma before it.

What you don’t need to do

You do not need to memorise the welcher paradigm at B1. Der, die, das with their denen and dessen/deren corners cover everything modern German does with relative clauses. Welcher is recognition only.

You do not need to drill the genitive relative in the abstract. Dessen and deren feel exotic at first. After ten pages of any nineteenth-century novel they become routine. Read Goethe or Kafka with the rule in mind and the form lodges by exposure.

You do not need to worry about whether a relative clause is restrictive or non-restrictive. English speakers worry about that versus which (the man that came, the man, which by the way came). German makes no such distinction. Der covers both, and the comma rule applies in both cases.

You do not need to invent ways to avoid relative clauses. Some learners try to break every long German sentence into shorter ones to dodge the verb-final word order. That is a strategy for speaking, not for writing or reading. German prose is built on relative clauses. Avoiding them produces stiff, child-register sentences. Build to them.

You do not need to handle four-clause Kafka sentences yourself in production. Recognise them in reading. In your own writing, one or two relative clauses per sentence is the natural ceiling for B1 and B2.

Common confusions

• Den and denen. Den is masculine singular accusative (Der Mann, den ich sehe). Denen is plural dative (Die Männer, denen ich helfe). Two cells, one looks like the other. The plural dative gets the extra syllable. Mix them up and you will say something like Die Männer, den ich helfe, which is wrong on both gender and case.
• Das and dass. Same sound, different jobs. Das (one s) is the neuter relative pronoun (Das Buch, das ich lese). Dass (two s) is the conjunction that (Ich weiss, dass du kommst). The double s is the only way to tell them apart in writing. They are spelled differently for a reason.
• Das and was. Both translate as that or which in English. Use das when the antecedent is a concrete neuter noun. Use was when the antecedent is indefinite (alles, etwas, nichts), a substantivised superlative (das Beste), or a whole clause. Das Buch, das ich lese (the book I am reading), but Alles, was ich weiss (everything I know).
• Gender of the antecedent does not match the case of the pronoun. This is the trap. Ich kenne den Mann, der hier wohnt. The antecedent (den Mann) is in the accusative because it is the direct object of kenne. But the relative pronoun (der) is in the nominative because it is the subject of wohnt. The case has reset.
• The verb has to be at the end. Der Mann, der hier wohnt is right. Der Mann, der wohnt hier is wrong. The relative clause is subordinate, so the conjugated verb migrates to the final position. See wortstellung-nebensatz for the rule across all subordinate clauses.
• The preposition cannot strand. English happily writes the man I spoke to, with to at the end. German requires Der Mann, mit dem ich gesprochen habe, with the preposition leading the relative clause. Stranded prepositions do not exist in standard German.
• Dessen and deren never decline further. Once you have picked the genitive form (dessen for masculine and neuter antecedents, deren for feminine and plural), it does not change. Der Mann, dessen Auto, dessen Bücher, dessen Schwester all use dessen. The following noun takes whatever case its own job requires, and the article on that noun disappears (because dessen is itself a possessive). Der Mann, dessen Auto kaputt ist, not dessen das Auto kaputt ist.

Where you’ll meet it in the library

Relative pronouns saturate German prose. The library entries that drill specific corners of the system:

• Die Verwandlung (A2+). Kafka’s opening sentence is famously single-clause, but from the second paragraph the novella is built on relative clauses. Tracking Gregor through der, den, dem, dessen in successive sentences is the core comprehension task of the book.
• Der Process (A2+). The single most concentrated source of nested relative clauses in the catalog. Kafka’s bureaucratic crowd scenes (the courtroom, the painter’s studio, the cathedral) put four or five relative pronouns into one sentence and expect the reader to keep them sorted by gender, number, and case. Read fifty pages and the relative system is automatic.
• Das Schloss (A2+). Same Kafka, same density, more landscape. K. moves through a village described almost entirely through relative clauses. The villagers, the inn, the castle officials are all introduced and re-introduced through der, die, das plus a defining fact.
• Faust (B2). Goethe writes verse with elaborate relative chains. Mephistopheles defines himself in a single line: der Geist, der stets verneint. The play’s most quoted phrases are nearly all relative-clause constructions, which makes Faust the highest-density relative-pronoun text in the catalog despite its short overall length.
• Werther (B2). Goethe’s epistolary novel uses relative clauses to draw character. Werther describes Lotte through chained relatives, layering observation on observation in long letter-paragraphs. The relative pronoun is what makes the obsessive narrator’s voice possible.
• Heidi (A1). Spyri’s relative clauses are short and concrete. Der Großvater, der oben auf dem Berg wohnte is the easiest possible relative-clause sentence in German prose. After ten pages of Heidi, the comma plus relative pronoun plus verb-final pattern is hard-wired.
• Grimms Märchen (A1). The fairy tales repeat the same relative constructions across stories: der König, der drei Töchter hatte, die Hexe, die im Wald wohnte, das Kind, das verloren war. Learning the relative system through Grimm is the path of least resistance for A1 readers.
• Frankenstein (B2). The German adaptation of Shelley’s novel preserves the long, layered sentences of nineteenth-century prose. Walton, Frankenstein, and the creature each speak in extended relative-clause monologues. The reader who finishes Frankenstein in German has met every cell of the relative pronoun table dozens of times.