The textbook provides a conceptual overview of the history of German literature, focusing on key figures and leading lines of the literary process; it combines reference (articles on the literary process and writers, interpretation of individual terms and concepts related to literature) and textbook material (original texts of German-language literature, their commented translations into Russian, as well as fragments of well-known works on German studies). For students of linguistic faculties of higher educational institutions. Graduate students and teachers of the German language of linguistic universities can also be useful.