Intermediate stories
Original German stories written for this level, with comprehension questions.
Short stories
40 original stories written for this level, each with a comprehension check.
Der ordentliche Einbrecher
A detective in Bochum investigates a series of break-ins in which nothing is ever stolen, but every flat is left spotlessly clean.
Die verschwundene Hochzeitstorte
On the morning of an important wedding, the cake disappears from a Viennese pastry shop, and the apprentice Lena decides to find the thief.
Ein Sommer auf der Hütte
In her diary, Nadia from Zurich describes a hard summer job in a mountain hut in Graubünden and a stormy night that changes everything.
Zu spät zur Hochzeit
Tobias has to bring the rings to his sister's wedding in Freiburg, but his train stops in the middle of nowhere.
Der Igel, der nicht schlafen wollte
A fable from the Black Forest: a young hedgehog refuses to hibernate because he wants to be the first hedgehog ever to see snow.
Zettel im Treppenhaus
In an old building in Dresden, a complaint about a bicycle starts an exchange of notes on the noticeboard that the whole house follows.
Die Lehrerin von Hinterau
In 1952, a young teacher from the city arrives at a mountain school in Tyrol, where the children don't expect her to stay.
Der reisende Gartenzwerg
Herbert, who never travels, finds that his beloved garden gnome has disappeared, and then the postcards start arriving.
Der doppelt reservierte Platz
On the six-hour train from Hamburg to Munich, Jakob has to share his reserved seat with a stranger the day before he meets his new boss.
Die Stimme im Babyfon
Every night at eleven, the baby monitor of a young couple in Kiel picks up an old man's voice reading fairy tales, and then one night it falls silent.
Die Bienen auf dem Dach
When the caretaker of a Stuttgart insurance company retires, an accountant agrees to look after his secret beehives on the roof.
Unterstrichen
A librarian in Lübeck who hates people writing in books starts finding secret messages underlined in the novels one quiet old man brings back.
Der vergessene Lottoschein
For eleven years, the staff of a garage in Linz have played the same lottery numbers, and this week the apprentice forgets to hand in the ticket.
Regen auf dem Mars
In 2061, a biologist from Kiel working on a Mars station slowly realises what she misses most about Earth.
Schach im Hofgarten
A retired maths teacher who hasn't lost a game of chess in six years meets a silent teenage girl in a Munich park.
Bürgermeisterin wider Willen
In a small village in Upper Austria nobody wants to be mayor, except the one man everybody fears, until the villagers come up with a plan behind the baker's back.
Die Frau ohne Schlüssel
Late one evening, a Cologne locksmith with one strict rule is called to open a flat for a woman who doesn't seem to know her way around it.
Schuhe für Paul
Berlin, 1923: as money loses its value by the hour, a young seamstress saves for weeks to buy her little brother a pair of shoes before winter.
Der Papagei des Professors
A Zurich biology student looks after her strictest professor's parrot for two weeks, and the bird seems to know the questions for her next exam.
Die Zeichnerin auf der Fähre
Every morning a shy tax adviser crosses Lake Constance on the same ferry as a woman with a sketchbook, and one foggy day she leaves it behind.
Ausgesperrt auf dem Balkon
On a freezing Sunday morning in Magdeburg, Paul locks himself out on his balcony in his bathrobe, and the only person who hears him is a neighbour he has never spoken to.
Der kluge Kühlschrank
Worried that his widowed mother in Ulm isn't eating properly, Markus gives her a smart fridge he can check from his phone, and then it starts ordering very strange things.
Der Fund im Gletscher
A mountain guide in Saas-Fee finds an old leather rucksack in the melting glacier, and what is inside reopens a story the whole village thought it knew.
Der stumme Tenor
Malte, a dentist in Bremen who cannot sing a note, joins a church choir because of a woman's voice, and keeps his secret for seven weeks.
Das Tagebuch vom Leuchtturm
In February 1962, the keeper of a lighthouse on the North Sea island of Pellworm writes his diary through a terrible storm, just as his wife goes into labour.
Omas Schatzsuche
A brother and sister in Graz who haven't spoken for five years learn that their grandmother's house will go to whoever finds her hidden treasure.
Die Fahrprüfung
At fifty-six, Hatice from Duisburg decides to learn to drive so that she can visit her new grandchild, and her driving test does not go the way she expects.
Die Kuh, die fliegen wollte
A fable from the Bernese Oberland: a young cow on a mountain pasture above Grindelwald watches the paragliders every day and decides that she wants to fly too.
Wer liest meine Zeitung?
A retired postman in Kassel with very fixed habits notices that someone is secretly reading his newspaper every morning before he gets up.
Der falsche Mozart
Valentin plays the violin in a Mozart costume for tourists in Salzburg, and one elderly lady listens to him every day without ever giving him a cent.
Der falsche Dackel
Katrin picks up her dachshund from a dog groomer in Nuremberg, but at home the dog behaves in a very strange way.
Zimmer zwölf
A new night porter in an Innsbruck hotel is told to keep one room free on one particular night every year, and he wants to know why.
Die Eisschwimmerin
After failing his school-leaving exams, a nineteen-year-old is sent to his grandmother in Klagenfurt, who wakes him at half past six every morning for a very cold reason.
Die Donnerstagsdame
A clerk at the lost property office in Düsseldorf does something he has never done before so that a young woman will keep coming back.
Der Trabi von Tante Ilse
Two days after the Berlin Wall falls in 1989, a boy from Plauen sets off with his aunt in her brand-new Trabant for their first trip to the West.
Der Hahn von Birkach
A software developer from Berlin moves to a wine village in Franconia for some peace and quiet, but his neighbour's rooster has other plans.
Das letzte Spiel
In East Frisia, a goalkeeper who has not missed a match in forty-three years plays his final game against the rival village, whose star striker is his own son.
Der Kochkurs
After his wife's death, a seventy-two-year-old in Steyr who has never cooked in his life joins a cookery course to recreate her famous goulash.
Das Geräusch in der Wand
Every night at twelve minutes past eleven, a music teacher in Münster hears a tiny melody coming out of his bedroom wall.
Die Uhr, die nachging
A young watchmaker from Zurich takes over a shop in Schaffhausen and decides to fix the old town's tower clock, which has always been seven minutes slow.