The German genitive and its prepositions

The genitive answers wessen? — whose? It is the case of possession, and more than that it is a marker of register: a text that uses genitives reads as written German, and one that replaces them all with von reads as spoken. Both are correct; they are aimed at different readers.

The forms

Masculine and neuter nouns take an ending as well as changing their article — and this is the half people forget. One-syllable nouns take -es (des Kindes, des Mannes), longer ones take -s (des Lehrers, des Betriebs), and anything ending in -s, -ß, -z or -x must take -es for pronounceability (des Hauses). Feminine and plural nouns change nothing but the article.

Where it goes

Unlike the English apostrophe-s, the German genitive follows its noun rather than preceding it. “The couple's kitchen” becomes “die Küche eines Ehepaars” — kitchen first, owner second.

• …in der Küche eines Ehepaars, das nach Spanien zog.

  …in the kitchen of a couple who moved to Spain.

  the genitive phrase comes after the noun it belongs to

• der Verlust des Betriebs

  the loss of the business

  des Betriebs — masculine, more than one syllable, so -s

• trotz aller Sorgfalt der Herausgeberin

  despite all the care of the editor

  two genitives in a row, which written German does happily

The prepositions that demand it

A handful of everyday prepositions govern the genitive. These are the ones worth having automatic, because they appear in ordinary B2 writing rather than only in documents.

And the ones that make a text sound official

Beyond those sits a second group that belongs to legal and administrative German. You will meet them in a Widerspruch, a Bescheid or a contract, and using one is an instant signal of register — which is exactly why the C1 sets ask for them.

• ausweislich der beigefügten Unterlagen

  as evidenced by the enclosed documents

  ausweislich — pure officialese, and precise

• mangels ausreichender Prüfung

  for want of adequate examination

  mangels takes a bare genitive with no article

• infolge der Nichtberücksichtigung

  as a result of the non-consideration

  infolge + genitive; note the nominalisation it pairs with

Others in the same family: zwecks, seitens, hinsichtlich, bezüglich, angesichts, zugunsten. All take the genitive, all are written-only, and all are easy to overuse — two in a paragraph reads as authoritative, six reads as parody.

What speech does instead

In conversation German largely avoids the genitive. Possession becomes von + dative — “das Auto von meinem Bruder” — and wegen, trotz and während are commonly heard with the dative too: “wegen dem Wetter”. You should recognise all of this, and you should not write it. In an essay, a report or a formal letter, the genitive is expected and the dative version reads as an error.

Common mistakes

• ✗wegen dem Wetter (in writing)

  ✓wegen des Wetters

  Extremely common in speech and still non-standard on the page. In written German wegen takes the genitive.

• ✗das Auto meines Bruder

  ✓das Auto meines Bruders

  Masculine and neuter nouns take -s or -es of their own. Changing only the article leaves the job half done.

• ✗des Kind

  ✓des Kindes

  One syllable, so it takes the full -es. Longer nouns take a plain -s.

• ✗während dem Essen

  ✓während des Essens

  während is a genitive preposition, and Essen needs its -s as well.

• ✗trotz den Problemen

  ✓trotz der Probleme

  trotz takes the genitive, so the plural article is der, not den — den would be dative.

• ✗meines Schwester Auto

  ✓das Auto meiner Schwester

  German does not front the possessor the way English does. The genitive phrase follows the noun, and Schwester is feminine, so it is meiner with no ending on the noun.