German Citation Style: Footnote Referencing with Examples

You are reading German scholarship, or writing at a German university, and the department expects the German citation style: references in footnotes at the bottom of the page instead of parentheses in the running text. That is where the questions start. What goes in the first footnote, what goes in every later one, and when is „ebd.“ enough?

In the German citation style every reference sits in a footnote, signaled by a superscript number in the text. The first mention of a source carries the full reference with all bibliographic details, and every later mention carries a short reference made up of surname, an identifier for the work, and the page number. Every example on this page references the same source, so you can compare footnote, short reference, and bibliography entry side by side.

📌 Key takeaways

• The German citation style references every source in a footnote.
• The first footnote for a source carries the full reference.
• From the second mention onward a short reference is enough.
• „Ebd.“ refers only to the footnote immediately before it.
• The German citation style is a convention, not a standard.

What is the German citation style?

The German citation style is a referencing system in which every source reference sits in a footnote at the bottom of the page. A superscript number after the referenced passage points to that footnote, and the footnote gives the author, title, publication details, and page number.

The main text therefore stays free of parentheses. That is the practical reason why fields with many sources per page have kept the system: history, law, theology, and parts of the humanities. Anyone putting author and year in parentheses inside the sentence is working with APA or Harvard instead.

Other names for the German citation style

The German citation style has no official name, because no body exists that could grant one. German university handbooks describe the same rules under „Fußnotenzitierweise“, „klassische Zitierweise“, or simply „Zitieren mit Fußnoten“. In English it is usually called footnote referencing or the notes system. It is not a German edition of Chicago, even though the two look similar at first glance.

How it compares with Chicago and APA

The closest American relative is the Chicago notes-bibliography system, which also places the reference at the foot of the page. The difference lies in the order of the elements: Chicago puts the first name before the surname and separates the parts with commas, while the German style inverts the name and uses a colon after it.

Turabian, the student adaptation of Chicago, follows the same notes system. Its ninth edition reflects the seventeenth edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, and a tenth edition aligned with the eighteenth is announced for November 2026. For the effect of all this on a single book reference, see our guide to citing books.

Is the German citation style a standard?

The German citation style is not a standard but a disciplinary convention. There is no central manual as there is for APA or Chicago, and no valid DIN specification behind it. What binds you is the handbook of your department, and those handbooks differ on details that look trivial at first sight.

The contrast with American practice is sharp. The Chicago Manual of Style Citation Quick Guide documents the eighteenth edition of 2024 with dated, published rules, and Purdue OWL restates them for students. The German citation style has no equivalent authority, which is exactly why two German departments can hand you two different sets of rules.

Full reference and short reference: what goes in which footnote

The full reference sits in the first footnote for a source and carries every bibliographic detail. Each later footnote for the same source carries the short reference, which shrinks to the surname, an identifier for the work, and the page number.

German handbooks call these two forms Vollbeleg and Kurzbeleg, or Vollzitat and Kurzzitat. Both pairs mean the same thing. Every example below references the same passage: Anna Weber, „Empirisch forschen. Ein Leitfaden für die Abschlussarbeit“, third edition, published in Wiesbaden by Beispielverlag in 2024, page 87.

Footnote 1, full reference on first mention: Vgl. Weber, Anna: Empirisch forschen. Ein Leitfaden für die Abschlussarbeit, 3. Auflage, Wiesbaden: Beispielverlag 2024, S. 87.

Footnote 2, short reference from the second mention: Vgl. Weber 2024, S. 87.

Footnote 3, same source immediately afterward: Vgl. ebd., S. 88.

Note that the title stays in German and is not translated. So do the abbreviations: „Vgl.“ marks an indirect quotation, that is a passage you have paraphrased, and it corresponds to the English „cf.“. For a direct quotation in quotation marks it is dropped, and the footnote starts with the name. „S.“ stands for Seite and does the work of „p.“.

The German citation style with several authors

Several authors are separated by a forward slash in the form „Surname, Forename/Surname, Forename“. Where the cutoff falls varies between handbooks. The citation guide of the History Department at LMU Munich lists up to three names in footnotes and gathers any further names under „u. a.“ or „et al.“, while the bibliography there carries every name in full.

Two authors, full reference: Vgl. Weber, Anna/Schulze, Paul: Empirisch forschen. Ein Leitfaden für die Abschlussarbeit, 3. Auflage, Wiesbaden: Beispielverlag 2024, S. 87.

Four authors, full reference: Vgl. Weber, Anna/Schulze, Paul/Meier, Peter u. a.: Empirisch forschen. Ein Leitfaden für die Abschlussarbeit, 3. Auflage, Wiesbaden: Beispielverlag 2024, S. 87.

Four authors, short reference: Vgl. Weber u. a. 2024, S. 87.

Some handbooks separate names with a semicolon or with „und“ instead of the slash, and some cut off at the third name. Which variant you choose matters less than keeping it consistent across the whole paper.

Short reference with year or with short title?

The short reference comes in two widespread forms, and most guides show only one of them. One shortens to surname, year of publication, and page; the other shortens to surname, short title, and page. Which one applies to you is set out in your department handbook.

American readers already know the second form. A Chicago shortened note is built the same way: the author’s last name, a shortened title, and the page, as in „Yu, Interior Chinatown, 48.“. The German short-title variant is the same idea with German punctuation, so a paper written to Chicago transfers to a German history department more easily than one written to APA.

Short reference with year: Vgl. Weber 2024, S. 87.

Short reference with short title: Vgl. Weber, Empirisch forschen, S. 87.

The citation guide of the History Department at LMU Munich recommends taking the first meaningful noun of the title, or at most three words from it, and requires that the choice stay unchanged throughout the paper. For „Empirisch forschen. Ein Leitfaden für die Abschlussarbeit“ that means „Empirisch forschen“ every time, never „Leitfaden“ on one page and „Abschlussarbeit“ on the next.

💡 Tip

Fix your short titles before you start writing rather than afterward. Reference managers such as Zotero and Citavi have a dedicated field for them. Otherwise three spellings of the same source end up in the finished paper, and at proofreading stage you will only find them with the search function.

Placing footnote numbers: position, capitals, period

The footnote number sits directly after the passage it refers to, with no space before it. If the reference covers the whole sentence, the number follows the period. If it covers only a word or a clause, it sits inside the sentence, immediately after that part.

This is where the short answer „always after the period“ falls down. It holds for the normal case, in which a footnote supports the whole preceding sentence. As soon as you are referencing a single term, the number moves into the sentence, because otherwise it stays unclear what the source is actually vouching for.

Where the number goes after a quotation

After a direct quotation the number follows the closing quotation mark. If the quotation makes up the whole sentence, the period sits inside the quotation marks and the number comes after them. Chicago states the American rule in section 14.26: a note number normally goes at the end of a sentence or clause and follows any punctuation mark except the dash, which it precedes.

Footnotes start with a capital and end with a period

Every footnote begins with a capital letter and ends with a period, even when it is only three words long. That is why it is „Ebd.“ at the start of a footnote and lowercase „ebd.“ after a preceding „Vgl.“. Several sources in one footnote are separated by a semicolon.

„f.“ and „ff.“ after page numbers

The abbreviations „f.“ for the following page and „ff.“ for the following pages are common in German footnotes but imprecise: after „ff.“ it stays open whether two or twenty pages are meant. The LMU Munich citation guide advises against them and asks for the range instead, so „S. 87–89“. Giving the range is never wrong in either system.

„Ebd.“ and „a. a. O.“: when the abbreviations are allowed

„Ebd.“ is short for „ebenda“ and does the work of the English „ibid.“. It replaces the short reference when you are referring to exactly the source named in the footnote immediately before. If only the page changes, you add it, so „Ebd., S. 88.“.

Two conditions decide whether the abbreviation holds. First, the footnote you mean has to sit immediately before, not three footnotes further up. Second, it must name a single work only. If the previous footnote lists two titles, it is no longer clear which one is meant, and the LMU Munich citation guide rules „ebd.“ out for that case.

Why Chicago moved away from „Ibid.“

American practice has moved in the opposite direction from German practice here. The Chicago Manual of Style now prefers a shortened citation where an earlier edition would have used „Ibid.“, and Purdue OWL summarizes the eighteenth edition as discouraging the term while still accepting it for consecutive notes citing the same source and the same page. German „ebd.“, by contrast, remains entirely standard in German footnote referencing.

An abbreviation that sends the reader back through the footnotes is saving effort in the wrong place.

German „a. a. O.“, short for „am angegebenen Ort“, is the direct counterpart of „op. cit.“ and carries the same weakness: it points to a source referenced somewhere earlier, not necessarily in the footnote immediately before. If your handbook says nothing about it, the short reference is the safe choice. It is valid in every guide linked from this page.

German citation style: examples for four source types

The four source types that come up most often in a thesis follow the same pattern and differ only in the details that are added. A book reference stays shortest; a chapter in an edited collection runs longest, because two works are nested inside one another.

Each example below shows the full reference, that is the form of the first footnote. The short reference is the same in all four cases, namely „Vgl. Weber 2024, S. 87.“. Order and punctuation may differ in your department handbook.

Citing a book in the German citation style

For a book you give the author, title and subtitle, edition, place of publication, publisher, year, and page. The first edition is never named, every later one belongs in the reference, because page numbers shift between revised editions. Some handbooks drop the publisher and name only the place.

Full reference: Vgl. Weber, Anna: Empirisch forschen. Ein Leitfaden für die Abschlussarbeit, 3. Auflage, Wiesbaden: Beispielverlag 2024, S. 87.

Citing a chapter in an edited collection

For a chapter the author of the chapter comes first, followed by „in:“ and the details of the volume with its editors. The page range of the whole chapter goes at the end, and the specific page you are citing is added with „hier:“. Without that split it stays unclear which page you actually read.

Full reference: Vgl. Weber, Anna: Stichproben in der Praxis, in: Schulze, Paul (Hrsg.): Empirisch forschen. Ein Leitfaden für die Abschlussarbeit, 3. Auflage, Wiesbaden: Beispielverlag 2024, S. 80–95, hier: S. 87.

Citing a journal article

For a journal article the publisher and place of publication drop out. In their place come the title of the journal, the volume number, the year in parentheses, and, where needed, the issue number. The page range of the article belongs in the reference, with the cited page again marked by „hier:“.

Full reference: Vgl. Weber, Anna: Stichproben in der Praxis, in: Zeitschrift für Methodenlehre 12 (2024) 2, S. 80–95, hier: S. 87.

Citing an online source in a footnote

For an online source you add the URL or DOI and the date you last accessed it. The LMU Munich citation guide requires both, and asks in addition that the hyperlink formatting be removed so that the reference does not appear underlined and in blue among the footnotes.

Full reference: Vgl. Weber, Anna: Stichproben in der Praxis, in: Beispielportal, 12.03.2024, www.beispielportal.de/stichproben, Zugriff 15.08.2026.

Footnotes are only half the job once a source has no print edition. Our guide to citing internet sources sets out the six parts of a web reference and explains when an access date is required.

The bibliography in the German citation style

The bibliography lists every work used, in alphabetical order by the author’s surname and in full. Two things separate the entry from the footnote: the „Vgl.“ is dropped, and the page you cited does not appear.

Page numbers are where most bibliographies come apart. A monograph carries no page reference at all. An article or a chapter carries the full page range of the contribution, not the single page you happened to cite.

Entry in the bibliography: Weber, Anna: Empirisch forschen. Ein Leitfaden für die Abschlussarbeit, 3. Auflage, Wiesbaden: Beispielverlag 2024.

Bibliografie, Literaturverzeichnis, or Quellenverzeichnis?

German history departments treat „Bibliografie“ as the umbrella term covering both a list of primary sources and a list of secondary literature. If you have worked with archival material, newspapers, or source editions, the Quellenverzeichnis comes before the Literaturverzeichnis. In fields without those source types there is only one list, and Bibliografie and Literaturverzeichnis then mean the same thing. American notes-bibliography papers keep a single heading, „Bibliography“.

⚠️ Watch out

Every work that appears in a footnote has to appear in the bibliography, and the other way round. Check that in both directions before you submit. A title in the list that is never referenced stands out to a grader just as much as a footnote with no matching entry.

Common mistakes in the German citation style

Most points lost on formal grounds are lost not to wrong details but to inconsistent ones. Four mistakes come up often enough to justify one dedicated pass through the footnotes before you submit.

All four can be fixed in an hour if you read the footnotes as a block rather than one at a time while writing. How heavily your institution weighs formal errors is set out in its course syllabus or style sheet.

Mixing two referencing systems in one paper

Footnote references and parenthetical references belong to two different systems. Mixing them costs points even when every individual detail is correct. It usually happens when text blocks are carried over from earlier papers written to a different specification.

Using „ebd.“ across an intervening footnote

No other footnote may stand between the footnote with „ebd.“ and the source it means. Late insertions are the usual cause: you add a sentence with a new source, and the „ebd.“ below it suddenly points at the wrong work. Check the following footnote after every insertion.

Changing the short title along the way

If the same source appears once as „Weber, Empirisch forschen“ and once as „Weber, Leitfaden“, it looks like two works. Set the short title once and leave it alone. With the year form the same applies to works by the same author from the same year, which are distinguished as „2024a“ and „2024b“.

Translating German titles into English

A German book title stays in German in the reference, and so do „Hrsg.“, „Auflage“, and „S.“. Translating them breaks the link between your reference and any library catalog, and a grader checking the source will not find it. If a translation helps your reader, put it in square brackets after the original title rather than in place of it.

Conclusion

The German citation style is simpler than its reputation suggests: a full reference on first mention, short references after that, and a bibliography carrying the same details without the page you cited. The work is not in the rules but in applying them the same way across a hundred footnotes.

Whatever this guide shows, the handbook of your department decides, and it decides even where it departs from the patterns above. If there is no handbook, pick one form and hold to it. This article is not a substitute for advice from your advisor.

What to read next

• Want the basics from the start? How to cite correctly: the guide
• Does your department want parenthetical references after all? The Harvard citation style explained
• Referencing a book right now? Citing books: rules and examples

Still missing your own data for the thesis?

Data from a survey you ran yourself is not referenced as an external source; you describe it in the methods chapter instead. With empirio.ai, an online survey tool from Germany, you can collect it for free. How to build the questionnaire is set out in our guide to creating a questionnaire.