The Language of Death in German Newspapers

Abstract

No one speaks willingly of death. This is just as true of Germans as it is of Americans. And yet there are notable differences between the two cultures in their public expressions of grief and condolence. As a rule, the death notices in an American newspaper are restricted to one or two columns of a single page of newsprint. In a German newspaper death notices may be spread over two or more pages, with each notice taking up considerable space surrounded by a black border. A death notice in America has the length of a want ad; in Germany it can not only be as long as an advertisement, but at times can take up as much as half a page, depending on the importance of the person who has died and the expense the relatives wish to go to in order to honor the deceased's memory.