A relative clause lets you pack a whole sentence of detail onto a single noun: the woman who runs the bakery, the email I sent yesterday, the man whose car got towed. German builds these with the pronouns der, die, das (and their genitive and plural forms), sends the verb to the end of the clause, and fences the whole thing off with commas. This page is the one-stop reference: the complete pronoun table, every case in action, the genitive dessen/deren that learners dread, prepositional and wo-relatives, and a reliable recipe for turning two sentences into one. For the pure word-order mechanics — how the clause splits the main sentence and where the verb lands — see the companion page on relative clauses as a structure; this page focuses on choosing the right form and building the clause.
Two questions decide every relative pronoun
The single idea that unlocks the whole system: a relative pronoun carries two pieces of information from two different places.
- Its gender and number come from the antecedent — the noun outside the clause that it points back to.
- Its case comes from the job it does inside its own clause — subject, direct object, dative object, possessor, or object of a preposition.
English fuses all of this into who / whom / whose / that and then usually drops the pronoun altogether. German forces you to make both decisions explicitly, every time. So before you write a relative pronoun, ask: what is the antecedent's gender and number? and what role does the pronoun play inside the clause?
Das ist die Kollegin, die das Projekt leitet.
That's the colleague who runs the project. (antecedent Kollegin → feminine; role = subject → nominative → die)
Das ist die Kollegin, die ich gestern getroffen habe.
That's the colleague I met yesterday. (still feminine, but now object → accusative → die)
Das ist die Kollegin, der ich geholfen habe.
That's the colleague I helped. (feminine, but helfen takes the dative → der)
Three feminine pronouns, three different cases — die, die, der — driven entirely by the role inside the clause. The gender never changed because the antecedent never changed.
The complete relative-pronoun table
The relative pronouns are identical to the definite articles except in the genitive (all four) and the dative plural (denen). Memorise those five highlighted forms and the rest you already know.
| Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative (subject) | der | die | das | die |
| Accusative (direct object) | den | die | das | die |
| Dative (indirect object) | dem | der | dem | denen |
| Genitive (possessor) | dessen | deren | dessen | deren |
Subject and accusative: the everyday cases
By far the most common roles are subject (nominative) and direct object (accusative). The pronoun matches the antecedent's gender; the case follows the role.
Der Bäcker, der die besten Brötchen macht, hat morgen zu.
The baker who makes the best rolls is closed tomorrow. (masculine, subject → der)
Der Bäcker, den alle im Viertel kennen, geht bald in Rente.
The baker everyone in the neighbourhood knows is retiring soon. (masculine, object of kennen → den)
Die E-Mail, die ich gestern geschickt habe, ist nicht angekommen.
The email I sent yesterday didn't arrive. (feminine, object → die)
Note the second and third examples: English drops the pronoun entirely (the baker everyone knows, the email I sent), but German must keep den and die. This is the error that trips English speakers most — see Common Mistakes below.
Dative: when the verb or sense demands it
If the pronoun is an indirect object — or the object of a dative verb like helfen, danken, gefallen, gehören, folgen — it goes into the dative. Watch for the plural form denen, which has no article look-alike.
Der Nachbar, dem ich den Schlüssel gegeben habe, gießt die Blumen.
The neighbour I gave the key to waters the plants. (indirect object → dative → dem)
Das sind die Studenten, denen das Seminar am besten gefallen hat.
Those are the students who liked the seminar best. (gefallen takes a dative subject of experience → plural → denen)
Ein Auto, dem man vertrauen kann, ist Gold wert.
A car you can trust is worth its weight in gold. (vertrauen governs the dative → neuter → dem)
Genitive: dessen and deren — the form competitors skip
The genitive relative translates English whose: the man *whose car got towed, the company **whose boss resigned. German uses *dessen (for a masculine or neuter antecedent) and deren (for a feminine or plural antecedent). It replaces a possessive — seine, ihre — and then heads the clause.
Here is the insight that almost every textbook gets half-right and most apps skip entirely: the choice between dessen and deren is made by the gender and number of the ANTECEDENT, not by the noun that is possessed. The possessed noun's gender is irrelevant. Dessen and deren are invariable — they never change to agree with the thing owned.
Der Mann, dessen Frau Ärztin ist, wohnt nebenan.
The man whose wife is a doctor lives next door. (antecedent Mann = masculine → dessen, even though Frau is feminine)
Die Frau, deren Mann Arzt ist, wohnt nebenan.
The woman whose husband is a doctor lives next door. (antecedent Frau = feminine → deren, even though Mann is masculine)
Das Kind, dessen Eltern verreist sind, bleibt bei uns.
The child whose parents are away is staying with us. (antecedent Kind = neuter → dessen, regardless of Eltern being plural)
Die Nachbarn, deren Hund ständig bellt, sind sonst sehr nett.
The neighbours whose dog barks constantly are otherwise very nice. (antecedent Nachbarn = plural → deren)
Look closely at the first two: the possessed nouns (Frau, Mann) swap genders, yet the relative pronoun is decided only by the antecedent (Mann → dessen, Frau → deren). A second subtlety: the noun after dessen/deren takes no article and is not declined for the genitive — dessen Frau, not dessen der Frau and not dessens Frau. The possessive idea is already inside the pronoun.
Prepositional relatives: the preposition leads
When the pronoun is governed by a preposition, the preposition is pulled to the front of the clause, directly before the pronoun, and it sets the case. German never strands a preposition at the end the way English does (the colleague I work with).
Das ist der Kollege, mit dem ich das Projekt mache.
That's the colleague I'm doing the project with. (mit takes dative → mit dem)
Die Firma, für die sie arbeitet, sitzt in Hamburg.
The company she works for is based in Hamburg. (für takes accusative → für die)
The deeper treatment — including the wo-compound alternative and case after two-way prepositions — is on the relative clauses with prepositions page.
wo and was: special relatives for places and ideas
Two further relatives round out the system.
wo can replace a preposition + pronoun when the antecedent is a place — a stylistically lighter option, common and natural.
Das ist die Stadt, wo ich aufgewachsen bin.
That's the city where I grew up. (= in der ich aufgewachsen bin; wo is the lighter everyday choice)
was is the relative pronoun after the neuter indefinites das, alles, nichts, etwas, vieles and after a whole preceding clause.
Alles, was du gesagt hast, stimmt.
Everything you said is true. (after alles, the relative is was, not das)
Er kam zu spät, was niemanden überraschte.
He arrived late, which surprised nobody. (was refers back to the whole preceding clause)
This last pattern matches English which referring to an entire idea — but where English uses which, German uses was. The full detail lives on the welcher and was page.
welcher: the formal alternative
In formal or written German you may meet welcher, welche, welches doing the same job as der/die/das — der Bericht, welcher gestern erschien. It is (formal/literary), sounds heavy in speech, and is most often used to avoid an awkward die, die sequence. Learners should recognise it but default to der/die/das in every normal context. Welcher has no genitive, so for "whose" you must always use dessen/deren.
Der Antrag, welcher gestern eingereicht wurde, ist noch nicht bearbeitet.
The application that was submitted yesterday hasn't been processed yet. (formal — welcher = der here)
A recipe: building a relative clause from two sentences
Most relative clauses start life as two separate sentences that share a noun. Here is a repeatable procedure.
Start with: Ich kenne einen Mann. + Der Mann repariert alte Uhren.
- Find the shared noun. Both sentences mention Mann. The first occurrence (einen Mann) becomes the antecedent; the second is what the relative clause is about.
- Determine gender/number from the antecedent. Mann is masculine, singular.
- Determine the case from the role in the second sentence. There, der Mann is the subject of repariert → nominative.
- Pick the pronoun from the table: masculine + nominative → der.
- Replace the repeated noun with the pronoun, move the verb to the end, and attach the clause right after the antecedent, with commas.
Result:
Ich kenne einen Mann, der alte Uhren repariert.
I know a man who repairs old clocks. (built by the five-step recipe above)
Run it again where the shared noun is an object: Ich kenne einen Mann. + Ich habe den Mann gestern getroffen. Here the second occurrence is the accusative object of getroffen → masculine + accusative → den.
Ich kenne einen Mann, den ich gestern getroffen habe.
I know a man I met yesterday. (object role → accusative den)
And once more with a preposition: Das ist das Buch. + In dem Buch steht alles. The shared noun Buch is governed by in (location → dative); the preposition leads → in dem.
Das ist das Buch, in dem alles steht.
That's the book that has everything in it. (preposition in leads, dative dem)
Common Mistakes
❌ Das ist die E-Mail, ich gestern geschickt habe.
Incorrect — the relative pronoun die is missing; German never drops it the way English drops 'that'.
✅ Das ist die E-Mail, die ich gestern geschickt habe.
That's the email I sent yesterday.
❌ Der Mann, der ich getroffen habe, war nett.
Incorrect — inside the clause he is the object, so the case is accusative den, not nominative der.
✅ Der Mann, den ich getroffen habe, war nett.
The man I met was nice.
❌ Der Mann, deren Auto kaputt ist, wartet draußen.
Incorrect — the antecedent Mann is masculine, so the genitive relative is dessen, not deren.
✅ Der Mann, dessen Auto kaputt ist, wartet draußen.
The man whose car is broken is waiting outside.
❌ Die Frau, deren der Mann Arzt ist, wohnt hier.
Incorrect — after deren/dessen the possessed noun takes no article: deren Mann, not deren der Mann.
✅ Die Frau, deren Mann Arzt ist, wohnt hier.
The woman whose husband is a doctor lives here.
❌ Das sind die Leute, die ich oft helfe.
Incorrect — helfen takes the dative, and the antecedent is plural, so the form is denen, not die.
✅ Das sind die Leute, denen ich oft helfe.
Those are the people I often help.
Key Takeaways
- A relative pronoun takes its gender and number from the antecedent and its case from its role inside the clause — two decisions, two sources.
- Only five forms differ from the articles: the genitives dessen/deren and the dative plural denen.
- dessen vs deren is decided by the antecedent's gender/number, never by the possessed noun, and it is followed by an article-less, undeclined noun.
- A preposition leads the clause and sets the pronoun's case; German never strands prepositions.
- Use wo for places, was after alles/nichts/etwas and after a whole clause, and reserve welcher for formal writing.
- Build any relative clause by the five-step recipe: find the shared noun, read gender from the antecedent and case from the role, pick the pronoun, send the verb to the end.
Now practice German
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Start learning German→Related Topics
- Relative ClausesB1 — A German relative clause is introduced by der/die/das (gender and number from its antecedent, case from its job inside the clause), set off by commas, with the verb pushed to the very end — and the pronoun can never be dropped.
- Relative Pronouns: der, die, dasB1 — The workhorse relative pronouns der/die/das take their gender and number from the noun outside the clause but their case from their role inside it — and the clause is verb-final.
- Relative Clauses with Prepositions and wo-FormsB2 — How German front-loads the preposition before a relative pronoun, why it never strands it, and when to choose a wo-compound (worüber, womit, woran) over preposition + pronoun — with animacy as the deciding factor.
- wo-Compounds: wofür, womit, woraufB1 — How German asks 'what for / with what / on what' about a thing by fusing wo(r)- with a preposition, why people keep auf wen, and why German has no preposition stranding.
- Verb-Final Order in Subordinate ClausesB1 — Why a subordinating conjunction sends the finite verb to the very end of the clause — and why in compound tenses the auxiliary lands dead last.
- Subordinate Clause and Comma ErrorsB1 — Two rules English directly contradicts: German always sends the subordinate verb to the end with a comma in front, and German never drops the relative pronoun — plus the dass/das, weil/denn, and relative-case traps.