Some of the major movements or time periods of German literature are:
- High and late Middle Ages
- Humanism and Reformation
- Baroque
- Enlightenment
- Sturm und Drang
- Classicism
- Romanticism
- Biedermeier
- Junges Deutschland
- Poetic realism
- Naturalism
- Fin de siècle
- German literature of the Classical Moderne (German: Klassische Moderne)
- Expressionism
- Dadaism
- Exile literature
- Holocaust and survivor literature
- German literature after World War II