German literary drama, staged in sound.
The gist
Hörspiele collects text-forward German audio dramas where narration, cast performance, and formal stage business carry the weight. Its selections move from Mozart and Nietzsche to Roth Kapuzinergruft, medieval piety, demonic contracts, and severe religious satire.
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About Hörspiele
Hörspiele is a large German-language archive of literary audio drama, where the podcast form behaves more like a radio stage than a talk show. It is cast-driven, text-forward, and built around adaptation, narration, and performed scene. The episodes in this sample carry a deliberately old-fashioned gravity. Rooms matter. So do letters, family names, chairs, windows, eye trouble, courtyards, gates, packages, and the hour before sunrise. The show often begins by placing a body in a room, then lets language reveal what has already gone wrong. In So Fern Vom Leben, Nietzsche’s failing sight, dependence on friends, and isolation gather around the fantasy of a reading machine. In Mozart Auf Der Reise Nach Prag, a misunderstanding over an orange becomes a formal disturbance in etiquette and embarrassment. Roth Kapuzinergruft turns family memory into a procession of empire, exile, loyalty, and decline. Der Arme Heinrich carries medieval piety through verse, translation, sorrow, and the wish to make sorrow useful. Das Liebeskonzil is harsher, using religious hierarchy, sexual disgust, and grotesque invention as theatrical provocation. Sigismund opens a metaphysical negotiation in which talent, price, truth, and power sit uneasily in the same room. Mein Verschwinden In Providence offers disappearance as a dossier: a house, an envelope, a rental car, and a record left for whoever finds it. Der Bayerische Jedermann adds dialect, feast, death, remedies, and comic denial around the oldest possible summons. The series is not warm in the ordinary podcast sense. It is attentive, severe, sometimes dryly funny, and willing to let discomfort remain audible. Its pleasures come from cadence, compression, and tableau. Dialogue can be sharp and theatrical; narration can be dense enough to feel carved. Some episode files are interrupted by unrelated ads, sometimes in English or French, but the underlying identity is unmistakably literary radio drama. Hörspiele is best approached as an archive of voices, rooms, and charged texts, not as a guided tour. It rewards patience, a tolerance for formal language, and an appetite for drama that lets history, faith, illness, art, and absurdity stand close together.
Made for: For listeners drawn to literary adaptations, German radio drama, historical atmosphere, and theatrical prose. It especially suits those who prefer grave narration and performed scenes over explanation.
What sets it apart: Hörspiele stands apart through its archive scale and its severe radio-stage texture: dense narration, formal dialogue, and sudden grotesque turns. Even when ad fragments intrude, the dramatic body remains unmistakably literary.
In their own words
Wir fügen unserem Archiv täglich mindestens drei Hörspiele hinzu.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/horspiele--6822790/support.
As heard by us
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · July 2026
Horspiele collects German radio drama, literary adaptation, and historical fiction in an archive built around performed story.
Horspiele sits squarely on PlayNext's Fiction beat: a German-language archive of radio drama and literary adaptation where the story is carried by performance, not commentary.
Why you'd press play
A forbidden abbey library awaits, if you like your mysteries performed rather than explained.
Press play if you want
- to follow William and Adson into a monastery where even the library is off limits
- to hear Judas wrestle with guilt instead of meeting him as a settled verdict
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Episodes
- 1
So Fern Vom Leben - Hörspiel
Hidden gem"So Fern Vom Leben" is a Swiss Radio (SRF, 2014) Hörspiel dramatizing the life of Friedrich Nietzsche from his student years in Bonn in 1864 through his professorship in Basel, his friendship and rupture with Richard Wagner, and his disastrous involvement with Lou Salomé and Paul Rée in 1882.
Apr 12, 2026·59m·4 clips - 2
Das Liebeskonzil - Hörspiel
Hidden gemDas Liebeskonzil (The Love Council) is an Austrian radio play (ORF 2014, directed by Peter Kaiser), based on Oskar Panizza's 1894 blasphemy-trial drama, in which an ailing God, the Virgin Mary, Christ, and the Devil convene a divine council to punish Renaissance humanity's sexual excess.
Apr 12, 2026·55m·3 clips - 3
Rot Ist Mein Name - Hörspiel
Apr 12, 2026·2h 34m - 4
Roth Kapuzinergruft - Hörspiel
This audio drama episode recounts the family history of the Trotter lineage, tracing their origins in Sipolje, their connection to Emperor Franz Josef I.
Apr 11, 2026·1h 51m - 5
Sigismund - Hörspiel
Apr 11, 2026·1h 18m - 6
Das Triumvirat Denkt 1985 - Hörspiel
Three characters engage in a humorous and absurd conversation about a terrible card game, sad music by Bach, and the Wirt's old cataract.
Apr 11, 2026·44m - 7
Der Bayerische Jedermann - Hörspiel
Apr 11, 2026·1h 13m - 8
Mozart Auf Der Reise Nach Prag 2004 - Hörspiel
A German audio drama scene where a nobleman discovers that a man claiming to be Mozart from Vienna has stolen an orange from a tree, leading to confusion and urgency.
Apr 11, 2026·1h 25m - 9
Das Klingsor Paradox 2002 - Hörspiel
Apr 11, 2026·3h 33m - 10
Der Arme Heinrich - Hörspiel
Ein Ritter namens Hartmann sucht in Büchern nach Wegen, um seine Schwermut zu lindern, Gottes Ehre zu dienen und beim Publikum beliebt zu werden.
Apr 11, 2026·56m - 11
Mein Verschwinden In Providence - Hörspiel
Ein Hörspiel über das Verschwinden einer Person namens Tee in Providence, der aus einem Haus in der Benefit Street entkommt und seit Oktober 1970 spurlos bleibt, mit Hinweisen auf eine Autovermietung.
Apr 11, 2026·59m - 12
Kaesebier Erobert Den Kurfuerstendamm - Hörspiel
Apr 10, 2026·1h 43m - 13
Dasdingimnebel - Hörspiel
Apr 10, 2026·50m - 14
Radau Um Kasperl - Hörspiel
Apr 10, 2026·55m - 15
Das Netz - Hörspiel
Apr 10, 2026·39m - 16
Das Spinnennetz 2012 - Hörspiel
Apr 10, 2026·1h 48m - 17
Die Krieger - Hörspiel
Apr 8, 2026·1h 33m - 18
Cynara - Radio Theater
A radio theater presentation of Mildred Cram's romance 'Cinera', starring Joseph Cotton, about a lonely man and a beautiful woman seeking release from their pasts in the jungles of West Africa.
Apr 3, 2026·57m - 19
Judas 1988 - Hörspiel
Hidden gemJudas 1988 is a German radio play retelling the Passion narrative from Judas Iscariot's point of view, set at the home of his father Simon, a farmer in Judea.
Apr 3, 2026·1h 20m·5 clips - 20
Battledore Ahoi - Hörspiel
Apr 3, 2026·53m - 21
Freibrief Für Mord 1970 - Hörspiel
Apr 3, 2026·1h 44m - 22
Gefahr Lauert Überall - Hörspiel
This is a German crime audio play titled 'Der Mann im Müll' by Thorsten Reschke, featuring a mysterious narrative involving characters like Heinzi and locations such as Karlsruhe and Niederlohn.
Apr 3, 2026·59m - 23
Der Name der Rose 4von4 – Umberto Eco (1986)
The fourth and final episode of the German radio drama adaptation of Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" follows Brother William von Baskerville and his novice Adso through the resolution of the abbey murders, the trial and false confession of Cellarer Remigius, and the death of Librarian Malachias.
Apr 1, 2026·1h 27m·7 clips - 24
Nachruf Auf Einen Spion - Hörspiel
Apr 1, 2026·2h 42m - 25
Der Name der Rose 2von4 – Umberto Eco (1986)
This is the second episode of a German audio drama adaptation of Umberto Eco's novel 'Der Name der Rose', focusing on the labyrinth and the narrator's struggle with confusion and voices.
Apr 1, 2026·1h 25m - 26
Der Name der Rose 3von4 – Umberto Eco (1986)
This episode recounts the narrator's experiences as a young novice with his master William of Baskerville in a monastery, including forbidden entry into the library labyrinth.
Apr 1, 2026·1h 17m - 27
Der Name der Rose 1von4 – Umberto Eco (1986)
This is the first episode of a four-part audio game adaptation of Umberto Eco's novel 'The Name of the Rose', featuring a German translation by Burkhard Kröber.
Apr 1, 2026·1h 26m - 28
Evangelium Pasolini - Hörspiel
Hidden gemEvangelium Pasolini is a Deutschlandfunk radio play by Arnold Stadler and directed by Oliver Sturm, produced for Hessischer Rundfunk's Bible series, which layers Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1964 film commentary on the Gospel of Matthew with the story of Pasolini's murder on All Souls' Day 1975 in Ostia.
Apr 1, 2026·1h 7m·4 clips - 29
Der Alchimist - Hörspiel
Mar 31, 2026·2h 4m - 30
Der Geisterseher 1987 - Hörspiel
Mar 30, 2026·2h 19m