The surprising reach of German in Lebanon

German has never been one of Lebanon's dominant foreign languages. It does not carry the historical weight of French, nor does it compete with English as the language of international business and higher education. Yet follow German through Lebanon's schools, universities, and cultural institutions, and the relationship between Lebanon and Germany appears considerably deeper than its number of speakers might suggest.

At the Deutsche Internationale Schule Beirut, around 700 students are enrolled, while the German School Jounieh has around 600, according to figures provided to the German Embassy in Beirut. Both belong to Germany's international PASCH school network. The Goethe-Institut, Germany's official cultural institute, meanwhile teaches German and administers internationally recognized examinations.

Behind this contemporary network sits a much older and more eclectic history. German-funded doctors were treating patients in Beirut in the 19th century. A German expedition arrived in Tyre in 1874, searching for the remains of a medieval emperor. Prussian locomotives ran on Lebanese railways, Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Baalbek, and German-made projectors screened films in Hamra cinemas.

As German Language Day is marked on the second Saturday of September, Lebanon illustrates how the life of a language abroad can be measured by more than fluency. German here runs through universities and migration, research and professional opportunity, linking contemporary ambitions to a relationship with much older roots.

From German class to German universities

Much of German's appeal among Lebanese students is tied to education and what can follow from it. Germany has one of the world's largest international university systems, with medicine and engineering among the fields that have developed particularly strong links with Lebanon.

“Young people here learn not only Arabic, French and English, but in some cases German as well,” Volker Baumgarten, German coordinator at the German School Jounieh, told The Beiruter. 

“This gives them the opportunity to study in Germany and later to work there.”

Across higher education, around 35 agreements now connect Lebanese and German universities, according to figures the German Embassy in Beirut shared with The Beiruter, ranging from university-wide partnerships to cooperation between individual faculties. 

In 2025, the German Academic Exchange Service, or DAAD, provided 233 scholarships to Lebanese students. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which supports international academic researchers, funded another 14 Lebanese researchers.

Those totals still capture only part of the traffic. Lebanese students who independently apply to German universities do not appear in scholarship figures, making the community of Lebanese educated in Germany considerably larger than official exchange programs alone suggest.

“You will find Lebanese students enrolled in German universities in basically every field of study,” Carolina Teworte, cultural attachée at the German Embassy in Beirut, told The Beiruter. 

Engineering and medicine are among the fields where Germany appears to have a particularly strong reputation among young Lebanese considering starting or continuing their studies in Germany, and also with regard to job opportunities later.

At Lebanese American University, the connection between engineering education and Germany has acquired a particularly direct form. Since 2018, a partnership with BMW Group has sent more than 125 LAU engineering students to the company's Munich headquarters for fully funded internships lasting six to nine months. Between seven and 12 students typically participate each year.

Making German less foreign

German does not always make the easiest first impression. Long compound words (ever heard of Kraftfahrzeug-Haftpflichtversicherung, the German word for motor vehicle liability insurance?), three grammatical genders and four cases have helped give it a formidable reputation. At the Goethe-Institut in Beirut, staff told The Beiruter that lowering that psychological threshold has become part of their approach.

Most learners are currently concentrated at the beginner A1 level, according to Angelina Bertrand, who leads the institute's German program. Alongside formal instruction, a free weekly Sprachcafé gives learners from A1 through B2 a chance to practice conversational German.

“When you watch a German movie or listen to German music, you might not be actively learning or putting pressure on yourself, but you can still relax and absorb the language,” Lisa Almunaizel, a representative from the Goethe-Institut, told The Beiruter. 

Lowering the barriers to engaging with a country is incredibly helpful, and language and culture is a great way to do that.

For Arabic speakers, however, some of German's supposedly alien features may be more familiar than they first appear. German and Arabic belong to entirely different language families, German to Indo-European and Arabic to Semitic, and their vocabularies offer little obvious evidence of kinship. Grammatically, however, a student moving between them can encounter some unexpectedly familiar concepts.

Both languages, for instance. preserve case systems. German marks four cases, including nominative, accusative, dative and genitive, while Modern Standard Arabic traditionally distinguishes nominative, accusative and genitive cases. Both also require learners to pay close attention to grammatical gender and to changes in words that English speakers can often ignore. 

The languages are not close relatives, but some of the machinery that initially makes German intimidating may be less conceptually foreign to an Arabic speaker than its reputation implies.

The ties before diplomacy 

German-Lebanese ties long predate today's language schools and university partnerships.

The Johanniter Hospital opened in Beirut in 1867, financed by donations to the German Order of St. John. Around the turn of the century, eight German deaconesses worked there alongside local staff, while its doctors came from the Syrian Protestant College, later AUB.

The expedition to Tyre in 1874 had a very different purpose. German scholars and adventurers arrived with Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's blessing to search for the remains of Frederick I Barbarossa. The medieval emperor had become a potent figure in the mythology of newly unified Germany, turning the expedition into part archaeology, part nation-building.

Over the subsequent decades, German involvement spread through medicine, commerce, transport and cultural life, leaving behind the disparate traces still visible in Lebanon today. Diplomatic relations followed in 1953. The Goethe-Institut opened in Beirut in 1955, while the Orient-Institut Beirut, founded in 1961, established a base for German scholarship on the Arab world

Its history here has never depended on mass adoption. But more than a century and a half after some of its earliest traces appeared, German remains a small but persistent feature of Lebanon's linguistic landscape.