The end of the Age of Idealism brought the grandiose period of German literature to an end as authors, motivated by realism, became more politically aware. Literature of this age was influenced by many factors.

The politically charged romanticists like Heinrich Heine continued to write during the Age of Realism. Other writers followed in his footsteps by challenging the status quo and resisting authoritative power. Poets like Annette Elizabeth von Droste-Hulshoff were still being lead by Eduard Mörike. Romantic dramatists still had a large following in Franz Grillparzer and Christian Friedrich. The theater was revolutionized by the romantic composer Richard Wagner. The Revolution of 1848 caused some of the more politically charged and controversial authors to go into exile. Perhaps the most famous were Karl Marx and Carl Schurz.

As illustrated above, the early literature of the Age of Realism was still influenced by the romanticism of the previous age. This literature was called poetic realism because writers chose to view realism through "a veil of illusion". Gottfried Keller, Conrad Meyer, Jeremias Gotthelf, Gottfried Keller, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Wilhelm Raabe, Adalbert Stifter and Theodor Storm chose to use this style in their fiction.

Two romantics stood out amongst the others. Georg Büchner was considered to be a true visionary with his stories that rejected the bourgeois values of religion, morality, and idealism, and in doing so, anticipated modern styles. His "Woyzeck" illustrates his views. Perhaps the most famous author of the time was Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. He rejected the idealistic philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Arthur Schopenhauer, and his writings dominated philosophic debate for many years to come.

Shortly before World War I, many other literary styles were popular in literature, the first being photographic realism, or naturalism. Literature written in this style was done so with out the "veil of illusion" that is found in poetic realism. This type of literature was generally unpleasant and brutally honest. Gerhart Hauptmann was a master of naturalism as illustrated in his plays "Before Dawn" (get from Gutenberg) and "The Weavers" (get from Gutenberg), and also in "Bahnwarter Thiel". Arno Holz and Arthur Schnizler, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, were also used naturalism in their writings.

Other styles included the revivals of classicism, romanticism , and realism, as well as a new literary style called expressionism. As illustrated by these revivals, much of this age was still under the influence of Goethe and Schiller.

During events directly before and after World War I, neoromanticism (also called impressionism or symbolism) was the style of choice amongst poets such as Stefan George, Hugo von Hofmannsthal who wrote lyric poems and librettos for the operas of Richard Strauss, and especially Rainer Maria Rilke. Neoromanticism was also popular amongst novelists such as Thomas Mann and Erich Maria Remarque in "All Quiet on the Western Front".

The new development of the Age of Realism, expressionism, was a movement interested in the essence of things rather than their appearance. They thoroughly searched the human mind and explored every aspect of it.

Before World War I, expressionistic poets Gottfried Benn, Georg Trakl, and Georg Heym created apocalyptic visions. Towards the end of the war, the expressionist movement saw the rise of the drama beginning with the authors Georg Büchner, Frank Wedekind, Georg Kaiser, Fritz von Unruh, and Ernst Toller. They were followed by Herman Hesse and one of the most famous expresssionists, fictionist Franz Kafka, whose novels and short stories were known for their nightmarish sense of reality to unreality.

Towards the end of the end of the expressionist movement, a new movement called Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) was formed with expressionist writers such as Bertolt Brecht and Franz Werfel. This movement, like the expressionist, survived a world war, however, this movement, along with all literature before and during World War II, were brutally suppressed by the Nazis. As in 1848, in 1933 many writers, authors, composers, and artists were forced into exile, incudling Bertolt Brecht, who wrote some of his finest plays while in exile. Some could not return until after the war, and some chose not to return at all and therefore, there was a cultural vacuum in 1945 that lasted for many years.