Free German audio dramas, legally: ARD Sounds, Hörspiel podcasts, libraries and Apple Music

The short version

• The biggest free source is public radio: ARD Sounds (ARD Audiothek until March 2026) bundled its Hörspiele into themed podcast feeds in November 2025, and Deutschlandfunk, SRF and Ö1 run their own.
• A library card gets you commercial audio dramas through the Onleihe, the libraries' digital lending service, for a limited time and only in its app.
• Broadcaster episodes disappear after a set time (Germans call it Depublizierung). Download what you want to keep.
• Open podcast feeds work in any podcast app, including zentr, side by side with audio dramas from Apple Music. How that works.

What a Hörspiel is, in one paragraph

A Hörspiel is a radio play: a story told by actors, sound and music rather than one narrator reading a book. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland it's a mainstream format, with series that have run for decades and new productions from every public broadcaster. Almost everything below is in German. For the background, read why Germans love audio dramas.

Where to hear German audio dramas for free, legally

ARD Sounds (formerly ARD Audiothek)

Since November 6, 2025, ARD has bundled its audio dramas into five themed podcast feeds: Das Portal (science fiction), Nothing Serious (comedy), Große Geschichten (literary adaptations, Wednesdays), ARD Hörspiel-Speicher (all genres, several times a week) and Sound Art (sound art). Crime feeds such as the Radio-Tatort existed already.

There are also original series such as Monos, an eight-part thriller by WDR starring Bjarne Mädel that launched on November 14, 2025. The feeds are open podcasts, so you'll find them in Apple Podcasts and other apps. The app itself was renamed ARD Sounds in March 2026.

Outside Germany: ARD radio is generally reachable abroad and the feeds are open RSS, but individual productions can be geo-restricted for rights reasons. If an episode won't play where you live, that's usually why.

Deutschlandfunk and Deutschlandfunk Kultur

Deutschlandradio runs several feeds: Hörspiel und Feature with productions from Deutschlandfunk and Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Krimi Hörspiel with a new hour-long crime play every week, and Kakadu – Das Kinderhörspiel for kids.

SRF (Switzerland) and Ö1 (Austria)

SRF has more than 250 audio dramas online and three feeds: the general Hörspiel podcast, a crime podcast and SRF Kids Hörspiele for ages 8 to 12, with a new story every two weeks. Ö1 publishes selected productions in Ö1 Hörspiel und Radiokunst; all Ö1 podcasts are listed at oe1.orf.at/podcast, and ORF Sound adds the last seven days of broadcasts.

Onleihe: audio dramas with a library card

The Onleihe is the digital lending service of public libraries in Germany, Austria and Switzerland; Goethe-Institut libraries abroad use it too. With your library login you borrow audiobooks and audio dramas as eAudio and stream or download them in the Onleihe app, including commercial series the broadcasters don't have. Your library sets the loan period, usually up to 14 or 21 days; loans end automatically with no fees. Playback only works in the Onleihe app's own player.

YouTube: official channels only

Some labels post individual episodes on their own channels, such as the official Bibi & Tina channel. That's legal and needs no sign-in. Third-party uploads are a different story, covered below.

Free trials

Audible, BookBeat and others advertise free trial months. That's an introductory offer you have to cancel in time, and retailer giveaways are short-lived.

Free, legal sources for German audio dramas at a glance (October 2026)

Source	What you get	How long it stays	Offline
ARD Sounds	Five genre feeds plus crime feeds from all ARD stations	Limited, days to months by rights	App download or podcast feed
Deutschlandfunk / Dlf Kultur	Hörspiel und Feature, Krimi Hörspiel, Kakadu	Limited	Via podcast feed
SRF Hörspiel	More than 250 plays, crime and kids feeds	Limited	Via podcast feed
Ö1	Ö1 Hörspiel und Radiokunst, ORF Sound (7 days)	Limited	Via podcast feed
Onleihe	Commercial audiobooks and audio dramas	Loan period, usually up to 14 or 21 days	Only in the Onleihe app

Apple Music: included in the subscription

If you have an Apple Music subscription, audio dramas cost nothing extra. Major series such as Die drei ???, TKKG and Bibi Blocksberg sit in the regular catalog. Which series exist and how to listen on an iPhone: audio dramas on Apple Music. CDs and MP3s you've bought are paid once and free from then on: audio drama MP3s and CDs on the iPhone.

Why piracy sites and third-party uploads aren't an option

Full episodes on download portals or private YouTube channels are almost always online without permission. Even as a listener, you have practical reasons to skip them. The quality varies, often with audio jumps or clipped endings. The episodes vanish as soon as the label reports them, and your position goes with them. And the people who make these plays get nothing.

How to subscribe to an audio drama feed in any podcast app

1. Search the directory. Type the feed's name into your podcast app's search, for example "ARD Hörspiel-Speicher" or "Krimi Hörspiel". Almost every app uses the Apple Podcasts directory.
2. Or paste the feed URL. The broadcaster's page usually shows an RSS link, recognizable by "feed", "rss" or ".xml" in the address. In Apple Podcasts, open your Library, tap Edit, then "Add a Show by URL".
3. Download ahead. Turn on automatic downloads or save episodes manually. For time-limited content, that's the only way to hear them later.

What Depublizierung means

Public-service content in Germany may only stay online for a set time. The Medienstaatsvertrag, the broadcasting treaty between the German states, sets the periods by content type, with licenses for music, actors and source material on top. Depending on the production, that's days, months or longer. Then the episode is taken offline and disappears from the podcast feed too.

For you, that means downloading what you want to keep while it's there. Heise notes that ARD usually offers time-limited content as a download, while some productions are stream-only because of their license.

Free feeds and Apple Music in one queue

To zentr, the broadcaster feeds are ordinary podcasts: find them in the Apple Podcasts catalog or paste the RSS link directly.

• Position per episode: every episode remembers the second you stopped at, synced via iCloud. Played episodes are marked.
• Sleep timer until the end of the episode, with a gentle fade-out and a Live Activity on the lock screen.
• Chapters to pick and skip, plus intro and outro skipping in seconds per show. Episodes without chapters get them automatically on devices with Apple Intelligence.
• Offline: zentr downloads podcast episodes, on Wi-Fi only if you want. Depublished episodes stay as downloads.
• One inbox: new episodes from the ARD feeds land next to new audio dramas from Apple Music and your podcasts, newest first. Filter the queue by section.

What zentr can't do: Onleihe loans only play in the Onleihe app. Apple Music audio dramas need a subscription, and zentr doesn't download that content itself. Spotify can't be connected. Your own MP3s and M4Bs import directly.