The article suggests an analysis of the language connections of the Russian language with the German language from ancient times to the present. The borrowings from German into Russian are investigated, their thematic classification is proposed and the role of Germanisms in the cultural enrichment of the Russian language is emphasized. At the same time, Russian is becoming a certain "preservative" of semantics that is already obsolete in German lexicon, which makes Russian Germanisms a valuable source for the history of the German language. Particular attention is paid to phraseological Germanisms-calques, as well as winged words and expressions of German origin.