In 1996, Commission II of the ICCP set up a coal facies working group. The first step was to collate literature on coal facies analysis for different countries. This report provides an overview on the investigations made on the facies interpretations of German coal deposits over the last 50 years with an emphasis on Tertiary coals. It outlines the major deposits present in Germany and gives the main facies interpretations of coals of lignite and bituminous rank. Furthermore, it points out that there lies a certain ambiguity in the interpretation of specific maceral associations, which could confuse facies analyses without the support of interdisciplinary studies and thus suggests that the working group should address this point for future work. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.