The article deals with German development aid in the context of German foreign policy. The author pays attention to two aspects: the relation between development aid and security and relation between development aid and economic agenda. Germany is one of the main donors in the world. In 1990th and 2010th the architecture of German development aid has been reformed. The number of the involved institutions thanks to merges has been reduced; in the end of the first decade of the XXI century the responsibilities of Foreign policy ministry and the Ministry of economic cooperation and development have been redefined. The policy became focused on fewer countries. At the same time despite the expert recommendations to reallocate resources to multilateral institutions (like UN, World bank), Germany prefers bilateral aid. The analysis shows that the German development aid falls into line with security policy. German development aid is an art of compensation for the German troops not taking part in USA operations. At the same time Germany allocates development aid in the regions where the German troops are. On hand on the analysis of economic motives of German development aid it is not possible to make definite conclusions. Germany is one of the leading export nations, but because of the high-quality goods and not because of German development aid. At the same time German development aid is focused on those economic sectors, which are promoted by the German government: climate protection and energy. German politicians point at economic aspects of development aid and its role for German economy. Even though Germany is actively supporting aid for trade, there is no serious outcome: the import of the developing countries to Germany is not growing.