Nauru and Germany enjoy amicable political relations. Diplomatic contacts are maintained by the German Embassy in Canberra. A german Honorary Consul is located in Nauru.

Nauru was a German colony from 1888 until the First World War. Many historical documents from this era, such as maps, statistics and letters, were written in German by the administrators at the time. In light of this, Germany provided support for two publications in the 1990s: the book “Nauru 1888–1900”, a collection of documents from the colonial period; and a book about Nauruan grammar based on notes by the German missionary Alois Kayser. In 2019, a two-volume work by the German ethnologist Paul Hambruch was translated into English, thus making it available to a wider audience. Hambruch was a member of the 1908‑1910 Hamburg South Sea Expedition that conducted ethnographic research in Micronesia.

Germany supports Nauru via its contributions to the EU’s Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) (until 2021: European Development Fund (EDF). The country is also involved in Germany’s close cooperation on climate issues with the countries of the South Pacific region. Germany and Nauru co-founded the Group of Friends on Climate and Security in the United Nations in 2018 and chair the Group together. Former Nauruan President Baron Waqa attended the Berlin Climate and Security Conference in Berlin in June 2019. In 2020, his successor President Lionel Aingimea contributed a video statement to the virtual follow-up conference.

In 2023, Germany imported goods worth 7,000 euro from Nauru, while exports added up to 207.000 euro (source: DESTATIS).