The genre of fairytales, one structured form of storytelling, has been labeled "Marchen." German culture is orally transmitted in this generic form, and can be traced to a collection of 210 fairytales, the Grimm brothers'"Kinder-und Taus-Marchen," first published shortly after 1800. For this study, research questions were posed relating to fairytales and the German tradition, such as: (1) Have any German cultural styles in orally gathered tales emerged by tale or language choice, or dialectical/regional references? (2) What communication acts of emotional release or ties to real life situations occur? and (3) Do oral storytellers of Marchen rely on literary or oral traditions for their tale material? German American informants (n=29) were taped in an open narrative of 60 to 90 minutes each. The tapings often included the unrehearsed telling of one or more fairytales, and loosely followed an interviewing guideline. A comparative analysis using Proppian Formalism was undertaken based on transcriptions of the interviews. Results verified a communal construction of the Grimm brothers fairytales, as opposed to a single author, creative literature origin. The diverse German cultural styles in storytelling that emerged from the data before they were analyzed followed economic and social strata rather than region of origin in German. The interviews rarely communicated intense emotionality, but universal differences connect to auditor mode were evident. All informants expressed an enthusiasm for the research. Implications suggest that the Grimms' tales' orality supersedes their literary impact. (Contains 2 tables and 65 references). (TB)