CorGeS: The Corpus of German Suicide Notes

Dana Roemling; Lucia Busso

doi:10.1016/j.acorp.2025.100177

CorGeS: The Corpus of German Suicide Notes

Dana Roemling^*
, Lucia Busso

^*Corresponding author for this work

University of Birmingham

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

This paper introduces CorGeS, a historic corpus of authentic German suicide notes written between the 1910s and 1930s. Originally compiled and transcribed by a police officer, the corpus offers a rare and valuable resource for both linguistic and historical inquiry. We describe the provenance and structure of the corpus, as well as the methodological and ethical considerations involved in working with such sensitive material. While suicide note analysis is well established in English-language research, German-language material remains understudied, making CorGeS an important contribution to multilingual and cross-cultural perspectives in suicide note analysis. To illustrate the potential of the corpus, we present a preliminary topic modelling analysis, highlighting key thematic patterns in the texts, before using corpus methods to explore the most prevalent item in the corpus in more detail. These early results demonstrate the diversity and emotional complexity of the notes and suggest several avenues for further research at the intersection of linguistics, history, and suicide note analysis.

Original language	English
Article number	100177
Number of pages	12
Journal	Applied Corpus Linguistics
Volume	6
Issue number	1
Early online date	6 Dec 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acorp.2025.100177
Publication status	Published - 1 Apr 2026

Bibliographical note

Funding

Dana Roemling was supported by the UKRI ESRC Midlands Graduate School Doctoral Training Partnership ES/P000711/1.

Funders	Funder number
UK Research and Innovation	ES/P000711/1

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

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10.1016/j.acorp.2025.100177Licence: CC BY 4.0

CorGeS - The Corpus of German Suicide Notes
Copyright © 2025 The Author. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ).
Final published version, 3.55 MBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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abstract = "This paper introduces CorGeS, a historic corpus of authentic German suicide notes written between the 1910s and 1930s. Originally compiled and transcribed by a police officer, the corpus offers a rare and valuable resource for both linguistic and historical inquiry. We describe the provenance and structure of the corpus, as well as the methodological and ethical considerations involved in working with such sensitive material. While suicide note analysis is well established in English-language research, German-language material remains understudied, making CorGeS an important contribution to multilingual and cross-cultural perspectives in suicide note analysis. To illustrate the potential of the corpus, we present a preliminary topic modelling analysis, highlighting key thematic patterns in the texts, before using corpus methods to explore the most prevalent item in the corpus in more detail. These early results demonstrate the diversity and emotional complexity of the notes and suggest several avenues for further research at the intersection of linguistics, history, and suicide note analysis.",

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CorGeS: The Corpus of German Suicide Notes

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

UN SDGs

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