The use of antibiotics in palliative medicine is discussed controversially. Antibiotic therapy has been described as an aggressive and useless procedure while others claim that anibiotics have to be used for appropriate symptom control. The focus of palliative care is on the quality of patients’ lives, and the impact of adverse effects, loss of time and the subjective feeling of distress on the quality of life find different emphasis. The study investigates the correlation between personal and professional beliefs and the application rules for antibiotics in palliative medicine, using an email-questionnaire in the palliative care units in Germany. This survey is part of a six step project, with the aim to investigate ethical problems associated with indication of an antibiotic therapy with qualitative and quantitative methods and to elaborate a guideline for application. The survey included 61 palliative care departments and 57 hospice institutions in Germany. For this preliminiary evaluation replies from 17 palliative care departments and 6 hospice institutions were available (27% rate of reply). Mean of number of patients/year were 187.1 (range 50-580). About 13% of the patients in palliative care were treated with antibiotics (mean duration 7.6 days). Major indications were infections of the urinary tract (28%), pneumonia (29%), sepsis (20%) and malodor from septic wounds (9%). Performance status and expectancy of life had moderate influence on the application of antibiotics. Several criteria for discontinuation of antibiotic therapy were mentioned such as deterioration of performance status (24%), inefficacy (24%) or adverse events (11%).