The main peculiarity of mass-media style consists in the expressiveness and, at the same time, in the conciseness of an utterance. These characteristic features are especially vivid in headlines, as the purpose of headlines is to attract the reader’s attention to various problems of the modern society. The article aims at reviewing the principle of economy in language used in the headlines of German mass-media texts. Language economy characterizes some modern tendencies in the development of the German language. Its functioning is characteristic of all levels of the language system. The article specifies some word-building devices and lexical and stylistic means of achieving language economy. The article also analyses compound words, abbreviations, words derived from proper names, as well as metaphors, periphrases and metonymies called to reach maximum communicative effect with a minimum representation of lexical means.