Der Nacht oder die Nacht?

Question

Rammstein sings "Sie kommen zu euch in der Nacht" in the "Mein Herz brennt" song, but to my knowledge "Nacht" is of female gender and it's supposed to be "die Nacht". So what am I missing?

And also http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Nacht says it's die Nacht.

Answer 1

It's "die Nacht" in the standard nominative case, but Rammstein's line is using it in the dative case, which is "der" for feminine nouns.

Remember that there are 4 cases for nouns, and that the article and adjective declinations change depending on what case you are using.

See here for all the different cases for Nacht.

Answer 2

As StrixVaria said, "in der Nacht" is dativ. Here are the general cases:

Singular                             Plural
Nominativ/Accusativ/Dativ/Genitiv    Nominativ/Accusativ/Dativ/Genitiv
der        den      dem     des       die        die     den     der (+n)
die        die      der     der       die        die     den     der
das        das      dem     des (+s)  die        die     den     der (+n)

So for example, school is female, "die Schule", but you must say: "in der Schule".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nouns