Two zinc germanates incorporating bidentate-bridging organic amine ligands have been synthesized under solvothermal conditions by using the amines as solvents. Their structural features are infinite chains formed of edge-sharing ZnO(4)N trigonal bipyramids and unbranched vierer single layers with the composition [Ge(4)O(10)] and discrete ZnO(2)N(2) tetrahedra and unbranched zweier double chains with the composition [Ge(2)O(5)], respectively.