Research in our group focuses on heavy alkali metal organometallics, with special emphasis on heavy group 14 ligands. In this context, we developed a simple one-pot synthetic method towards alkali metal tris(trimethylsilyl)silanides and germanides. The germanides are very sensitive towards hydrolysis, affording a novel family of discrete M(crown ether)nGeH3, (M = K, Rb, Cs) molecules , which for the first time allow for the complete structural characterization of the GeH3- anion. This talk will present the parent germanides, analyze the formation of the GeH3- species and discusses their unexpected structural chemistry.