perl -w my %test = ( 'ebene1' => { 'test1' => 'test 1, 2. Ebene', 'test2' => 'test 2, 2. Ebene' }, 'ebene1_anders' => 'test_erste_ebene', ); use Data::Dumper; my $tmp = delete $test{ebene1}; my %test2 = %$tmp; print Dumper \%test; print Dumper \%test2; __END__ $VAR1 = { 'ebene1_anders' => 'test_erste_ebene' }; $VAR1 = { 'test1' => 'test 1, 2. Ebene', 'test2' => 'test 2, 2. Ebene' };