Character of German city with empty centre (7)
I believe the answer is:
essence
'character' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'german city with empty centre' is the wordplay.
'german city' becomes 'essen' (I've seen this before).
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'empty' means to remove the middle letters.
'centre' with its middle removed is 'ce'.
'essen'+'ce'='ESSENCE'
'of' is the link.
(Other definitions for essence that I've seen before include "Concentrated liquid flavouring" , "Nice fuel" , "quality of perfume?" , "Intrinsic nature; four Dn" , "Crux" .)