  We report on the development and construction of the high-purity germanium
spectrometer setup GIOVE (Germanium Inner Outer Veto), recently built and now
operated at the shallow underground laboratory of the Max-Planck-Institut f\"ur
Kernphysik, Heidelberg. Particular attention was paid to the design of a novel
passive and active shield, aiming at efficient rejection of environmental and
muon induced radiation backgrounds. The achieved sensitivity level of <100
{\mu}Bq/kg for primordial radionuclides from U and Th in typical {\gamma} ray
sample screening measurements is unique among instruments located at comparably
shallow depths and can compete with instruments at far deeper underground
sites.
