the contrary and surprisingly an improvement of the selectivity could be observed in cases where r2 and r3 are the same and consist of a hydrocarbon group with 1 to 4 carbon atoms in view of the high selectivity and activity of the process according to the invention the amide and other reactants can be led at a relatively high flow rate over the catalyst notwithstanding the fact that the amide is quite diluted in the carrier gas in view of obtaining a high selectivity especially to avoid alcohol and undesired dialkylamines in the product stream the amount of catalyst or in other words the contact time with the catalyst is preferably sufficient to convert more than 95 wt preferably more than 98 wt and more preferably more than 99 wt of the amide the catalyst is preferably a fixed bed catalyst if the desired amine is a tertiary amine with r2 and r3 being the same any secondary amine present in the product which is separated off from the gaseous stream which has passed over the catalyst can be converted quite easily to the desired tertiary amine by an additional alkylation step in a fixed bed reactor containing 15 g of cucr catalyst leuna 1970t a mixture of n n dimethyldecylamide dma and h 2 is introduced the mixture with a molar composition of amide auxiliary amine h 2.