Germany: 15,800 Heat Deaths This Summer, Worst in a Decade
The Robert Koch Institute estimates that heat killed about 15,800 people in Germany between April and mid-August, the highest such toll in the past decade.
Germany’s federal disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), reported on August 27 that around 15,800 people died from heat related causes between April 6 and August 16 this year, with an estimated range of 14,500 to 17,000. That is the highest heat linked death toll Germany has recorded in the past decade, since the institute began tracking the figure on a weekly basis.
The report covers calendar weeks 15 through 33 of 2026. Most of the deaths, about 9,600, are attributed to the extreme heat at the end of June, in week 26. Another roughly 4,000 deaths are linked to a second heat wave spanning weeks 31 through 33, from late July to mid August. The RKI notes that in week 33, from August 10 to 16, Germany’s average weekly temperature reached 21.9 degrees Celsius, above the roughly 20 degree threshold at which the institute typically records a heat linked rise in mortality.
How this year compares with previous ones
According to the institute’s data, the previous record in the series tracked since 2016 was set in 2018, with about 9,500 deaths, followed by 2019 with 7,600. In 2020 and from 2022 through 2024, the toll was somewhat lower, around 3,000 or more heat linked deaths per year, while in 2016, 2017 and 2021 the estimate ranged between 1,200 and 2,000. This year’s figure of 15,800 nearly doubles the previous high from 2018.
The RKI also notes that estimates for earlier years shift from one report to the next, since the model is recalculated every month, including past data, so figures published earlier do not always match those in older reports exactly.
Who was hit hardest
More than half of the dead, about 7,960 people, were over 85 years old. Among those aged 75 to 84, about 3,900 died; among those 65 to 74, about 2,440; and among those under 65, about 1,470. The institute says more women died overall than men, but attributes this to women making up a larger share of the oldest age groups, not to heat affecting women more severely.
By federal state, Saarland was hit hardest relative to population, with an estimated 53 deaths per 100,000 residents, followed by Rhineland-Palatinate with 48, Hesse with 35 and Baden-Wurttemberg with 32. The rest of the country recorded lower figures. If the national total of 15,800 were spread across Germany’s population of roughly 84 million, it would work out to about 19 per 100,000 residents, though that is this newsroom’s calculation, not a national average the RKI itself has stated.
How the institute arrives at the figure
The method compares the actual recorded death toll with the number that would be expected in weeks without heat. The RKI uses data from 52 weather stations run by Germany’s national weather service, DWD, averaged at the state level, and cross references it with weekly mortality statistics published by the Federal Statistical Office. Heat is rarely listed as the underlying cause of death on death certificates, since in most cases it acts in combination with existing illnesses; only in rarer cases, such as heatstroke, does heat directly cause death. That is why the institute produces the estimate statistically rather than by simply counting death certificates that mention heat.
The RKI states explicitly that these estimates are conservative and that the real number could be higher. There is also a broader indicator, so called total excess mortality: for weeks 20 through 33, from mid May to mid August, the institute estimated about 20,500 deaths above the usual level, with a confidence interval of 16,100 to 24,600. That figure includes deaths that cannot be directly attributed to heat, which is why it is higher than 15,800.
Uwe Janssens, medical director of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, had previously warned that heat as a cause of death may be underreported.
“Many cases aren’t recorded as heat related because organ failure is listed on the death certificate.”
His remark supports the institute’s own view, that even the estimate of 15,800 is likely a floor rather than a ceiling on the real number. The RKI says it will keep publishing its weekly heat related mortality report through the end of September, alongside the Federal Statistical Office’s Tuesday releases on Germany’s overall death toll.
