A fierce heatwave gripped Germany over the weekend, producing new national temperature highs for three consecutive days before forecasters announced gradual relief was approaching by Sunday evening.
Germany's heatwave peaked on Sunday when a temperature of 41.7°C was recorded at around 4:00 p.m. at Coschen in Brandenburg, close to the Polish border. It was the third successive day on which a new national high was set: on Friday, a reading of 41.3°C was logged in Saarbrücken, and on Saturday, 41.5°C was measured in Drewitz, Saxony-Anhalt.
The heat did not relent after dark either. In the early hours of Sunday morning, the Saxon village of Kubschütz recorded an overnight low of 29.4°C, the highest night-time minimum temperature since records began. That reading, registered in the Bautzen district of eastern Saxony, easily surpassed the previous benchmark of 27.2°C, set in Weinbie, Rhineland-Palatinate, during August 2003.
Germany's national weather service, the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), cautioned that all figures remain provisional. "A quality check of these measured values has not yet been carried out and will still be completed," the agency stated. Official confirmation of whether a new national temperature record has been established is not expected until after the weekend.
Germany was not alone in experiencing extreme heat. The Czech Republic set a new national record for the second consecutive day, with the weather station at Doksany, north of Prague, registering 41.1°C. Switzerland recorded a June high of 39°C, and Denmark measured 37°C north of Aarhus, also a national record.
The extreme weather has been linked to a rise in fatalities across Europe. In France alone, approximately 1,000 additional deaths were recorded statistically between Wednesday and Sunday compared with the preceding months, according to French health authorities. Those who died were predominantly elderly people aged 65 and over.
In Germany, many public events and sporting competitions were cancelled as a precaution, yet rescue services and fire brigades remained under severe pressure throughout the day. The city of Cologne reported that its emergency medical service had reached the limits of its capacity, while Essen responded to a significant spike in call-outs by increasing the number of personnel on duty.
In Rhineland-Palatinate, a village near Traisen was evacuated after a wildfire broke out on Saturday afternoon, burning across roughly two hectares of woodland. The fire was not under control, the district of Bad Kreuznach confirmed, and was raging through steep terrain that was difficult to access. Parts of the area were further off-limits due to unexploded ordnance left over from the Second World War.
Dresden's fire brigade described Saturday as the busiest single day of the year, with 318 separate call-outs logged. Across many other cities, officials reported extraordinary demands on emergency resources. In Weingarten in Baden, firefighters were called to deliberately drain a gas tank after its safety valve repeatedly triggered in the heat, releasing gas into the surrounding area.
The heatwave also placed Germany's infrastructure under significant stress. Deutsche Bahn issued a nationwide appeal for travellers to avoid non-essential journeys. Rail services in the country's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, were severely disrupted. In Leipzig and Nuremberg, local transport operators suspended all tram services after heat damage rendered the lines inoperable.
According to the Deutscher Wetterdienst, temperatures are expected to fall gradually on Sunday evening, accompanied by thunderstorms.
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