Important Emergency Services

Moving to a new country has lots of nuances that might seem no-brainers for the locals, but not for the newly arrived expats. Knowing the emergency numbers to call in case of an incident is one of them.

Here are the numbers:

Police: 110
Fire Fighters & Ambulance: 112
Non-emergency medical service (doctor on call): 116 117
Covid-19 Hotline: 116 177 (same phone number as for the non-emergency medical service)
Nurse advice line: 00800 4759 2330

Emergency phrases in German

While English is a language fluent to Germans, especially to the emergency services, there might be cases that you meet an officer of the public that won’t be as familiar, for example in rural areas. For this reason, it is handy to learn or bookmark some keywords and phrases:

Police: Polizei
Fire fighters: Feuerwehr
Rescue service: Rettungsdienst
Ambulance: Rettungswagen or Krankenwagen
Pharmacy: Apotheke
Hospital: Krankenhaus
Medicine: Medizin
Poisoning emergency: Vergiftungen Notfall
Help!: Hilfe!
It’s an emergency: Es ist ein Notfall
I’m feeling sick: Ich fühle mich krank
I’m in pain: Ich habe Schmerzen.
I need a doctor: Ich brauche einen Arzt.
I need a hospital: Ich brauche ein Krankenhaus.
There has been an accident: Es gab einen Unfall.

National emergency services in Germany

In Germany, three are three primary emergency responders namely:

- the police (Polizei)

- the fire brigade/fire fighters (Feuerwehr)

- the emergency medical service (Rettungsdienst)

For urgent medical treatment, you can also immediately go to any hospital's emergency room or accident and emergency department (A&E), which are called "Notaufnahme" in German. Please make sure to bring your German health insurance card so that the costs for medical treatment can be covered by your German health insurance. You will get your German health insurance card after you have registered for a German long-term health insurance fund.