At least 26 men and boys drown in Germany over the hottest weekend of the year as DLRG warns on overconfidence and alcohol

The toll of a hot weekend

Germany recorded at least 26 fatal drownings between Friday and Sunday, according to the Deutsche Lebens-Rettungs-Gesellschaft (DLRG). The figure includes missing persons presumed drowned but not yet recovered. The victims ranged from a six-year-old boy who vanished while playing beside the Rhein-Herne-Kanal in Herne to a 61-year-old man who entered the Schiedersee in Lippe at 05:30 in the morning despite a swimming ban. Across North Rhine-Westphalia alone, eight people died in lakes, rivers and a disused gravel pit, prompting large-scale searches involving divers and helicopters.

We see time and again that particularly men overestimate their abilities and take risks that would be avoidable.

Why men dominate the statistics

Every fatality recorded during the weekend was male. The DLRG said the pattern mirrors annual figures: in 2025, 82 percent of the 393 drowning victims in Germany were men. Among 11- to 30-year-olds, 73 people died, only one of them female. The imbalance is so stark that DLRG president Ute Vogt and other experts link it to a combination of overconfidence, peer pressure and alcohol consumption.

Men underestimate currents and the dangers, or they accept them, and then tragically die.

Felix Rebitschek, head of the Harding Centre for Risk Competence, told public broadcaster WDR that qualitative data from rescue organisations show men are more likely to enter the water unprepared and under the influence of alcohol. The WHO estimates alcohol is a contributing factor in roughly 26 percent of all fatal drownings in the European region.

The hidden risks of unsupervised waters

The weekend's deaths occurred in lakes, quarry ponds, rivers and canals, almost all of them unguarded. Such sites lack marked lanes, known depths and trained lifeguards. The DLRG warns that quarry ponds often have steep, sudden drop-offs, while rivers carry strong currents even close to the bank. Cold water shock can cause circulatory collapse on hot days when the body is already stressed by heat. Jumping head-first into unknown water was cited as another common trigger of fatal accidents.

Knowledge of one's own physical abilities has deteriorated overall. Men and boys tend to believe they can do more, so they lean towards overestimating their own capabilities.

Enforcement and awareness

In Düsseldorf alone, municipal officers admonished 277 people along the Rhine over the weekend and opened 25 administrative offence proceedings for illegal bathing. The city maintains around 70 warning signs with pictograms and text in German, English, Turkish, Arabic and Ukrainian, yet some visitors ignore them. Frank Zantis of DLRG North Rhine noted that even pictorial warnings do not always deter people, especially adolescents.

Voices from the shore

A lifeguard writing for Focus described watching fathers swim to distant buoys to impress their children and groups of young men daring each other to go further. He argued that a culture equating prudence with weakness puts men at risk. That observation found an echo in the DLRG's recurring appeal: swim only at guarded spots, stay sober, supervise children, and turn back while you still have the strength.