There are various Wireless Emergency Alerts in Germany which inform citizens about important incidents, disasters and dangerous situations, as well as severe weather. Since February 2023, the alerts of the four main systems have been shared and disseminated in parallel.

Background

Since WWII, the traditional method for informing the public about a disaster in Germany has been civil defence sirens. An equivalent to the US

Emergency Broadcasting System The Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), sometimes called the Emergency Broadcasting System or the Emergency Action Notification System (EANS), was an emergency warning system used in the United States. It replaced the previous CONELRAD system an ...

for sending messages via radio and TV did not exist in Germany for a long time but such a system is now part of the Modular Warning System (MoWas). ''MoWas'' is developed by the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief (BBK) to warn the population and is coupled to authorities, media and all situation centres of the state governments and their redundancy locations as well as in all integrated control centres in

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a States of Germany, state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more tha ...

Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a states of Germany, state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an ar ...

and Schleswig-Holstein. The system is connected to all public broadcasters, a number of private broadcasters, the news agencies dpa, AFP, dts Nachrichtenagentur, the digital billboards of Ströer Media and Wall GmbH, T-Online International, the situation room of

Deutsche Bahn The (; abbreviated as DB or DB AG) is the national railway company of Germany. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). The Federal Republic of Germany is its single shareholder. describes itself as the se ...

and all relevant alert apps.

Cell Broadcast

There were increasing calls to use the

Cell Broadcast Cell Broadcast (CB) is a method of sending messages to multiple mobile telephone users in a defined area at the same time. It is defined by the ETSI’s GSM committee and 3GPP and is part of the 2G, 3G, 4G LTE (telecommunication) and 5G s ...

service in Germany to warn the population in the event of a disaster. The demands intensified after the Floods in Western and Central Europe in 2021. In August 2021, the German federal government announced that it would introduce Cell Broadcast within the next year. The

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...

and Bundesrat subsequently approved the necessary amendment to the Telecommunications Act. The Bundesrat approved the introduction of the mobile warning regulation of the

Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (german: Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz, ), abbreviated BMWK (was BMWi), is a cabinet-level ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany. It was previously known as ...

on November 26, 2021. On the second nationwide warning day on December 8, 2022, cell broadcast was successfully used in Germany for the first time. The message was intended to reach all mobile devices that are compatible with Cell Broadcast and have reception. In February 2023, the Cell Broadcast warning system officially started regular operation. In June 2023, mobile phone operator

Vodafone Germany Vodafone GmbH is a mobile telecommunications operator in Germany headquartered in Düsseldorf. It provides mobile phone, LTE, 5G, cable internet, landlines, cable TV, and IPTV services. As of the third quarter of 2021, Vodafone GmbH has more ...

announced that since the start of official operation, 77 warning messages had been sent via Cell Broadcast in various parts of Germany.

NINA

In 2015, the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief ( Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz und Katastrophenhilfe) at BMI presented an emergency information and news app called ''NINA''. Since 2019, the KATWARN system and the Federal MoWaS system have been coupled: warnings of KATWARN and the NINA app are displayed on both sides.

EU-Alert

EU-Alert is the wireless emergency system of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

and officially called '' European Public Warning Service''. EU-Alert is compatible with the

Wireless Emergency Alerts Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA, formerly known as the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS), and prior to that as the Personal Localized Alerting Network (PLAN)), is an alerting network in the United States designed to disseminate emergency alert ...

(WEA) standard as used in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and based on Cell Broadcast. Since 2012, mobile operating systems have supported EU-Alert/WEA/CMAS via

for public warning messages by default.

Katwarn

Katwarn was the first alert system in Germany based mainly on smartphone apps and was introduced in 2009. The service is provided by the private company Combirisk GmbH.

Fraunhofer Institute The Fraunhofer Society (german: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., lit=Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement of Applied Research) is a German research organization with 76institutes spread throughout Germany ...

FOKUS developed Katwarn on behalf of the major insurance companies in Germany. Katwarn (also known as KATWARN) is an alert and information system that informs the affected citizen in disasters and dangerous situations (e.g. large fires,

power outages A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user. There are many causes of power failures in an electricity ...

, bomb finds). Since 2011, Katwarn has been in use in Germany in various cities, counties and

city states A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...

, as well as at the state (Bundesländer) and

federal level Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...

. It can be used, for example, via a smartphone app. Registration to the system is free and it currently serves around 2.5 million users. The app is available worldwide in the app stores for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone. Since July 2017, Katwarn has also been available in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

BIWAPP

The warning app BIWAPP is used by some cities and counties for regional and local urgent reports. The app also displays the disaster warnings of the BBK and the severe weather warnings of the

German Weather Service The () or DWD for short, is the German Meteorological Service, based in Offenbach am Main, Germany, which monitors weather and meteorological conditions over Germany and provides weather services for the general public and for nautical, avia ...

(DWD). All notifications and disaster alerts are sent directly from the officially responsible institutions such as civil protection authorities, municipalities and cities as well as their control centres.

WarnWetter

German Weather Service, DWD invented in 2015 a weather warning app, called ''WarnWetter''. At the end of 2017, it was used by 4.9 million users. In 2017, a private weather forecast company brought suit against DWD, because of its free app in 2017. After judgment by the district court of Bonn, there is a free app with commercials and another version for which users have to pay.{{Cite web, url=https://www.feuerwehrmagazin.de/nachrichten/news/deutscher-wetterdienst-darf-warnwetter-app-nicht-mehr-kostenfrei-verbreiten-76561, title=DWD darf WarnWetter-App nicht mehr kostenfrei verbreiten, trans-title=DWD is no longer allowed to distribute WarnWetter app for free, first=von Michael, last=Rüffer, date=December 20, 2017, website=Feuerwehr-Magazin

References

Emergency Alert System Emergency population warning systems Emergency management in Europe Emergency management in Germany