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One night of some months ago I realized there were some burglars in the apartment below mine. As an Italian living in Germany, I didn't know the number to call the police, but I knew that in all Europe there's a common number for emergencies, 112, and I was confident it was enough. I dialled it and started to explain what had happened. Some seconds later, I was interrupted: "In this case you need the police. This is the fire brigade. Please call 110." They didn't even offer to transfer the call themselves. Maybe I could have asked for that, but I didn't think about it. So I just hung up and dialled 110, and at last I was able to talk to the police.

Some months later I saw a fire in the building in front of mine (apparently I live in a place where you can't get bored), and I called the fire brigade. I dialled 112 and spoke with them. It was the right number.

So, it seems to me that 112 isn't really working as expected: it's just the number of the fire brigade, full stop. But as far as I can tell, this shouldn't be the case. According to the official website of the European Commission,

  • You can call 112 from fixed and mobile phones to contact any emergency service: an ambulance, the fire brigade or the police.

  • A specially trained operator will answer any 112 call. The operator will either deal with the request directly or transfer the call to the most appropriate emergency service depending on the national organisation of emergency services.

Then, according to another page on the same site,

112 calls must be appropriately answered and handled, irrespective of whether other emergency numbers exist in a specific country;

The European Commission ensures that European rules on 112 are correctly applied in the European Union and has launched 17 infringement proceedings against Member States that have not complied with the relevant requirements of EU law. All cases are now closed following corrective measures in the countries concerned.

It seems to me that calling 112 should have been enough. But there's even more!
Wikipedia says this about 112:

112 is a part of the GSM standard and all GSM-compatible telephone handsets are able to dial 112 even when locked or with no SIM card present.

But then, again the site of the European Commission, on another page specific to Germany, says:

It is not possible to call 112 from a mobile phone without a SIM card.

So, questions:

  1. Why wasn't my call properly dealt with? Calling 112 made me lose around 30 seconds, maybe more. In an emergency this could make a huge difference. Why did it happen? Isn't this a violation of European rules? Is it normal? Has anyone had similar experiences?

  2. I recently bought a new phone, but I'm still keeping my old one, without a SIM card. Would I be able to use it to call 112, as per the GSM standard, or not?

  3. When I called 112 I used my Italian SIM card. Then, when they told me to call 110, I thought that being a "non standard" number there could have been problems, and I picked up my German phone and used that. If I had used my Italian number again, would it have worked?

Regarding 2) and 3), unfortunately calling 112 or 110 if there's no emergency is a crime, otherwise I would just test it.

Fabio says Reinstate Monica
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    Usually the 112 operators will directly transfer you to the police command centers, if they recognize that the call is about a police emergency. I don't know the reasons why it didn't work in your case, maybe the operator was overloaded etc. – dunni Jan 19 '17 at 02:40
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    'Should' and 'Is' are two different things. Not all 'specially trained' operators remember their training... – Aganju Jan 19 '17 at 03:06
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    112 does work. Though as Aganju said - the operator may be the problem. 112 is a 'Notruf' and Fire brigade. Notruf should be understood as ANY kind of emergency, and in your case the operator was actually obligated to either put you through to the police or to take your report and notify them himself. It's a bother but you could write a complaint about him. – Daniel M. Jan 19 '17 at 08:49
  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – RoflcoptrException Jan 23 '17 at 09:24
  • Regarding the test call: Calling to test availability is a perfectly valid reason, when in doubt. (A simple "oh, sorry" and hangup when it works would save the time used to explain the testing) The crime happens when somebody trolls the emergency service. – Volker Siegel Oct 31 '19 at 07:04
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    I've had a similar experience. The operator told me it's not the number for police emergencies... thing is I am convinced they are essentially wrong. Germany is obliged to follow EU rules, which states that 112 is a unified emergency number for ambulance, fire, and police. They're missing the point of a unified number completely. – Karl Dec 11 '23 at 20:20

6 Answers6

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  1. Difficult to say. The 112 emergency dispatcher should be able to connect you with the police, even if you also can call the police directly on the number 110. Perhaps the operator did not consider a break-in in an appartment urgent enough to do the job for you.

  2. Yes, it violates the GSM standard, but calling emergency services in Germany from a cell phone requires an active SIM card. The reason was to prevent hoax calls from inactive, and therefore unidentifiable cellphones.

  3. You could also have dialled 110 with your Italian SIM card.

There are a few differences between dialling 110 and 112 from a cell phone, but they are in most situations not relevant:

  • When you dial 110, the call is basically treated as a regular phone call. Your phone must be registered on a supported network and the cell you are connected to must have capacity to handle an additional call. The call will hence only go through if you are within coverage of your home network, or a network you may roam on and the cell capacity is not exhausted.

  • When you dial 112, the call is already at the initial signalling level treated as an emergency call. The cell phone will try to connect through any available provider, even if you are regularly not allowed to use that provider's network. The cell phone will use a priority procedure when setting up the call and if the cell capacity is exhausted, other calls will be dropped by the network to 'give room' for your emergency call.

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
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  • I was told that calling 112 without a SIM card was disabled because people would find phones and then call 112 in an attempt to locate the owner. But that would also classify as a hoax call, so … ;) – Jan Jan 19 '17 at 13:16
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    About the (in)ability to call 112 without a SIM card: the Italian page on Wikipedia reports that "To prevent abuse, in some countries like Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Romania, Slovenia and Switzerland, the emergency number 112 can't be called from a phone without a working SIM card." Feel free to edit this into your answer if you want! – Fabio says Reinstate Monica Jan 20 '17 at 01:39
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    But that would definitely mean that 110 is more or less "useless" because it's not even an actual emergency call, right? When in doubt, use 112 and if they won't help you demand they patch you through to whatever service you need? – F.P Jan 20 '17 at 07:29
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    I heavily disagree with the assessment that the differences “are in most situations not relevant”. They are very relevant when you are in an area with weak coverage, or when there is a special event where lots of people are trying to do phone calls (e.g. in the first minutes of the new year, when everyone calls their friends/relatives). – chirlu Jan 20 '17 at 11:53
  • @chirlu As I also wrote in my answer, the differences are indeed relevant when you have poor coverage or the network is congested (no need to repeat that as if I didn't understand it), but in most situations you do simply have coverage and the network is not congested. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Jan 21 '17 at 16:52
  • It may depend on your network provider. T-Mobile is said to have very good coverage; but I’m using Telefónica (O2/E-Plus), and it’s definitely not rare to have poor coverage. :-) Congestion is indeed rare, but may still happen. I doubt everyone remembers these differences between 110 and 112, especially in a stressful situation, so I recommend focusing on 112. – chirlu Jan 21 '17 at 17:36
  • @F.P I once had to call 112 from my mobile, but the GSM system somehow refused (some message like 'your request cannot be processed"). So I called 110, ask them to transfer me, they said call 112, I said, doesnt work, so they transfered my call. Later I inquired with my mobile operator, they investigated, but i was unclear. Unfortunately it is illegal to check if my mobile can call 112. (Of course I am aware that I could have misdialed. I tried actually twice; who knows what happened), – lalala Jun 22 '20 at 14:32
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Yes, 112 works quite well in Germany, but there are differences to other countries.

There are two main emergency numbers in Germany.

The Police (Polizei)

To call the police, dial 110. It's usually answered by a switchboard that is in the area of where you are, by someone who is with the police. In large cities they have their own switchboard. You don't need to say I'm in Berlin. You can just say I'm in Kreuzberg. But if you are calling while you're driving on the Autobahn somewhere between towns, you'll end up in a regional one, and they will ask between what towns, which road, what section and direction of the road and so on. (Only call hands-free while driving, calling and driving is not allowed in Germany and gets expensive).

When not to call

Don't call 110 if you want to just talk to the police without an emergency. If your wallet got stolen and you want to report that, go to the police instead, or call the normal local phone number of a police station. If you think your car got stolen and you are in Hamburg or Berlin, also don't call 110, but google for Umsetzung first, as it's possible your car was in the way and the Police had it moved to a different location.

The emergency hotline

The number for 112 on the other hand is for both medical emergencies (Krankenwagen) and for the fire fighters, called Feuerwehr in Germany. So if you need an ambulance, you call 112. If there is a fire, you call 112. If you see oil on the street, smell gas and think there is a leak, your basement is full of water, or if you witness a car accident, you call 112. That number has its own regional switchboard. They are located in a regional command center that's also usually where units are dispatched from. Here's a bit of German information about the one in Hannover. They also dispatch the Katastrophenschutz, which helps with floods and things like that.

Note that for the car accident, the 112 dispatch will notify the police, so always call 112 first when people are injured, even if there is road traffic or crime involved.

When not to call

Don't call 112 if you want to plan an event (like a company football game or a publicly accessible party) where the law requires you to have paramedics present or the firefighter to be made aware first.

How to call

Both of these emergency numbers have a protocol you should follow when you call. Those are referred to and taught to kids in school as the five W-Questions, because all of them start with a W in German.

  • Where did it happen?
  • What happened?
  • How many people are involved/injured?
  • What kind of damage/injury?
  • Who is calling?

Never hang up when you call them. Always wait until they end the call, because they might have additional questions.

It's possible that you get routed to the police if you call 112 if there is no local firefighters dispatch available. The operator will identify clearly where you ended up.

There is also a ton of information in German in the Wikipedia page about Notruf.

Note that the emergency hotline can be busy. Depending on where you are, they might only have one person operating the phone. In Berlin it frequently happens that at 110 you first reach an on hold queue before someone talks to you. So please only call when there really is an emergency.

A similar looking number is the 115. It's not an emergency number, but it has the same format. It's not special in any kind, and in fact is just a local call. It connects you to the municipal government's service hotline, so you can make appointments for registering a residential address in a new town or things like that. It's relevant for expats, but not really if you travel.

simbabque
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    The most important W is Waiting for questions the operator may still have (i.e. don’t hang up). On the other side, I think who is not considered as important. – Jan Jan 19 '17 at 13:13
  • @Jan I agree, but it's there. I sourced this off the Notruf Wikipedia pages, but I know from personal experience that they will ask those questions first if you are nervous and can't pull yourself together on the phone. Both police and emergency services will do that, and they always care to know who calls. – simbabque Jan 19 '17 at 13:19
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    "if your cat needs to be rescued from a tree, you call 112", no, you don't. German Feuerwehr will not come to rescue your cat in such a case and you may even get legal problems if the operator is having a bad day. Save the line for a real emergency! – sigy Jan 19 '17 at 14:22
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    @sigy I've seen a Freiwillige Feuerwehr do that, but I have no idea how they were called. They probably knew the owner of the cat, being in a village and all. I'll remove it, because you're right with the real emergency. It was intended to lighten up the reading anyway. – simbabque Jan 19 '17 at 14:39
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    Wait—if you call an emergency number while driving to report an accident that happened just seconds earlier and you are not using hands-free calling, you can get fined? In Canada (at least), there are special exceptions to distracted driving laws for calling emergency (911). If you call 911 to report a suspected drunk driver, they will often ask you to follow them if you feel safe until police arrive, etc. knowing full well that you are using a cell phone. –  Jan 19 '17 at 20:03
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    @FighterJet no, probably not. No-one will care. But if you saw an accident happen while driving the first thing I would do is stop my own car, because being on the phone on the Autobahn is not fun. Going 180kph with cars around you, some of them way faster, is stressful. I called the police once while I was driving on the Autobahn when I saw a foreign truck that had a loose part underneath scraping the road and producing loads of spark. I told them the registration and on what road, direction and which kilometer of that road it was. They didn't say anything about phoning to me. – simbabque Jan 19 '17 at 20:12
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    @FighterJet If you drive past an accident where it looks as if emergency services are needed and you call emergency services while still driving, you are more likely to be fined for not stopping and providing aid at the accident scene. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Jan 19 '17 at 22:29
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    @Tor-EinarJarnbjo more like charged than fined. Unterlassene Hilfeleistung is a crime that you can go to jail for. – simbabque Jan 19 '17 at 22:31
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    @Tor: Stopping to provide aid? What? Driving the wrong way down the freeway to get to the accident that you saw in your rearview mirror (or in the opposite direction, across the median) is what I would call a Very Bad Idea. If it happened right in front of you and you had to slam on your brakes, of course, you're stopped anyway. Plus, sometimes emergency services are needed to remove a disabled vehicle off the road; not much you can do about that. Anyway, this is kind of off-topic... –  Jan 19 '17 at 22:35
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    "112 works quite well in Germany, but there are differences to other countries." so, no, it does not work quite well. 112 is supposed to be a European standardized emergency number, not whatever a country wants to use it for. – njzk2 Jan 20 '17 at 03:32
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    In my experience (not from Berlin), the police aren’t particularly fierce about this “only call 110 in real emergencies”. It has even happened that I called the police under the regular local number and they recommended to dial 110 instead … Of course, if you call for issues that aren’t the police’s resposibility at all (“What restaurant can you recommend?”), they might still get angry. For repeat offenders, it’s pretty much guaranteed. – chirlu Jan 20 '17 at 12:11
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    @njzk2 and it is in Germany. For emergencies you don't need the police. They are for crime and public order. Hence, they have their own number. If the kids downstairs are playing loud music all night you'd call the police at 110 zero, but that's not an emergency. No ambulance required. Unless the police doesn't come and you go downstairs to turn the music off yourself maybe. – simbabque Jan 20 '17 at 12:29
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    @FighterJet I think you misunderstand the scenario. When Tor says "drive past", I believe he(?) means the accident is on your side of the road, yet you just drive around it and keep going. – Doktor J Jan 20 '17 at 14:57
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    @njzk2: Possibly true, but then it seems using a number for that European standard that was already in use for a specific purpose in some member countries was not a very bright idea to start with. – O. R. Mapper Jan 21 '17 at 11:40
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    @O.R.Mapper You are not likely to find a short, easy-to-remember emergency number, which can be introduced in all EU states without any country having to make a change to existing numbers. Had 477 been chosen as a EU-wide emergency number, all subsribers with phone numbers starting with 477 would have to get a new number. The EU directive also does not require Germany to replace the functionality behind the previously national emergency number 112, but to extend it to allow persons using it to call the police as well. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Jan 21 '17 at 19:06
  • Germany is not following EU law by telling people with police emergencies to call 110 instead. It's agreed by all EU countries that 112 is the unified emergency number, including emergencies requiring police. If I have a burglerer in my house the operator can't tell me to call 110 instead without directly breaking EU law. – Karl Dec 11 '23 at 20:25
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Speaking as a (retired) mobile network planner, "dialling" 112 on a mobile with or without a SIM should not actually "dial". It invokes the emergency communications service (which is independent of normal call handling). (I may have used the incorrect term for the service, I would have to go back to my standards to check.)

In other countries, e.g. Australia, where I live, phones are required by law to recognise the local emergency number "000" and invoke the emergency communications service, and similar rules are in place in most jurisdictions, although 112 is always recognised (on GSM phones) and I implemented it on CDMA.

What actually happens when you invoke the emergency communications service is dependent on the local administration.

Milliways
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(More a comment than an answer):

I've looked at the German Wikipedia entry wrt. the emergency numbers:

It's enlightening that 112 is both the European emergency number (since 1991) and in Germany it is also the emergency number for the fire brigade and the ambulance, historically (since 1973).

The police historically has used 110 (as explained in other answers).

I would assume therefore that, in Germany, 112 gets a lot more fire+medical traffic than the police one and is a possible explanation for the seeming incompetence of the operator - many locals would call 112 only for the fire and ambulance, and it's indistinguishable whether you intended the (historic) 112 or the international 112 :-)

Quite some other European countries have completely disjoint police/fire/medical emergency numbers vs. the international 112.

Martin Ba
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    I would say the average non-travelling German doesn't know there is an international 112. We learn 110 for police, 112 for firefighters and ambulance. We know 911 from TV. I think in the UK it's 999 (didn't check now), and if that's wrong I'm happy I never needed it while I was there. – simbabque Jan 19 '17 at 22:42
  • @simbabque - yes, 999 is the local emergency number in the UK. Thankfully I've lived here all 40 years of my life and have only once needed it, and that was for helping others (I witnessed a road traffic accident at night when there was nobody else present to offer assistance). – Periata Breatta Jan 20 '17 at 07:37
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    @simbabque - You can dial either 999 or 112 in the UK. 999 is what we grew up with, but due to the EU rules 112 now does the same thing. Hopefully we'll retain that when we leave the EU. – AndyT Jan 20 '17 at 11:27
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    @PeriataBreatta 999 seems to be - historically - an unusually bad choice: Back in the days of pulse-dialing, 999 would take almost 7 times as long as 112 to complete dialing ... – Hagen von Eitzen Jan 20 '17 at 22:20
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    @HagenvonEitzen: Denmark used to have 000 which is even slower. (I'm not sure, but I can imagine using long digits might have been a feature for pulse dialing: it's harder to call accidentally). – hmakholm left over Monica Jan 21 '17 at 10:29
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    @HenningMakholm WP notes that fewer accidental calls was a feature (111 would be possible from random line-noise), but mainly that you could dial it in the dark without seeing the dial, which you couldn't do easily for (eg) 112 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/999_(emergency_telephone_number)#History – Andrew is gone Jan 21 '17 at 11:38
  • @simbabque; I'd even extend that to the average travelling German. – O. R. Mapper Jan 21 '17 at 11:44
  • @HagenvonEitzen: Since the nominal dialing rate is 10 pulses/sec, dialing 999 would only take three seconds longer than dialing 112. – AndyB Jan 23 '17 at 08:15
  • @HenningMakholm At least in Sweden one pulse was used to signal "0" and ten pulses to signal "9". I would have suspected that any country using "000" was using this system... – I'm with Monica Jan 23 '17 at 10:41
  • @AlexanderKosubek: Intriguing. Here is the standard Danish rotary phone from the pulse dialing era. Did those Swedish ones work for international call without operator assistance? – hmakholm left over Monica Jan 23 '17 at 12:13
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    @simbabque - I just noticed: "the average non-travelling German": I do not think such a thing as an average non-traveling German exists. My lovely northern neighbors are everywhere you go. :-P – Martin Ba Jun 14 '18 at 19:45
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As far as I remember (but I can't find a source right now), this lack of interconnection between the emergency phone systems of the fire brigade and police is intentional. Some reasons for this are:

  • It can make it easier for people to call for medical help without having the police know about it (for example, if illicit substances are involved).

  • It frees up the operator and telephone lines, by not having to handle the transfer.

It does not indicate a lack of training or motivation on the operator's part.

This policy seems to violate (albeit slightly) EU regulations, similarly to the requirement to have a SIM card when calling 112.

mdd
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    This seems a very bad idea to me (no offense intended, of course! I know that you are just reporting this, and not necessarily supporting it). And anyway, even if this was the reasoning behind the original German system, now there's a European law and Germany has to comply. Anyway, thanks for sharing this! – Fabio says Reinstate Monica Jan 20 '17 at 02:09
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    I think you can make an argument for both cases, it does not seem obvious which policy (ie., risking that someone does not call an ambulance due to police prosecution vs. risking that someone loses 30 seconds by calling the wrong number) is better. I just wanted to point out that this seems to be official policy, not just a bad day of the operator ;-) – mdd Jan 20 '17 at 03:04
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    I'm sorry, but this answer is as wrong as it could be. There IS a connection between the two, and the operator IS obliged to put you through. – Daniel M. Jan 20 '17 at 10:36
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    @DanielM. source please – mdd Jan 20 '17 at 15:26
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    @mdiener - the European Emergency Number Association, who have a publication (unfortunately not available online) that describes in depth the emergency services telephone infrastructure of 53 countries including all EU member states, certainly seem to believe that you can access the police by calling 112 in Germany: "112 is the European emergency number, available [...] anywhere in the European Union. Citizens can dial 112 to reach the emergency services, including the police, emergency medical services and the fire brigade" – Periata Breatta Jan 22 '17 at 05:44
  • @PeriataBreatta: That is the theory, yes. In practice, states do not follow this guideline in every case, as demonstrated by the requirement by several countries to have a SIM card in the phone to dial 112. – mdd Jan 22 '17 at 05:58
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    @mdiener - that's not a guideline, the book they publish contains the results of a survey of emergency number operators. It describes practice, not theory. They're quite clear that a SIM is required, but don't suggest there's any difficulty contacting the police via the number. – Periata Breatta Jan 22 '17 at 06:34
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Mobile phones without SIM cards will let you dial any of a variety of standard emergency numbers, including 999, 911, 112, 000, and probably others. If you try to dial another number, it brings up an error message. In addition, you can dial from a locked handset; there is an option to enter the security code or declare an emergency. If you hit emergency, presumably it tries the standard emergency numbers for you in sequence. Source: Spare mobile phone without a SIM card, that I happened to have handy.

Robin Hodson
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    In the other answers is mentioned that this does not work in Germany. – Willeke Jan 22 '17 at 09:10
  • Mobile phones don't necessarily know which country they're in. If they're in a place where there's no emergency number, or no mobile service, then it won't produce a result, but it'll still dial. A search says it also doesn't work in the UK, which I've proven false. – Robin Hodson Jan 23 '17 at 13:13