According to the Statistical Federal Agency (Destatis), the number of deaths in Germany caused by cardiovascular diseases continued to decline in 2025. The statistics show that a total of 334,100 fatalities were due to cardiovascular conditions, representing a 1.5 percent reduction compared to the previous year.
Despite this downward trend, cardiovascular diseases remain the most frequent cause of death in 2025. When compared to 2022, the number of deaths from cardiovascular disease fell by 6.7 percent, a sharper decrease than the overall drop in deaths (5.6 percent). Significant decreases were noted in heart attacks (-15.2 percent) and cerebrovascular conditions-which include strokes, hemorrhagic strokes, and cerebral infarctions (-6.3 percent). Notably, in 2022, the previous trend of increasing mortality for both heart attacks and cerebrovascular diseases (which had seen increases of 5.3 percent and 4 percent, respectively, between 2019 and 2022) reversed.
The decline in heart attacks since 2022 was observed almost equally across both genders, with men seeing a 14.1 percent drop and women a 16.8 percent drop. All age groups were affected, but the decrease was particularly steep among those aged 80 to 85, falling by 30.6 percent. For cerebrovascular diseases, deaths declined by 4.6 percent among men and by 7.7 percent among women since 2022.
Overall, approximately 1.01 million people died in Germany in 2025, marking a 0.1 percent decrease from 2024, making it the third consecutive year of declining mortality. The second leading cause of death was cancer (malignant tumors), resulting in 228,800 fatalities. Respiratory diseases followed, claiming 81,200 lives. The three most frequent causes of death accounted for nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of all fatalities.
Both cardiovascular disease and cancer consistently rank at the top of the mortality list. For 2025, the top three causes of death showed no change across genders when examined separately. Among women, the top causes were unspecified dementia (7.7 percent, 39,200), chronic ischemic heart disease (5.8 percent, 29,400), and heart failure (4.3 percent, 21,900). For men, the three most common causes were chronic ischemic heart disease (7.7 percent, 38,700), malignant tumors of the bronchi and lung (5.2 percent, 26,200), and acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) (4.8 percent, 23,800).
