Across Germany, the criminal justice system is suffering a steep nationwide backlog, with the northern and western regions experiencing the most severe impact. In Hamburg, the number of open cases has surged from 29,355 in 2020 to 76,637 today-an increase of 161 percent, according to DRB (German Judges Association) federal chief executive Sven Rebehn. New filings at the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office have continued to climb unchecked, reaching a historic high of around 186,000 new cases in 2025.
In North Rhine‑Westphalia (NRW), prosecutors face a similarly steep rise. In 2025 they logged the first time in the state’s history more than 1.3 million new prosecutions-1,303,773 in total. The number of ongoing cases there grew from 177,846 at the end of 2020 to 299,959 by the end of 2025, a 69 percent increase and an ever‑growing pile of paperwork.
Last week the DRB warned that the national case backlog had already surpassed one million at the end of 2025, marking the first time this figure was broken. “Year after year, prosecutors pile up an ever‑bigger mountain of cases that they cannot clear without additional staff” Rebehn said. As a consequence, suspected criminals are increasingly released from pre‑trial detention because their proceedings take too long-“on average this happens once a week”.
Rebehn called the crisis “shocking for public trust in the rule of law” emphasizing that the justice system can only prosecute as finance allows. He urged federal and state governments to finally act: “We need the long‑promised personnel boost of the Rechtsstaatspakt. Nationwide, 2,000 prosecutors and criminal judges are missing, and in NRW alone we need about 350 more prosecutors to keep up with the rising case load”.
Niedersachsen’s public prosecutors opened 556,156 new criminal cases last year, a modest uptick from 550,735 in 2024. Their backlog, however, swelled from 57,937 cases in 2020 to 81,078 by the end of 2025-a 40 percent rise over five years.
In Schleswig-Holstein, the situation tracks roughly the national average. The number of pending cases rose by 49 percent, from 26,892 in 2020 to 40,026 today. New filings, however, have slipped slightly in 2025 (181,773) compared with 193,501 in 2024.