The incident occurred at around 5:15 a.m. on a training ground in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district of Upper Bavaria — a region that records one of the highest concentrations of thunderstorms in the country each year due to its proximity to the Alpine slopes. Six servicemen aged 18 to 26, undergoing mountain training, were injured.
What is known about the injured
According to police, five servicemen sustained minor injuries. One 18-year-old soldier was more seriously affected — doctors diagnosed him with moderate injuries.
The nature of the injuries suggests that this young man was the one struck directly by lightning, while the others were affected by so-called step voltage — an electric shock spreading through the ground from the point of impact. This mechanism most often explains multiple injuries in group lightning strikes. Investigators are now working to establish the precise sequence of events.
All six servicemen were taken to hospital. At this time, doctors do not anticipate any long-term health consequences for those injured.
Scale of the response
Since there was initially no clarity about either the number of casualties or the severity of their condition, substantial emergency resources were dispatched to the scene:
- ambulance crews;
- fire brigades;
- police patrols.
Only after arriving on site was it possible to assess the actual situation and arrange transport for all six soldiers to the clinic. This approach — deploying a large emergency response when the scale of an incident is uncertain — is standard practice among German emergency services and helps avoid delay in cases where the number of casualties is unknown at the time of the call.
Why the servicemen were in open terrain
The Bundeswehr regularly uses the Hoher Brendten highland, located near Mount Kranzberg, for mountain and tactical training of personnel — in particular by the mountain infantry battalion stationed in Mittenwald. The training programme includes overnight stays in the open: this prepares cadets for conditions approximating combat, including limited visibility, sudden shifts in weather, and the need to make decisions without the usual infrastructure.
It was as part of this training that the six servicemen set up their bivouac on Tuesday night. Safety precautions for such exercises typically include continuous monitoring of weather conditions and early breakdown of camp when a storm front approaches, but on this occasion the storm caught the group off guard. Lightning-safety experts note that open highlands are among the most dangerous places during a thunderstorm precisely because they lack natural shelter and carry a heightened risk of a direct strike on the highest point of the terrain.
Police are now investigating why standard safety measures failed to prevent the lightning strike, and are reconstructing the exact course of events that night. The investigation must determine whether the storm was genuinely unpredictable or whether a weather warning was issued but not acted upon in time — the answer will determine whether night exercises in open terrain require a review of protocol.
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