Nobody has to prove it was bad enough before they are allowed to ask for help.

Is this bad enough to count?

This is the question that keeps people out of help for years, so it is worth answering plainly: every service on this page will talk to you without you having to prove anything, and none of them will decide for you what to do next.

• Violence is not only what leaves marks. Being controlled, monitored, cut off from your own money, frightened into agreement, threatened, followed, or worn down until you doubt your own memory — all of it is recognised by the people who staff these lines, and none of it requires a bruise to qualify.
• It counts inside a marriage, and after it ends. German law has no exception for partners. Sexual violence within a relationship is a criminal offence like any other, and consent that was not given is not implied by a shared address.
• Calling is not reporting. A helpline is not connected to the police. Being counselled commits you to nothing — not to a report, not to leaving, not to calling back.
• Your residence status does not disqualify you. Shelters and counselling centres take women regardless of status, and there are legal routes that do not depend on staying with a spouse. Say it on the phone; it is a question they answer daily.
• Ambivalence is normal and it is allowed. Most people who ring these numbers are not leaving. They want it to stop, or want to think out loud with someone who is not in the family. That is a legitimate use of every service listed here.

The numbers, in one place

All free, all anonymous, none of them connected to the police or to any authority.

What the law can actually do

The Gewaltschutzgesetz is short, unglamorous and startlingly practical. It is the reason the person who hit you can be the one who has to move out.

A protection order — § 1 GewSchG

You apply at the local Familiengericht, and it can be done urgently, without the other person being heard first. A court can order that they must not:

• enter your home, or come within a defined distance of it;
• go to places you regularly are — your workplace, a nursery, a route you take;
• contact you at all, including by phone, message or through other people;
• arrange to meet you.

Breaching an order is a criminal offence in its own right under § 4 GewSchG — up to two years' imprisonment or a fine. That matters more than it sounds: it converts every later contact from an argument about what happened into a police matter with a document behind it.

The flat — § 2 GewSchG

A court can assign the shared home to you alone. Where the other person owns or rents it, the assignment is capped at six months, extendable by a further six if you have not been able to find somewhere else. There is a deadline that catches people out: the request must be made in writing within three months of the incident. The tenancy name on the contract does not decide this.

Stalking — § 238 StGB

Persistent following, unwanted contact, ordering things in your name, threats, spyware, or publishing images of you is a criminal offence carrying up to three years, and three months to five years in aggravated cases — including where it continues over six months or where surveillance software was used. Keep a dated log of every incident; it is the single thing that makes these cases provable.

Evidence, without reporting anything

This is the part most people have never heard of, and it is the one that buys back time.

Anonyme (or vertrauliche) Spurensicherung means a doctor examines and documents injuries and secures traces — in a practice, a hospital or a forensic Gewaltschutzambulanz — with no police report at any point. The examination is free, takes up to about two hours, and covers the whole body, not only the part you mention first. Nobody is informed. Nothing starts.

• It is independent of a report — anzeigenunabhängig is the word to say on the phone. You are not agreeing to anything by turning up.
• The record is stored for you. How long is set regionally and ranges from around two years in Bavaria to ten in some places; ask at the clinic what applies where you are. If you decide months or years later to report, the evidence is still there — which is exactly the point, because the decision usually comes long after the injuries have healed.
• Go as soon as you can, but late is still worth it. Sooner preserves more, yet documentation of healing injuries has value too. If a sexual assault has happened, try not to wash, and keep the clothes in a paper bag rather than plastic — but do not let having already washed stop you from going.
• 116 016 will tell you where. Availability varies by region, and the helpline holds the list for yours.
• Alongside it, document yourself. Photograph injuries with a date visible, keep threatening messages rather than deleting them, and write down what happened and when while it is fresh. Store copies somewhere the other person cannot reach — a trusted friend, a work account, a locker at a counselling centre.

A place to go, and people to talk to

One thing worth knowing before you ring either: leaving is statistically the most dangerous period, not the safe end of it. That is not an argument for staying — it is the reason to plan the leaving with someone who does this professionally rather than alone in a hurry, and the reason not to announce it in advance to the person you are leaving.

Money, treatment and the aftermath

Violence in Germany triggers a compensation system most people never hear of, and it does not require anyone to be convicted.

• Soziale Entschädigung (SGB XIV). Since 1 January 2024 this has replaced the old Opferentschädigungsgesetz. It covers victims of violent crime — explicitly including psychological violence, severe neglect of children, and victims of abuse imagery — and provides medical treatment, rehabilitation, care benefits and payments. You apply to your Landesversorgungsamt.
• Traumaambulanz, quickly and before any decision on the claim. The "schnelle Hilfen" include psychotherapeutic sessions at a trauma outpatient clinic — up to 15 sessions for adults and 18 for children and young people — designed to reach you within weeks rather than after the years a normal therapy place takes. Ask for it by name.
• You do not have to have reported it to be treated, and a case that never reaches court does not end the claim. Counselling centres and Weisser Ring both help with the paperwork, which is the part that defeats people.
• Weisser Ring Hilfeschecks. Local Weisser Ring offices can issue vouchers for an initial legal consultation or psychological session, bridging the gap while slower systems grind. Ask the local office through 116 006.
• The Gewalthilfegesetz. Passed by the Bundestag on 31 January 2025 and approved by the Bundesrat on 14 February 2025, it obliges the federal states to build out a sufficient network of shelters and counselling by 2027, with the federal government contributing €2.6 billion up to 2036. The individual legal entitlement to free protection and counselling begins on 1 January 2032. That is a long way off, and it is worth knowing that today's shortage of places is a funding failure being formally acknowledged — not evidence that you are asking for too much.

It is not only women, and it is not only partners

• Men. The state-funded Hilfetelefon Gewalt an Männern exists precisely because the assumption that this does not happen keeps men silent for years: 0800 1239900, Mon–Thu 08:00–20:00, Fri 08:00–15:00.
• LGBTQIA+ people. Abuse inside a queer relationship is frequently invisible to services built around a different picture, and outing is used as a threat in a way nothing else on this page covers. Weisser Ring (116 006) supports victims of any crime regardless of gender, and queer-specific counselling is listed on the

  LGBTQIA+ page

  . In the UK, Galop runs a dedicated line — below.
• Disabled women and girls face several times the general rate of violence and the sharpest access barriers. bff's Suse hilft project and the accessible channels of 116 016 — sign language and easy-language counselling — exist for exactly this. If a carer is the person hurting you, say so on the phone; it changes what they suggest.
• Older people, and people being cared for. Violence in a care relationship is rarely called violence by anyone involved. Weisser Ring takes these calls, and so does 116 016.
• Children. They are harmed by witnessing it, not only by being hit. 116 111 is theirs to call, free and anonymous. Adults who are worried about a child — including on a suspicion they cannot substantiate — can call 0800 22 55 530; you are not required to be sure, and it is better to ask badly than not at all.
• Forced marriage and so-called honour-based violence. 116 016 counsels on these in 18 languages, including where the threat is from your own family and the safe route is out of the region entirely.

Phones, accounts and being watched

Modern control is largely administrative, and the things that give someone away are boring: an itemised bill, a shared account, a car.

• Assume a family phone contract shows who you called. An itemised bill lists numbers and durations. Where that is a risk, call from a friend's phone, a workplace, a counselling centre or a public phone — a helpline cannot be traced back to you from their side, but your own device is another matter.
• Shared logins are the commonest leak. A single Apple or Google account across two phones syncs messages, photos, browser tabs and location with nothing installed. Check Find My and Google location sharing, family plans, shared calendars, and any tablet or car left signed in.
• Stalkerware exists and is sold openly. If someone knows things they should not, that is reason enough to have the device checked rather than to doubt yourself. Do not rip it out in a hurry: sudden removal gets noticed, can escalate things, and may destroy evidence. Ask a counselling centre first.
• On a shared device, use a private window — the risk is your own browser history, not this site. This page sets no cookies, runs no analytics and makes no third-party requests, so nothing about your visit is recorded anywhere. Your browser still remembers.
• Prepare the boring paperwork early, while you can do it calmly: photos of ID, residence permit, birth and marriage certificates, bank cards, medication, custody papers. Keep the copies with someone you trust, not in the flat.

Outside Germany

If it is someone else

Every helpline on this page counsels relatives, friends and colleagues too — you do not need the person's permission to ring one, and you do not have to know what to say first.

• Say the thing, then keep the door open. “I've noticed, I'm not judging, and I'm here whatever you decide” achieves more than a case for leaving. Ultimatums — if you go back, I'm done — remove the one contact left when things get worse, which is precisely how people become isolated enough to stay.
• Offer specific things, not general willingness. A spare key, a bag kept at yours, a lift on Thursday, keeping copies of documents, sitting in the waiting room. Vague offers are hard to accept.
• Write down what you see, with dates. Contemporaneous notes from a third person carry real weight later, in a way that memory does not.
• If a child is involved and you are worried, ring 0800 22 55 530 for advice on a suspicion, or the local Jugendamt. Being wrong is survivable; the alternative frequently is not.
• In immediate danger, call 110. You do not need consent to call emergency services for someone at risk, and neighbours who ring are not required to give a statement on the spot.

The part nobody writes down

The most common reason people do not ring any of these numbers is not fear of the violence. It is the certainty of not being believed, or of being told what to do — that the call ends with a stranger deciding they must leave tonight, report tomorrow, and take the children out of school on Monday. That is not how these services work. They are, almost to a fault, built on doing nothing you have not asked for.

The second reason is the arithmetic that everyone does privately and almost nobody says aloud: the money, the flat, the visa, the dog, the children's school, the fact that you still love them on Tuesdays. Counsellors know all of this. It is the actual subject of the conversation, not an embarrassing distraction from it.

If nothing else from this page stays with you, let it be these three: the violent person can be made to leave instead of you; injuries can be documented for years without a single word to the police; and a phone call commits you to nothing at all. None of those require you to have decided anything.

And if it has reached the point where ending your life feels like the way out, please treat that as its own emergency rather than something to solve afterwards: kantholz93.com/suicide. TelefonSeelsorge, 0800 111 0 111, free and anonymous, around the clock.