In Germany less people died through the pandemic than died in normal years. At least in 2020.
What happened was that people were overly careful - in all parts of life, e.g. meeting people, wearing masks (less of a flu season = less deaths) and going to a doctor when sick - hospital s greatly increased their capacity and afaik Germany never had the dramatic situations where people couldn't get oxygen or staff was at the edge of quitting.
Even just eyeballing the Euromomo.eu graphs, I can see no time at which deaths in Germany were below the long-term average rate during 2020, and many times where they are far above it.
What happened was that people were overly careful - in all parts of life, e.g. meeting people, wearing masks (less of a flu season = less deaths) and going to a doctor when sick - hospital s greatly increased their capacity and afaik Germany never had the dramatic situations where people couldn't get oxygen or staff was at the edge of quitting.