A first responder was fatally injured on the A3 near Frankfurt Airport when the driver of a van crashed into an accident site.
A total of eleven people were injured in the accidents early Sunday morning, six of them seriously, the police said on Sunday evening.
According to initial investigations, the 39-year-old driver of the van was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident.
The fatally injured man was 33 years old.
The freeway was closed from early morning until midday.
A driver tried to escape the traffic jam and reversed through the rescue lane, said a police spokeswoman.
He had been arrested.
First, at around 4:30 a.m., there was a rear-end collision between two vehicles, the police said.
One of the cars - with a 38-year-old driver and a 42-year-old passenger - then skidded, collided with a crash barrier and came to a stop in the middle lane.
The other car, in which two 20 and 44-year-old men were traveling, also collided with the crash barrier and stopped about 150 meters further on the left lane.
Only a few moments later, the driver of a pickup truck stopped on the hard shoulder.
The three men from that vehicle, aged 21, 28 and 33, ran to the crashed car in the center lane to help, it said.
At that moment, the van with five men approached.
The 39-year-old driver apparently noticed the scene of the accident too late and crashed into the car in the middle lane.
He also captured the three helpers.
The 33-year-old helper died at the scene of the accident.
The Autobahn was completely blocked from the Frankfurter Kreuz in the direction of Cologne.
All four vehicles were towed away, the three accident cars were completely damaged.
Because of the large amount of debris, the road had to be cleaned at great expense, so that the full closure could only be gradually lifted around 11:40 a.m. and the motorway was freely passable again from 12:25 p.m., according to the police.