IAW phrases (i.e. expressions such as zur Hölle ‘the hell’ and um Himmels willen ‘for heaven’s sake’) are a typical strategy for intensifying wh-questions in German. Although these phrases are often considered fixed expressions, the underlying patterns turn out to be productive, albeit to different extents. This paper presents a corpus-based analysis of the productivity of the five patterns that were shown in earlier literature to have the highest type frequencies ([zu X], [bei X], [beim Barte Xs], [in Xs Namen], and [um Xs willen]), looking both at internal productivity, i.e. the productivity of the X slot, and at external productivity, i.e. productivity at the level of the question words these phrases combine with. It is shown that, while there are no significant differences with regard to external productivity, [zu X] is by far the most productive pattern from an internal perspective. Although the results for the individual patterns are hard to compare due to major token frequency differences, it is argued that they are likely to be reliable given that they converge with observations from earlier literature.