100 Notable alumni of
Heidelberg University - Germany
Updated:
Heidelberg University - Germany is 55th in the world, 19th in Europe, and 4th in Germany by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 100 notable alumni from Heidelberg University - Germany sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff. 7 individuals affiliated with Heidelberg University - Germany won Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology or Medicine.
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Max Weber
- Occupations
- politicianuniversity teacherlawyerhistorianphilosopher
- Biography
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Maximilian Carl Emil Weber was a German sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sciences more generally. His ideas continue to influence social theory and research.
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Hannah Arendt
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- In 1928 graduated with doctorate
- Occupations
- resistance fighterpolitical theoristuniversity teacherwriterhistorian
- Biography
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Hannah Arendt was a German and American historian and philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century.
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Justine Olaguer
- Occupations
- ophthalmologist
- Biography
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José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda was a Filipino nationalist, writer and polymath active at the end of the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. He is considered a national hero (pambansang bayani) of the Philippines. An ophthalmologist by profession, Rizal became a writer and a key member of the Filipino Propaganda Movement, which advocated political reforms for the colony under Spain.
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Helmut Kohl
- Occupations
- politicianChancellor of Germanyhistorianpolitical scientist
- Biography
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Helmut Josef Michael Kohl was a German politician who served as chancellor of Germany from 1990 to 1998 and, prior to German reunification, as the chancellor of West Germany from 1982 to 1990. He was leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998 and oversaw the end of the Cold War, the German reunification and the creation of the European Union (EU). Kohl’s 16-year tenure is the longest of any German chancellor since Otto von Bismarck, and is the longest for any democratically elected chancellor of Germany.
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Robert Schumann
- Occupations
- music criticwritermusic educatorcomposerpianist
- Biography
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Robert Schumann was a German composer, pianist, and music critic of the early Romantic era. He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, voice and piano, chamber groups, orchestra, choir and the opera. His works typify the spirit of the Romantic era in German music.
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Mileva Marić
- Occupations
- physicistmathematicianteacher
- Biography
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Mileva Marić, sometimes called Mileva Marić-Einstein (Милева Марић-Ајнштајн, Mileva Marić-Ajnštajn), was a Serbian physicist and mathematician. She showed intellectual aptitude from a young age and studied at Zürich Polytechnic in a highly male dominated field, after having studied medicine for one semester at Zürich University. Her studies included differential and integral calculus, descriptive and projective geometry, mechanics, theoretical physics, applied physics, experimental physics, and astronomy. One of her study colleagues at university was her future husband Albert Einstein, to whose early work Marić is thought by some to have contributed (in particular the Annus Mirabilis papers).
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W. E. B. Du Bois
- Occupations
- sociologistteacherwriterjournalistart historian
- Biography
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William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist.
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Muhammad Iqbal
- Occupations
- philosopherpoliticianpoetlawyerwriter
- Biography
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Sir Muhammad Iqbal was a South Asian Islamic philosopher, poet and politician. His poetry is considered to be among the greatest of the 20th century, and his vision of a cultural and political ideal for the Muslims of British-ruled India is widely regarded as having animated the impulse for the Pakistan Movement. He is commonly referred to by the honourific Allama (Persian: علامه, transl. "learned") and widely considered one of the most important and influential Muslim thinkers and Western religious philosophers of the 20th century.
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Erich Fromm
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied in 1922
- Occupations
- psychologistpsychoanalystwritereconomistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Erich Seligmann Fromm was a German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the United States. He was one of the founders of The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in New York City and was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory.
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Otto Heinrich Frank
- Occupations
- amateur photographermerchantbankerbusinessperson
- Biography
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Otto Heinrich Frank was the father of Anne Frank. He edited and published the first edition of her diary in 1947 (subsequently known in English as The Diary of a Young Girl) and advised on its later theatrical and cinematic adaptations. In the 1950s and the 1960s, he established European charities in his daughter's name and founded the trust which preserved his family's wartime hiding place, the Anne Frank House, in Amsterdam.
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Judith Butler
- Occupations
- psychologistsocial scientistliterary criticsociologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Judith Pamela Butler is an American feminist philosopher and gender studies scholar whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory.
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Fritz Haber
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied in 1886-1891
- Occupations
- engineerchemistacademicuniversity teacherphysicist
- Biography
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Fritz Haber was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas. This invention is important for the large-scale synthesis of fertilizers and explosives. It is estimated that a third of annual global food production uses ammonia from the Haber–Bosch process, and that this food supports nearly half the world's population. For this work, Haber has been called one of the most important scientists and industrial chemists in human history. Haber also, along with Max Born, proposed the Born–Haber cycle as a method for evaluating the lattice energy of an ionic solid.
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John Amos Comenius
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied in 1613-1614
- Occupations
- philosopherpoliticianhistorianarchivisttheologian
- Biography
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John Amos Comenius was a Czech philosopher, pedagogue and theologian who is considered the father of modern education. He served as the last bishop of the Unity of the Brethren (direct predecessor of the Moravian Church) before becoming a religious refugee and one of the earliest champions of universal education, a concept eventually set forth in his book Didactica Magna. As an educator and theologian, he led schools and advised governments across Protestant Europe through the middle of the seventeenth century.
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Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale
- Occupations
- politicianaristocrat
- Biography
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Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale was the eldest child of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra). From the time of his birth, he was second in the line of succession to the British throne, but did not become king or Prince of Wales because he died before both his father and paternal grandmother Queen Victoria.
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Max Born
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied in 1902-1902
- Occupations
- academicscientistnon-fiction writertheoretical physicistphysicist
- Biography
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Max Born was a German-British theoretical physicist who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a number of notable physicists in the 1920s and 1930s. Born was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics for his "fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially in the statistical interpretation of the wave function".
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Constantine I of Greece
- Occupations
- sovereign
- Biography
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Constantine I was King of Greece from 18 March 1913 to 11 June 1917 and from 19 December 1920 to 27 September 1922. He was commander-in-chief of the Hellenic Army during the unsuccessful Greco-Turkish War of 1897 and led the Greek forces during the successful Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, in which Greece expanded to include Thessaloniki, doubling in area and population. The eldest son of George I of Greece, he succeeded to the throne following his father's assassination in 1913.
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William Somerset Maugham
- Occupations
- screenwriterphysician writerphysiciannovelistarmy scout
- Biography
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William Somerset Maugham CH was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German university. He became a medical student in London and qualified as a physician in 1897. He never practised medicine, and became a full-time writer. His first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), a study of life in the slums, attracted attention, but it was as a playwright that he first achieved national celebrity. By 1908 he had four plays running at once in the West End of London. He wrote his 32nd and last play in 1933, after which he abandoned the theatre and concentrated on novels and short stories.
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Wilhelm Wundt
- Occupations
- physiologistuniversity teacherwriterphilosopherpsychologist
- Biography
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Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and biology, was the first person to call himself a psychologist.
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Ricarda Lang
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- In 2012 studied jurisprudence
- Occupations
- white-collar workerpolitician
- Biography
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Ricarda Lang is a German politician who served as co-leader of the Alliance 90/The Greens from 2022 to 2024, alongside Omid Nouripour. She has been a member of the Bundestag since 2021. Previously, she was co-deputy leader of the party and spokeswoman for women's policy from 2019 to 2022, and co-leader of the Green Youth from 2017 to 2019.
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Ludwig Feuerbach
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- 1823-1824 studied Protestant theology
- Occupations
- philosopherbeekeeperwritercritic of religionsanthropologist
- Biography
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Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach was a German anthropologist and philosopher, best known for his book The Essence of Christianity, which provided a critique of Christianity that strongly influenced generations of later thinkers, including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Engels, Mikhail Bakunin, Richard Wagner, Frederick Douglass, and Friedrich Nietzsche.
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Osip Mandelstam
- Occupations
- literary criticauthorpoetwritertranslator
- Biography
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Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam was a Russian and Soviet poet. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school.
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Karl Jaspers
- Occupations
- physicianpsychologistwriterpsychiatristtheologian
- Biography
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Karl Theodor Jaspers was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. His 1913 work General Psychopathology influenced many later diagnostic criteria, and argued for a distinction between "primary" and "secondary" delusions.
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Talcott Parsons
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- In 1927 graduated with doctorate
- Occupations
- sociologistbiologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Talcott Parsons was an American sociologist of the classical tradition, best known for his social action theory and structural functionalism. Parsons is considered one of the most influential figures in sociology in the 20th century. After earning a PhD in economics, he served on the faculty at Harvard University from 1927 to 1973. In 1930, he was among the first professors in its new sociology department. Later, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Department of Social Relations at Harvard.
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Emmy Noether
- Occupations
- physicistuniversity teachermathematician
- Biography
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Amalie Emmy Noether was a German mathematician who made many important contributions to abstract algebra. She proved Noether's first and second theorems, which are fundamental in mathematical physics. She was described by Pavel Alexandrov, Albert Einstein, Jean Dieudonné, Hermann Weyl and Norbert Wiener as the most important woman in the history of mathematics. As one of the leading mathematicians of her time, she developed theories of rings, fields, and algebras. In physics, Noether's theorem explains the connection between symmetry and conservation laws.
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Alexander Borodin
- Occupations
- physicianpianistflautistchemistopera composer
- Biography
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Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian-Russian extraction. He was one of the prominent 19th-century composers known as "The Five", a group dedicated to producing a "uniquely Russian" kind of classical music. Borodin is known best for his symphonies, his two string quartets, the symphonic poem In the Steppes of Central Asia and his opera Prince Igor.
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Beatrix von Storch
- Occupations
- lawyerpolitician
- Biography
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Beatrix Amelie Ehrengard Eilika von Storch is a German politician and lawyer, who has been the Deputy Parliamentary Leader of the Alternative for Germany since July 2015 and a Member of the Bundestag since September 2017. She previously was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Germany. From April 2016 to 2017 she was also a member of the right-wing populist Anti-EU group Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy. She is part of the right-wing conservative wing of the parliamentary group of the AfD. She belongs ancestrally to the royal House of Oldenburg which reigned over the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg until 1918.
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Daniel Bernoulli
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- In 1718 studied medicine
- Occupations
- statisticianphysicistphysicianeconomistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Daniel Bernoulli FRS was a Swiss mathematician and physicist and was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family from Basel. He is particularly remembered for his applications of mathematics to mechanics, especially fluid mechanics, and for his pioneering work in probability and statistics. His name is commemorated in the Bernoulli's principle, a particular example of the conservation of energy, which describes the mathematics of the mechanism underlying the operation of two important technologies of the 20th century: the carburetor and the aeroplane wing.
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Hans Kelsen
- Occupations
- university teacherlawyerjudgephilosopherjurist
- Biography
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Hans Kelsen was an Austrian jurist, legal philosopher and political philosopher. He was the principal architect of the 1920 Austrian Constitution, which with amendments is still in operation. Due to the rise of totalitarianism in Austria (and a 1929 constitutional change), Kelsen left for Germany in 1930 but was forced out of his university post after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 because of his Jewish ancestry. That year he left for Geneva and in 1940 he moved to the United States. In 1934, Roscoe Pound lauded Kelsen as "undoubtedly the leading jurist of the time". While in Vienna, Kelsen met Sigmund Freud and his circle, and wrote on social psychology and sociology.
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Fritz Bauer
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied jurisprudence
- Occupations
- prosecutorjudge
- Biography
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Fritz Bauer was a German Jewish judge and prosecutor. He played an instrumental role in the post-war capture of former Holocaust planner Adolf Eichmann and the beginning of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials.
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Franz Boas
- Occupations
- art historiangeographeranthropologistphilosopherlinguist
- Biography
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Franz Uri Boas was a German-American anthropologist and ethnomusicologist. He was a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical particularism and cultural relativism.
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Nicholas of Cusa
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied in 1416-1417
- Occupations
- writerjuristscribeCatholic bishopphilosopher
- Biography
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Nicholas of Cusa, also referred to as Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus, was a German Catholic bishop and polymath active as a philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Renaissance humanism, he made spiritual and political contributions to European culture. A notable example of this is his mystical or spiritual writings on "learned ignorance," as well as his participation in power struggles between Rome and the German states of the Holy Roman Empire.
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Johann Georg Faust
- Occupations
- astrologerastronomer
- Biography
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Georg Faustus (sometimes also Georg Sebellicus Faustus, known in English as John Faustus, was a German itinerant alchemist, astrologer, and magician of the German Renaissance. He was often called a conman and a heretic by the people of medieval Europe.
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Emanuel Lasker
- Occupations
- chess composerchess playerphilosophermathematicianbridge player
- Biography
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Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher. He was the second World Chess Champion, holding the title for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognised World Chess Champion winning 6 World Chess Championships. In his prime, Lasker was one of the most dominant champions, and he is still generally regarded as one of the strongest players in history.
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William Walker
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied medicine
- Occupations
- politicianadventurerwriterfilibusterjournalist
- Biography
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William Walker was an American physician, lawyer, journalist, and mercenary. In the era of the expansion of the United States, driven by the doctrine of "manifest destiny", Walker organized unauthorized military expeditions into Mexico and Central America with the intention of establishing colonies. Such an enterprise was known at the time as "filibustering".
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F. W. Murnau
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm directordirectorfilm producer
- Biography
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Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was a German film director, producer and screenwriter. He is regarded as one of cinema's most influential filmmakers for his work in the silent era.
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Sofia Kovalevskaya
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied in 1869
- Occupations
- physicistwritercommunarduniversity teachernovelist
- Biography
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Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differential equations and mechanics. She was a pioneer for women in mathematics around the world – the first woman to earn a doctorate (in the modern sense) in mathematics, the first woman appointed to a full professorship in northern Europe and one of the first women to work for a scientific journal as an editor. According to historian of science Ann Hibner Koblitz, Kovalevskaya was "the greatest known woman scientist before the twentieth century".
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Otto Carius
- Occupations
- pharmacistapothecarynon-fiction writerveteranmilitary personnel
- Biography
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Otto Carius was a German tank commander in the Wehrmacht during World War II. He fought on the Eastern Front in 1943 and 1944 and on the Western Front in 1945. Carius is considered a "panzer ace", some sources credited him with destroying more than 150 enemy tanks, although Carius, in an interview claims he had around 100 kills or less. This was also due to the fact that he did not count kills as a commander, and rather only as a gunner. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves.
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Prince Maximilian of Baden
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Maximilian, Margrave of Baden, also known as Max von Baden, was a German prince, general, and politician. He was heir presumptive to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Baden, and in October and November 1918 briefly served as the last chancellor of the German Empire and minister-president of Prussia. He sued for peace on Germany's behalf at the end of World War I based on U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and took steps towards transforming the government into a parliamentary system. As the German Revolution of 1918–1919 spread, he handed over the office of chancellor to SPD Chairman Friedrich Ebert and unilaterally proclaimed the abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II. Both events took place on 9 November 1918, marking the beginning of the Weimar Republic.
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Philipp Melanchthon
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- 1509-1512 graduated with bachelor's degree
- Occupations
- astronomerphilosopherastrologertheologianuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Philip Melanchthon was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, an intellectual leader of the Lutheran Reformation, and influential designer of educational systems.
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Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied in 1864
- Occupations
- botanistexplorerzoologistmarine biologistbiologist
- Biography
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Nicholai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay was a Russian explorer of Ukrainian origin. He worked as an ethnologist, anthropologist and biologist who became famous as one of the earliest scientists to settle among and study indigenous people of New Guinea "who had never seen a European".
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Auma Obama
- Occupations
- writerjournalistscreenwriter
- Biography
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Rita Auma Obama is a Kenyan-British community activist, sociologist, journalist, author, and half-sister of the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama. Obama serves as the executive chairwoman of Sauti Kuu Foundation (Strong Voices Foundation), a non-profit organisation that helps orphans and other young people struggling with poverty in Kenya.
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Wilhelm Dilthey
- Occupations
- philosopherteachersociologistpsychologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Wilhelm Dilthey was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist, and hermeneutic philosopher, who held Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Chair in Philosophy at the University of Berlin. As a polymathic philosopher, working in a modern research university, Dilthey's research interests revolved around questions of scientific methodology, historical evidence and history's status as a science.
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Joseph von Eichendorff
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- In 1807 studied jurisprudence
- Occupations
- poet lawyerplaywrightwritertranslatornovelist
- Biography
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Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff was a German poet, novelist, playwright, literary critic, translator, and anthologist. Eichendorff was one of the major writers and critics of Romanticism. Ever since their publication and up to the present day, some of his works have been very popular in German-speaking Europe.
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Philipp Lenard
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- In 1886 graduated with doctor rerum naturalium
- Occupations
- inventorphysicistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Philipp Eduard Anton von Lenard was a Hungarian-German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1905 "for his work on cathode rays" and the discovery of many of their properties. One of his most important contributions was the experimental realization of the photoelectric effect. He discovered that the energy (speed) of the electrons ejected from a cathode depends only on the frequency, and not the intensity, of the incident light.
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Luc Ferry
- Occupations
- university teacherpoliticianphilosopherpolitical scientist
- Biography
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Luc Ferry is a French public intellectual and voluminous author, who is a proponent of secular humanism. He was Minister of National Education for three years during the presidency of Jacques Chirac.
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Norbert Elias
- Occupations
- philosopherpoetwritersociologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Norbert Elias was a Jewish German sociologist who later became a British citizen. He is especially famous for his theory of civilizing/decivilizing processes.
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Bernhard Schlink
- Occupations
- judgepoet lawyerjuristscreenwriteruniversity teacher
- Biography
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Bernhard Schlink is a German lawyer, academic, and novelist. He is best known for his novel The Reader, which was first published in 1995 and became an international bestseller. He won the 2014 Park Kyong-ni Prize.
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Friedrich Wöhler
- Occupations
- chemistuniversity teacherbiochemist
- Biography
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Friedrich Wöhler FRS(For) HonFRSE (31 July 1800 – 23 September 1882) was a German chemist known for his work in both organic and inorganic chemistry, being the first to isolate the chemical elements beryllium and yttrium in pure metallic form. He was the first to prepare several inorganic compounds, including silane and silicon nitride.
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Lothar Meyer
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied in 1854-1856
- Occupations
- university teacherchemist
- Biography
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Julius Lothar Meyer was a German chemist. He was one of the pioneers in developing the earliest versions of the periodic table of the chemical elements. The Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev (his chief rival) and he had both worked with Robert Bunsen. Meyer never used his first given name and was known throughout his life simply as Lothar Meyer.
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Karl Pearson
- Occupations
- psychologiststatisticianbiographerphilosophermathematician
- Biography
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Karl Pearson FRS FRSE was an English biostatistician and mathematician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university statistics department at University College London in 1911, and contributed significantly to the field of biometrics and meteorology. Pearson was also a proponent of Social Darwinism and eugenics, and his thought is an example of what is today described as scientific racism. Pearson was a protégé and biographer of Sir Francis Galton. He edited and completed both William Kingdon Clifford's Common Sense of the Exact Sciences (1885) and Isaac Todhunter's History of the Theory of Elasticity, Vol. 1 (1886–1893) and Vol. 2 (1893), following their deaths.
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Götz Kubitschek
- Occupations
- publisherpolitical activistopinion journalist
- Biography
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Götz Kubitschek is a German publisher, journalist and far-right political activist. He espouses ethnocentric positions and is one of the most important protagonists of the Neue Rechte (New Right) in Germany. Hailing from the staff of right-wing newspaper Junge Freiheit, Kubitschek is one of the founders of the Neue Rechte think tank Institut für Staatspolitik (Institute for State Policy; IfS). Since 2002, he is the manager of his self-founded publishing house Antaios, since 2003 chief editor of the journal Sezession, as well as editor of the corresponding blog Sezession im Netz.
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Friedrich Ratzel
- Occupations
- geopolitical analystzoologistpolitical scientistgeographerbiologist
- Biography
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Friedrich Ratzel was a German geographer and ethnographer, notable for first using the term Lebensraum ("living space") in the sense that the National Socialists later would.
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Carl Bosch
- Occupations
- inventorchemistacademicscientific collectorengineer
- Biography
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Carl Bosch was a German chemist and engineer and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. He was a pioneer in the field of high-pressure industrial chemistry and founder of IG Farben, at one point the world's largest chemical company.
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Hans Jonas
- Occupations
- philosopherenvironmentalistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Hans Jonas was a German-born American Jewish philosopher. From 1955 to 1976 he was the Alvin Johnson Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
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Marcus Pretzell
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- 1994-2000 studied legal science
- Occupations
- lawyerpolitician
- Biography
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Marcus Pretzell is a German politician and was Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Germany from 2016 to 2019. He was a member of the Alternative for Germany, part of the Europe of Nations and Freedom and was a member of The Blue Party.
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Alexandre de Beauharnais
- Occupations
- military personnelpolitician
- Biography
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Alexandre François Marie, Viscount of Beauharnais was a French politician and general of the French Revolution. He was the first husband of Joséphine Tascher de La Pagerie, who later married Napoleon Bonaparte and became empress of France. Beauharnais was executed by guillotine during the Reign of Terror.
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Jerome Kern
- Occupations
- composerscreenwritersongwritercoin collectingfilm score composer
- Biography
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Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A Fine Romance", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "The Song Is You", "All the Things You Are", "The Way You Look Tonight" and "Long Ago (and Far Away)". He collaborated with many of the leading librettists and lyricists of his era, including George Grossmith Jr., Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse, Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin and Yip Harburg.
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Josiah Willard Gibbs
- Occupations
- chemisttheoretical physicistphysicistuniversity teacherthermodynamicist
- Biography
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Josiah Willard Gibbs was an American scientist who made significant theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics was instrumental in transforming physical chemistry into a rigorous deductive science. Together with James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann, he created statistical mechanics (a term that he coined), explaining the laws of thermodynamics as consequences of the statistical properties of ensembles of the possible states of a physical system composed of many particles. Gibbs also worked on the application of Maxwell's equations to problems in physical optics. As a mathematician, he created modern vector calculus (independently of the British scientist Oliver Heaviside, who carried out similar work during the same period) and described the Gibbs phenomenon in the theory of Fourier analysis.
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Hans-Christian Ströbele
- Occupations
- politicianjuristlawyer
- Biography
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Hans-Christian Ströbele was a German politician and lawyer. He was a member of Alliance 90/The Greens, the German green party.
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Michael Ellis DeBakey
- Occupations
- surgeonuniversity teachercardiac surgeon
- Biography
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Michael Ellis DeBakey was an American general and cardiovascular surgeon, scientist and medical educator who became Chairman of the Department of Surgery, President, and Chancellor of Baylor College of Medicine at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas. His career spanned nearly eight decades.
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Gottfried Keller
- Occupations
- poetnovelistpainterwriterchancery manager
- Biography
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Gottfried Keller was a Swiss poet and writer of German literature. Best known for his novel Green Henry (German: Der grüne Heinrich) and his cycle of novellas called Seldwyla Folks (Die Leute von Seldwyla), he became one of the most popular narrators of literary realism in the late 19th century.
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Johan van Oldenbarnevelt
- Occupations
- politiciandiplomatlawyer
- Biography
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Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, Heer van Berkel en Rodenrijs (1600), Gunterstein (1611) and Bakkum (1613), was a Dutch statesman and revolutionary who played an important role in the Dutch struggle for independence from Spain. He is generally considered as one of the greatest and most important political figures in the history of The Netherlands.
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Kurt Hahn
- Occupations
- pedagogueteacherhead teacher
- Biography
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Kurt Matthias Robert Martin Hahn CBE was a German educator. He was decisive in founding Stiftung Louisenlund, Schule Schloss Salem, Gordonstoun, Outward Bound, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, and the first of the United World Colleges, Atlantic College.
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Golo Mann
- Occupations
- university teacherwriterhistorian of Modern Ageessayist
- Biography
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Golo Mann was a popular German historian and essayist. After completing a doctorate in philosophy under Karl Jaspers at Heidelberg, in 1933 he fled Hitler's Germany. He followed his father, the writer Thomas Mann, and other members of his family in emigrating first to France, then to Switzerland and, on the eve of war, to the United States. From the late 1950s he re-established himself in Switzerland and West Germany as a literary historian.
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Anna Seghers
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied in 1922
- Occupations
- writernovelistresistance fighter
- Biography
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Anna Seghers, is the pseudonym of German writer Anna Reiling, who was notable for exploring and depicting the moral experience of the Second World War. Born into a Jewish family and married to a Hungarian Communist, Seghers escaped Nazi-controlled territory through wartime France. She was granted a visa and gained ship's passage to Mexico, where she lived in Mexico City (1941–47).
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Karl Drais
- Occupations
- foresterland surveyorinventordesigner
- Biography
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Karl Freiherr von Drais was a noble German forest official and significant inventor in the Biedermeier period. He was born and died in Karlsruhe. He is seen as "the father of the bicycle".
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Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
- Occupations
- resistance fighterjuristlawyer
- Biography
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Helmuth James Graf von Moltke was a German jurist who, as a draftee in the German Abwehr, acted to subvert German human-rights abuses of people in territories occupied by Germany during World War II. He was a founding member of the Kreisau Circle opposition group, whose members opposed the government of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, and discussed prospects for a Germany based on moral and democratic principles after Hitler. The Nazis executed him for treason for his participation in these discussions.
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Louis Agassiz
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied in 1826
- Occupations
- botanistphysicianwriterracial theoristbiologist
- Biography
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Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history.
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Thomas Strobl
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- In 1985 studied jurisprudence
- Occupations
- lawyerpolitician
- Biography
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Thomas Strobl is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as Deputy Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg since 2016.
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Karl Mannheim
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied in 1926
- Occupations
- writersociologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Karl Mannheim was a Hungarian sociologist and a key figure in classical sociology as well as one of the founders of the sociology of knowledge. Mannheim is best known for his book Ideology and Utopia (1929/1936), in which he distinguishes between partial and total ideologies, the latter representing comprehensive worldviews distinctive to particular social groups, and also between ideologies that provide support for existing social arrangements, and utopias, which look to the future and propose a transformation of society.
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Sasha Chorny
- Occupations
- opinion journalistjournalistpoetwriterprose writer
- Biography
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Alexander Mikhailovich Glikberg, better known as Sasha Chorny or Cherny (Russian: Са́ша Чёрный, IPA: [ˈsaʂə ˈtɕɵrnɨj] ), was a Russian poet, satirist and children's writer.
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Alexandre Kojève
- Occupations
- philosopherpoliticianuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Alexandre Kojève was a Russian-born French philosopher and statesman whose philosophical seminars had an immense influence on 20th-century French philosophy, particularly via his integration of Hegelian concepts into twentieth-century continental philosophy.
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Farouk El-Baz
- Occupations
- university teacherspace scientistgeologist
- Biography
-
Farouk El-Baz is an Egyptian American space scientist and geologist, who worked with NASA in the scientific exploration of the Moon and the planning of the Apollo program. He was a leading geologist on the program, responsible for studying the geology of the Moon, the selection of landing sites for the Apollo missions, and the training of astronauts in lunar observations and photography. He played a key role in the Apollo 11 Moon landing mission, and later Apollo missions. He also came up with the idea of touchable Moon rocks at a museum, inspired by his childhood pilgrimage to Mecca where he touched the Black Stone (which in Islam is believed to be sent down from the heavens).
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Heike Kamerlingh Onnes
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied in 1871-1873
- Occupations
- inventorscientistuniversity teacherphysicistprofessor
- Biography
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Heike Kamerlingh Onnes was a Dutch physicist. After studying in Groningen and Heidelberg, he became professor of experimental physics at the University of Leiden where he taught from 1882 to 1923. In 1904, he established a cryogenics laboratory where he exploited the Hampson–Linde cycle to investigate how materials behave when cooled to nearly absolute zero. In 1908, he became the first to liquefy helium, cooling it to near 1.5 Kelvin, at the time the coldest temperature achieved on earth. For this research, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1913. Using liquid helium to investigate the electrical conductivity of solid mercury, he found in 1911 that at 4.2 K its electrical resistance vanishes, thus discovering superconductivity.
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Richard von Krafft-Ebing
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- In 1863 studied medicine
- Occupations
- psychologistneurologistphysicianphilosopheruniversity teacher
- Biography
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Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing was a German psychiatrist and author of the foundational work Psychopathia Sexualis (1886).
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Moritz Schlick
- Occupations
- university teacherphysicistphilosopher of sciencephilosopher
- Biography
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Friedrich Albert Moritz Schlick was a German philosopher, physicist, and the founding father of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle.
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Juan Carlos Monedero
- Occupations
- professorpoliticianpolitical scientist
- Biography
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Juan Carlos Monedero Fernández-Gala is a Spanish political scientist and writer. He is a professor at the Complutense University of Madrid and a host of La Tuerka. He was one of the leading members of Podemos until he resigned in April 2015.
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Adolf von Baeyer
- Occupations
- university teacherchemist
- Biography
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Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer was a German chemist who synthesised indigo and developed a nomenclature for cyclic compounds (that was subsequently extended and adopted as part of the IUPAC organic nomenclature). He was ennobled in the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1885 and was the 1905 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
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Paweł Strzelecki
- Occupations
- geographerjournalistexplorerphilanthropistgeologist
- Biography
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Sir Paweł Edmund Strzelecki KCMG CB FRS FRGS DCL, also known as Paul Edmund de Strzelecki and Sir Paul Strzelecki, was a Polish explorer, geologist, humanitarian, environmentalist, nobleman, scientist, businessman and philanthropist who in 1845 also became a British subject.
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Rudolf von Jhering
- Occupations
- juristuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Caspar Rudolph Ritter von Jhering was a German jurist. He is best known for his 1872 book Der Kampf ums Recht (The Struggle for Law), as a legal scholar, and as the founder of a modern sociological and historical school of law. His ideas were important to the subsequent development of the "jurisprudence of interests" in Germany.
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Saša Stanišić
- Occupations
- writernovelist
- Biography
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Saša Stanišić is a Bosnian-German writer. He was born in Višegrad, Bosnia and Herzegovina as the son of a Bosniak mother and a Serb father. In the spring of 1992, he fled alongside his family to Germany as a refugee of the Bosnian War. Stanišić spent the remainder of his youth in Heidelberg, where his teachers encouraged his passion for writing. After graduating from high school, he enrolled in the University of Heidelberg, graduating with degrees in Slavic studies and German as a second language.
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James Franck
- Occupations
- physicistuniversity teacherchemist
- Biography
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James Franck was a German physicist who won the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics with Gustav Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom". He completed his doctorate in 1906 and his habilitation in 1911 at the Frederick William University in Berlin, where he lectured and taught until 1918, having reached the position of professor extraordinarius. He served as a volunteer in the German Army during World War I. He was seriously injured in 1917 in a gas attack and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class.
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Bernhard Vogel
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Bernhard Vogel is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He was the 4th Minister President of Rhineland-Palatinate from 1976 to 1988 and the 2nd Minister President of Thuringia from 1992 to 2003. He is the only person to have been head of two different German federal states and is the longest-governing Minister President of Germany. He served as the 28th and 40th President of the Bundesrat in 1976/77 and 1987/88.
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Friedrich Rückert
- Occupations
- poet lawyerpoetwritertranslatororientalist
- Biography
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Johann Michael Friedrich Rückert was a German poet, translator, and professor of Oriental languages.
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Irina Karamanos
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied social scientist
- Occupations
- anthropologistsocial scientist
- Biography
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Irina Sabine Alice Karamanos Adrian is a Chilean social science professional. She was the domestic partner of Gabriel Boric, who was inaugurated as President of Chile on 11 March 2022. As a result, she assumed the roles of First Lady of Chile and Director of the Sociocultural Area of the Presidency. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Anthropology and Education Sciences from the University of Heidelberg.
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Manfred Wörner
- Occupations
- politiciandiplomatjurist
- Biography
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Manfred Hermann Wörner was a German politician and diplomat. He served as the defense minister of West Germany between 1982 and 1988. He then served as the seventh Secretary General of NATO from 1988 to 1994. His term as Secretary General saw the end of the Cold War and the German reunification. Whilst serving in that position, he was diagnosed with cancer, but, in spite of his illness, continued serving until his final days.
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Stephan Harbarth
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- 1991-1996 studied jurisprudence
- Occupations
- judgepoliticianjuristlawyer
- Biography
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Stephan Harbarth is the president of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (Bundesverfassungsgericht), former German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). From 2009 until 2018 he served as member of the Bundestag. On 22 November 2018 he was elected to the Federal Constitutional Court by the Bundestag. He succeeded Ferdinand Kirchhof and serves in the court's first senate. On 23 November 2018, one day after his election to the court, he was elected vice president of the Federal Constitutional Court by the Bundesrat. In this capacity, he is chairman of the first senate.
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Harald zur Hausen
- Occupations
- university teacherphysicianvirologistoncologist
- Biography
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Harald zur Hausen NAS EASA APS was a German virologist. He carried out research on cervical cancer and discovered the role of papilloma viruses in cervical cancer, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2008. He was chairman of the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) in Heidelberg.
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Friedrich Hebbel
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- Studied legal science
- Occupations
- writerplaywrightpoetpoet lawyer
- Biography
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Christian Friedrich Hebbel was a German poet and dramatist.
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Georg Jellinek
- Occupations
- sociologistuniversity teacherjudgephilosopherjurist
- Biography
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Georg Jellinek was a German public lawyer and was considered to be "the exponent of public law in Austria“.
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Hans Werner Henze
- Occupations
- music educatorfilm score composercomposeruniversity teachermusicologist
- Biography
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Hans Werner Henze was a German composer. His large oeuvre is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as traditional schools of German composition. In particular, his stage works reflect "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life".
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Friedrich II, Grand Duke of Baden
- Occupations
- monarch
- Biography
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Frederick II was the last sovereign Grand Duke of Baden, reigning from 1907 until the abolition of the German monarchies in 1918. The Weimar-era state of Baden originated from the area of the Grand Duchy of Baden.
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Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
- Occupations
- politicianuniversity teachereconomist
- Biography
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Eugen Ritter von Böhm-Bawerk was an Austrian economist who made important contributions to the development of macroeconomics and to the Austrian School of Economics. He served intermittently as the Minister of Finance of Austria between 1895 and 1904. Böhm-Bawerk is also noted for writing extensive criticisms of Marxism.
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Jan Assmann
- Occupations
- university teacherarchaeologistegyptologist
- Biography
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Johann Christoph "Jan" Assmann was a German Egyptologist, cultural historian, and religion scholar.
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Hugo Münsterberg
- Occupations
- university teacherwriterphilosopherpsychologist
- Biography
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Hugo Münsterberg was a German-American psychologist. He was one of the pioneers in applied psychology, extending his research and theories to industrial/organizational (I/O), legal, medical, clinical, educational and business settings. Münsterberg experienced immense turmoil with the outbreak of the First World War. Torn between his loyalty to the United States and his homeland, he often defended Germany's actions, attracting highly contrasting reactions.
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Julia Jäkel
- Occupations
- managerjournalistpublisher
- Biography
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Julia Jäkel is a German business executive and publisher. She serves as non-executive director of several companies. From 2012 to 2021, Jäkel was Chief Executive Officer of Gruner + Jahr and a member of the Bertelsmann Group Management Committee. She also chaired the Bertelsmann Content Alliance. Jäkel is a widely known promoter of diverse leadership.
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Ossip Bernstein
- Occupations
- chess playerchess composer
- Biography
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Ossip Samoilovich Bernstein was a French chess player and businessman. He was one of the inaugural recipients of the title International Grandmaster from FIDE in 1950.
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Konstantin von Notz
- Occupations
- lawyerpolitician
- Biography
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Konstantin von Notz is a German lawyer and politician of the Alliance 90/The Greens party.
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Axel Kaiser
- Enrolled in Heidelberg University - Germany
- In 2008 graduated with Master of Laws
- In 2012 graduated with Master of Arts in American studies
- Occupations
- political philosophercolumnistlawyerwriteruniversity teacher
- Biography
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Axel Kaiser is a Chilean writer, lawyer and political scientist known for his work on liberalism and free-market economics. Kaiser is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society and has published articles in Forbes and other publications. He is also the author of several books, including The Tyranny of Equality and The Populist Deception.
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William Backhouse Astor, Sr
- Occupations
- entrepreneur
- Biography
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William Backhouse Astor Sr. was an American business magnate who inherited most of his father John Jacob Astor's fortune. He worked as a partner in his father's successful export business. His massive investment in Manhattan real estate enabled major donations to the Astor Library in the East Village, which became the New York Public Library.
