100 Notable alumni of
Humboldt University of Berlin
Updated:
The Humboldt University of Berlin is 29th in the world, 10th in Europe, and 1st in Germany by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 100 notable alumni from the Humboldt University of Berlin sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff. 7 individuals affiliated with the Humboldt University of Berlin won Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry.
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Karl Marx
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- In 1836 studied jurisprudence and philosophy
- Occupations
- writerhistoriansociologistpoetrevolutionary
- Biography
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Karl Marx was a German-born philosopher, economist, political theorist, historian, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His best-known works are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto (with Friedrich Engels) and the three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1894); the latter employs his critical approach of historical materialism in an analysis of capitalism and represents his greatest intellectual achievement. Marx's ideas and theories and their subsequent development, collectively known as Marxism, have exerted enormous influence on modern intellectual, economic and political history.
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Arthur Schopenhauer
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- Studied in 1811
- Occupations
- writeruniversity teachertranslatormusicologistphilosopher
- Biography
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Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher. He is known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the manifestation of a blind and irrational noumenal will. Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism.
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Max Weber
- Occupations
- economistsociologistjuristmusicologistphilosopher
- Biography
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Maximilian Karl Emil Weber was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. He was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sciences, and his ideas profoundly influence social theory and research.
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Angela Davis
- Occupations
- women's rights activistprofessorphilosopherautobiographerwriter
- Biography
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Angela Yvonne Davis is an American Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, and author; she is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Davis was a longtime member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). She was active in movements such as the Occupy movement and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.
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Erwin Schrödinger
- Occupations
- non-fiction writerprofessortheoretical physicistphysicistacademic
- Biography
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Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger, sometimes written as Schroedinger or Schrodinger, was a Nobel Prize–winning Austrian and naturalized Irish physicist who developed fundamental results in quantum theory. In particular, he is recognized for postulating the Schrödinger equation, an equation that provides a way to calculate the wave function of a system and how it changes dynamically in time. He coined the term "quantum entanglement", and was the earliest to discuss it, doing so in 1932.
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Max Planck
- Occupations
- physicisttheoretical physicistuniversity teacherphilosopher
- Biography
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Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
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Sahra Wagenknecht
- Occupations
- journalisteconomistpoliticiannon-fiction writer
- Biography
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Sahra Wagenknecht is a German politician, economist, author, and publicist. Since 2009 she has been a member of the Bundestag, where until 2023 she represented The Left. From 2015 to 2019, she served as that party's parliamentary co-chair. With a small team of allies, she left the party on 23 October 2023 to found her own party in 2024, Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, to contest elections onwards.
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Felix Mendelssohn
- Occupations
- writerorganistpianistuniversity teachercomposer
- Biography
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Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonies, concertos, piano music, organ music and chamber music. His best-known works include the overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream (which includes his "Wedding March"), the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the oratorio St. Paul, the oratorio Elijah, the overture The Hebrides, the mature Violin Concerto, the String Octet, and the melody used in the Christmas carol "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words are his most famous solo piano compositions.
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Ivan Turgenev
- Occupations
- prose writertranslatorwriteropinion journalistplaywright
- Biography
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Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, translator and popularizer of Russian literature in the West.
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W. E. B. Du Bois
- Occupations
- economistpoetphilosophersocial workernovelist
- 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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Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- In 1927 graduated with doctorate in theology
- Occupations
- theologianpoetresistance fighterparsonphilosopher
- Biography
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential; his 1937 book The Cost of Discipleship is described as a modern classic. Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Adolf Hitler's euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel Prison for one-and-a-half years. Later, he was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp.
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Heinrich Heine
- Occupations
- publicistwriterpoet lawyeressayistliterary critic
- Biography
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Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder (art songs) by composers such as Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert. Heine's later verse and prose are distinguished by their satirical wit and irony. He is considered a member of the Young Germany movement. His radical political views led to many of his works being banned by German authorities—which, however, only added to his fame. He spent the last 25 years of his life as an expatriate in Paris.
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Walter Benjamin
- Occupations
- translatorwriterphilosopherliterary criticliterary historian
- Biography
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Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, Jewish mysticism, and Neo-Kantianism, Benjamin made enduring and influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School, and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem. He was related to German political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt through her first marriage to Benjamin's cousin Günther Anders though the friendship between Arendt and Benjamin outlasted her marriage to Anders. Both Arendt and Anders were students of Martin Heidegger, whom Benjamin considered a nemesis.
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Mikhail Bakunin
- Occupations
- anarchistwriterpoliticianphilosopher
- Biography
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Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a Russian revolutionary anarchist. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the revolutionary socialist, social anarchist, and collectivist anarchist traditions. Bakunin's prestige as a revolutionary also made him one of the most famous ideologues in Europe, gaining substantial influence among radicals throughout Russia and Europe.
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Fritz Haber
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- Studied in 1886-1891
- Occupations
- physicistuniversity teacheracademicchemistengineer
- 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–Bosch 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 fertilisers and explosives. It is estimated that one-third of annual global food production uses ammonia from the Haber–Bosch process, and that this supports nearly half of the world's population. Haber, along with Max Born, proposed the Born–Haber cycle as a method for evaluating the lattice energy of an ionic solid. For his former mentioned work Haber has been called one of the most important scientists and industrial chemists in human history.
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Michelle Bachelet
- Occupations
- surgeonpoliticianpediatricianinternational forum participantepidemiologist
- Biography
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Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria is a Chilean politician who served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2018 to 2022. She previously served as President of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and from 2014 to 2018 for the Socialist Party of Chile. She is the first woman to hold the Chilean presidency. After leaving the presidency in 2010 and before becoming eligible for re-election, she was appointed as the first executive director of the newly established United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. In December 2013, Bachelet was re-elected with over 62% of the vote, surpassing the 54% she received in 2006. She was the first President of Chile to be re-elected since 1932. Bachelet, a physician who has studied military strategy at the university level, previously served as the Health Minister and Defense Minister under her predecessor, Ricardo Lagos. She is a separated mother of three and identifies as an agnostic. In addition to her native Spanish, she speaks English fluently and has some proficiency in German, French, and Portuguese.
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Wilhelm Wundt
- Occupations
- writeruniversity teacherphysiologistpsychologistphilosopher
- 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 ever to call himself a psychologist.
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Alfred Wegener
- Occupations
- geologistgeographerphysicistmeteorologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Alfred Lothar Wegener was a German climatologist, geologist, geophysicist, meteorologist, and polar researcher.
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Edmund Husserl
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- 1878-1881 studied mathematics
- Occupations
- university teacherphilosophermathematician
- Biography
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Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of phenomenology.
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Emil Cioran
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- Studied in 1933-1935
- Occupations
- writerdiaristtranslatoraphoristphilosopher
- Biography
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Emil Mihai Cioran was a Romanian philosopher, aphorist and essayist, who published works in both Romanian and French. His work has been noted for its pervasive philosophical pessimism, style, and aphorisms. His works frequently engaged with issues of suffering, decay, and nihilism. In 1937, Cioran moved to the Latin Quarter of Paris, which became his permanent residence, wherein he lived in seclusion with his partner, Simone Boué, until his death in 1995.
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Dieter Hallervorden
- Occupations
- writercabaret performertelevision actorvoice actorsinger
- Biography
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Dieter "Didi" Hallervorden is a German comedian, actor, singer, and cabaret artist. He achieved great popularity in German-speaking countries in the mid-1970s with the slapstick series Nonstop Nonsens and his character Didi.
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Palina Rojinski
- Occupations
- modeltelevision presenterfilm actoractordisc jockey
- Biography
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Palina Rojinski is a Russian-German television presenter and actress based in Germany.
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Rudolf Virchow
- Occupations
- anthropologistwriterarchaeologistacademicpaleontologist
- Biography
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Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow was a German physician, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, writer, editor, and politician. He is known as "the father of modern pathology" and as the founder of social medicine, and to his colleagues, the "Pope of medicine".
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Herbert Marcuse
- Occupations
- political theoristuniversity teachersociologistphilosopher
- Biography
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Herbert Marcuse was a German-American philosopher, social critic, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin and then at Freiburg, where he received his PhD. He was a prominent figure in the Frankfurt-based Institute for Social Research – what later became known as the Frankfurt School. In his written works, he criticized capitalism, modern technology, Soviet Communism, and popular culture, arguing that they represent new forms of social control.
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Joachim Sauer
- Occupations
- chemistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Joachim Sauer ForMemRS is a German quantum chemist and professor emeritus of physical and theoretical chemistry at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He is the husband of the former chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel. He is one of the seven members of the board of trustees of the Friede Springer Foundation, together with former German president Horst Köhler and others.
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Ricarda Lang
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- 2014-2019 studied jurisprudence
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Ricarda Lang is a German politician who has been serving as co-leader of the Alliance 90/The Greens since January 2022, 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 2021, and co-leader of the Green Youth from 2017 to 2019.
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Heinrich Hertz
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- Studied in 1878
- Occupations
- physicistinventoruniversity teacherphilosopher
- Biography
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Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves predicted by James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism. The unit of frequency, cycle per second, was named the "hertz" in his honor.
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Ernst Haeckel
- Occupations
- botanistexplorerphysicianbiologistphotographer
- Biography
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Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms and coined many terms in biology, including ecology, phylum, phylogeny, and Protista. Haeckel promoted and popularised Charles Darwin's work in Germany and developed the influential but no longer widely held recapitulation theory ("ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny") claiming that an individual organism's biological development, or ontogeny, parallels and summarises its species' evolutionary development, or phylogeny.
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Ludwig Feuerbach
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- 1824-1826 studied philosophy
- Occupations
- university teachertheologiananthropologistcritic of religionswriter
- 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, and Friedrich Nietzsche.
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Gustav Stresemann
- Occupations
- statespersondiplomatpolitician
- Biography
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Gustav Ernst Stresemann was a German statesman who served as chancellor of Germany from August to November 1923, and as foreign minister from 1923 to 1929. His most notable achievement was the reconciliation between Germany and France, for which he and French Prime Minister Aristide Briand received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926. During a period of political instability and fragile, short-lived governments, Stresemann was the most influential politician in most of the Weimar Republic's existence.
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Georg Cantor
- Occupations
- university teacherphilosophermathematician
- Biography
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Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor was a mathematician who played a pivotal role in the creation of set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets, and proved that the real numbers are more numerous than the natural numbers. Cantor's method of proof of this theorem implies the existence of an infinity of infinities. He defined the cardinal and ordinal numbers and their arithmetic. Cantor's work is of great philosophical interest, a fact he was well aware of.
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Hjalmar Schacht
- Occupations
- bankerpoliticianeconomist
- Biography
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Hjalmar Schacht was a German economist, banker, centre-right politician, and co-founder of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank under the Weimar Republic. He was a fierce critic of his country's post-World War I reparations obligations. He was also central in helping create the group of German industrialists and landowners that pushed Hindenburg to appoint the first NSDAP-led government.
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Max Stirner
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- 1826-1828 studied logic, philosophy of religion, and geography
- In 1834 studied philosophy, religion, ancient language, and German
- Occupations
- professor of philosophytranslatorwriterjournalistphilosopher
- Biography
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Johann Kaspar Schmidt, known professionally as Max Stirner, was a German post-Hegelian philosopher, dealing mainly with the Hegelian notion of social alienation and self-consciousness. Stirner is often seen as one of the forerunners of nihilism, existentialism, psychoanalytic theory, postmodernism and individualist anarchism.
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Oswald Spengler
- Occupations
- historianwritersociologistmathematicianphilosopher
- Biography
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Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler was a German polymath, whose areas of interest included history, philosophy, mathematics, science, and art, as well as their relation to his organic theory of history. He is best known for his two-volume work The Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes), published in 1918 and 1922, covering human history. Spengler's model of history postulates that human cultures and civilizations are akin to biological entities, each with a limited, predictable, and deterministic lifespan.
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George Santayana
- Occupations
- university teacherwriterpoetphilosopheressayist
- Biography
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Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known in English as George Santayana, was a Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Born in Spain, Santayana was raised and educated in the US from the age of eight and identified himself as an American, although he always retained a valid Spanish passport. At the age of 48, Santayana left his position at Harvard and returned to Europe permanently.
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Bernhard Riemann
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- Studied in 1847-1849
- Occupations
- physicistmathematicianuniversity teacherprofessor
- Biography
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Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann was a German mathematician who made profound contributions to analysis, number theory, and differential geometry. In the field of real analysis, he is mostly known for the first rigorous formulation of the integral, the Riemann integral, and his work on Fourier series. His contributions to complex analysis include most notably the introduction of Riemann surfaces, breaking new ground in a natural, geometric treatment of complex analysis. His 1859 paper on the prime-counting function, containing the original statement of the Riemann hypothesis, is regarded as a foundational paper of analytic number theory. Through his pioneering contributions to differential geometry, Riemann laid the foundations of the mathematics of general relativity. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.
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Gregor Gysi
- Occupations
- lawyerwriterpoliticianpresenter
- Biography
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Gregor Florian Gysi is a German attorney, former president of the Party of the European Left and a prominent politician of The Left (Die Linke) political party.
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Emil von Behring
- Occupations
- university teachernon-fiction writerimmunologistphysicianphysiologist
- Biography
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Emil von Behring, born Emil Adolf Behring (15 March 1854 – 31 March 1917), was a German physiologist who received the 1901 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the first one awarded in that field, for his discovery of a diphtheria antitoxin. He was widely known as a "saviour of children", as diphtheria used to be a major cause of child death. His work with the disease, as well as tetanus, has come to bring him most of his fame and acknowledgment. He was honoured with Prussian nobility in 1901, henceforth being known by the surname "von Behring."
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Robert Schuman
- Occupations
- diplomatpoliticianlawyer
- Biography
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Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Robert Schuman was a Luxembourg-born French statesman. Schuman was a Christian democrat (Popular Republican Movement) political thinker and activist. Twice Prime Minister of France, a reformist Minister of Finance and a Foreign Minister, he was instrumental in building postwar European and trans-Atlantic institutions and was one of the founders of the European Communities, the Council of Europe and NATO. The 1964–1965 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour. In 2021, Schuman was declared venerable by Pope Francis in recognition of his acting on Christian principles.
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Karl Liebknecht
- Occupations
- lawyerpoliticianrevolutionaryeditor
- Biography
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Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht was a German socialist and anti-militarist. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) beginning in 1900, he was one of its deputies in the Reichstag from 1912 to 1916, where he represented the left-revolutionary wing of the party. In 1916 he was expelled from the SPD's parliamentary group for his opposition to the political truce between all parties in the Reichstag while the war lasted. He twice spent time in prison, first for writing an anti-militarism pamphlet in 1907 and then for his role in a 1916 antiwar demonstration. He was released from the second under a general amnesty three weeks before the end of the First World War.
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Otto Hahn
- Occupations
- autobiographeruniversity teacherchemistnuclear physicistnon-fiction writer
- Biography
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Otto Hahn was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and father of nuclear fission. Hahn and Lise Meitner discovered radioactive isotopes of radium, thorium, protactinium and uranium. He also discovered the phenomena of atomic recoil and nuclear isomerism, and pioneered rubidium–strontium dating. In 1938, Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission, for which Hahn received the 1944 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Nuclear fission was the basis for nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons.
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Kurt Zadek Lewin
- Occupations
- university teacherpsychologisteconomist
- Biography
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Kurt Lewin was a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational, and applied psychology in the United States. During his professional career Lewin applied himself to three general topics: applied research, action research, and group communication.
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Franziska Giffey
- Occupations
- non-fiction writerpoliticiansocial scientist
- Biography
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Franziska Giffey is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who is serving as Berlin State Senator for Economy, Energy and Enterprise since 2023. She served as Governing Mayor of Berlin from December 2021 to April 2023. She previously served as Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2018 until 2021. From 2015 to 2018, she was the mayor of the borough of Neukölln in Berlin.
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Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia
- Occupations
- politiciancomposerwriter
- Biography
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Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia was a member of the princely House of Hohenzollern, which occupied the Prussian and German thrones until the abolition of those monarchies in 1918. He was also noteworthy as a businessman and patron of the arts.
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Georg Simmel
- Occupations
- university teachersociologistphilosopher
- Biography
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Georg Simmel was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic.
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Martin Buber
- Occupations
- translatorphilosopherwriterzionistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Martin Buber was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism centered on the distinction between the I–Thou relationship and the I–It relationship. Born in Vienna, Buber came from a family of observant Jews, but broke with Jewish custom to pursue secular studies in philosophy. He produced writings about Zionism and worked with various bodies within the Zionist movement extensively over a nearly 50-year period spanning his time in Europe and the Near East. In 1923, Buber wrote his famous essay on existence, Ich und Du (later translated into English as I and Thou), and in 1925, he began translating the Hebrew Bible into the German language reflecting the patterns of the Hebrew language.
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Jannik Schümann
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- Studied media studies and English studies
- Occupations
- film actortelevision actoractorstage actorvoice actor
- Biography
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Jannik Schümann is a German actor. He received three Jupiter Awards for Best Actor, for his role of Danny in Close to the Horizon (2020), 9 Days Awake (2021), and the role of Franz Joseph I. in Sisi (2022). He is also known for his role in The Aftermath (2019), Center of My World (2016), Die Diplomatin (2016–2023), Monster Hunter (2020), Tribes of Europa (2021), or Charité at War (2019).
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Menachem Mendel Schneerson
- Occupations
- Rebbe
- Biography
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Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known to adherents of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement as the Lubavitcher Rebbe or simply the Rebbe, was an Orthodox rabbi and the most recent Rebbe of the Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty. He is considered one of the most influential Jewish leaders of the 20th century.
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Felix Jaehn
- Occupations
- manufacturermusicianremixerrecord producerdisc jockey
- Biography
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Felix Kurt Jähn, known professionally as Felix Jaehn, is a German DJ and record producer specializing in tropical house. He achieved international success with his remix of OMI's song "Cheerleader", which topped the charts in multiple countries and reached number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2015.
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Christiane Paul
- Occupations
- stage actormodelfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Christiane Paul is a German film, television and stage actress.
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Alois Alzheimer
- Occupations
- university teacherneuropathologistphysicianneurologistpsychiatrist
- Biography
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Alois Alzheimer was a German psychiatrist and neuropathologist and a colleague of Emil Kraepelin. Alzheimer is credited with identifying the first published case of "presenile dementia", which Kraepelin would later identify as Alzheimer's disease.
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Theodor Heuss
- Occupations
- journalistwriterpoliticianuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Theodor Heuss was a German liberal politician who served as the first president of West Germany from 1949 to 1959. His cordial nature – something of a contrast to the stern character of chancellor Konrad Adenauer – largely contributed to the stabilization of democracy in West Germany during the Wirtschaftswunder years. Before beginning his career as a politician, Heuss had been a political journalist.
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Hermann von Helmholtz
- Occupations
- physiologistphysicistophthalmologistmusic theoristmusicologist
- Biography
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Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The Helmholtz Association, the largest German association of research institutions, is named in his honor.
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Nikolai Pirogov
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- Studied in 1833
- Occupations
- physiciansurgeonanatomistscientist
- Biography
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Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov was a Russian scientist, medical doctor, pedagogue, public figure, and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1847), one of the most widely recognized Russian physicians. Considered to be the founder of field surgery, he was the first surgeon to use anaesthesia in a field operation (1847) and one of the first surgeons in Europe to use ether as an anaesthetic. He is credited with the invention of various kinds of surgical operations and developing his own technique of using plaster casts to treat fractured bones.
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Georg Lukács
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- Studied in 1907
- Occupations
- university teacherwriterart historianpoliticianliterary critic
- Biography
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György Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, literary critic, and aesthetician. He was one of the founders of Western Marxism, an interpretive tradition that departed from the Soviet Marxist ideological orthodoxy. He developed the theory of reification, and contributed to Marxist theory with developments of Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. He was also a philosopher of Leninism. He ideologically developed and organised Lenin's pragmatic revolutionary practices into the formal philosophy of vanguard-party revolution.
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Leó Szilárd
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- In 1922 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy in physics
- Occupations
- university teacherphysicistscience fiction writerscientistnuclear physicist
- Biography
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Leo Szilard was a Hungarian-American physicist and inventor. He conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933, patented the idea in 1936, and in late 1939 wrote the letter for Albert Einstein's signature that resulted in the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb. According to György Marx, he was one of the Hungarian scientists known as The Martians.
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Theodor Schwann
- Occupations
- biologistuniversity teacherbotanistphysicianphysiologist
- Biography
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Theodor Schwann was a German physician and physiologist. His most significant contribution to biology is considered to be the extension of cell theory to animals. Other contributions include the discovery of Schwann cells in the peripheral nervous system, the discovery and study of pepsin, the discovery of the organic nature of yeast, and the invention of the term "metabolism".
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George F. Kennan
- Occupations
- university teacherhistorianwriterpoliticianpolitical scientist
- Biography
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George Frost Kennan was an American diplomat and historian. He was best known as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War. He lectured widely and wrote scholarly histories of the relations between the USSR and the United States. He was also one of the group of foreign policy elders known as "The Wise Men."
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Kurt Tucholsky
- Occupations
- prose writerwriterpoet lawyerjournalistsatirist
- Biography
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Kurt Tucholsky was a German journalist, satirist, and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser (after the historical figure), Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wrobel.
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Walther Rathenau
- Occupations
- entrepreneurwriterscience fiction writerpoliticianengineer
- Biography
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Walther Rathenau was a German industrialist, writer and politician who served as foreign minister of Germany from February to June 1922.
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Max Scheler
- Occupations
- philosopheruniversity teachersociologistanthropologistaxiology
- Biography
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Max Ferdinand Scheler was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. Considered in his lifetime one of the most prominent German philosophers, Scheler developed the philosophical method of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. Given that school's utopian ambitions of re-founding all of human knowledge, Scheler was nicknamed the "Adam of the philosophical paradise" by José Ortega y Gasset.
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Robert Musil
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- 1903-1908 studied psychology and philosophy
- Occupations
- novelistplaywrightwriterscreenwriteressayist
- Biography
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Robert Musil was an Austrian philosophical writer. His unfinished novel, The Man Without Qualities (German: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften), is generally considered to be one of the most important and influential modernist novels.
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Wolf Biermann
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- singer-songwriterwriterdissidentpoetcomposer
- Biography
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Karl Wolf Biermann is a German singer-songwriter, poet, and former East German dissident. He is perhaps best known for the 1968 song "Ermutigung" and his expatriation from East Germany in 1976.
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Karen Horney
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- psychiatristwriterpsychoanalystpsychotherapist
- Biography
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Karen Horney was a German psychoanalyst who practiced in the United States during her later career. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views. This was particularly true of her theories of sexuality and of the instinct orientation of psychoanalysis. She is credited with founding feminist psychology in response to Freud's theory of penis envy. She disagreed with Freud about inherent differences in the psychology of men and women, and like Adler, she traced such differences to society and culture rather than biology.
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Sofia Kovalevskaya
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- university teachercommunardwriterphysicistmathematician
- Biography
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Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya, born Korvin-Krukovskaya (15 January [O.S. 3 January] 1850 – 10 February 1891), 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 obtain 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 Heinrich Warburg
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- university teacherphysicianbiochemistphysiologistchemist
- Biography
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Otto Heinrich Warburg, son of physicist Emil Warburg, was a German physiologist, medical doctor, and Nobel laureate. He served as an officer in the elite Uhlan (cavalry regiment) during the First World War, and was awarded the Iron Cross (1st Class) for bravery. He was the sole recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1931. In total, he was nominated for the award 47 times over the course of his career.
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Lothar de Maizière
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- musicianpoliticianlawyer
- Biography
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Lothar de Maizière is a German Christian Democratic politician. In 1990, he served as the head of the first and only democratically elected government of East Germany, holding this office during the final months before German reunification. Subsequently he briefly served as a minister in the new government of the unified Federal Republic of Germany.
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Paul Tillich
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- theologianuniversity teacherphilosopher
- Biography
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Paul Johannes Tillich was a German-American Christian existentialist philosopher, religious socialist, and Lutheran theologian who was one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. Tillich taught at German universities before immigrating to the United States in 1933, where he taught at Union Theological Seminary, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago.
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Wilhelm Dilthey
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- pedagoguetheologianhistorianuniversity teacherpsychologist
- Biography
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Wilhelm Dilthey was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist, and hermeneutic philosopher, who held G. W. F. 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. He could be considered an empiricist, in contrast to the idealism prevalent in Germany at the time, but his account of what constitutes the empirical and experiential differs from British empiricism and positivism in its central epistemological and ontological assumptions, which are drawn from German literary and philosophical traditions.
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Ram Manohar Lohia
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- politicianfreedom fightereconomist
- Biography
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Ram Manohar Lohia pronunciation was an activist in the Indian independence movement and a socialist political leader. During the last phase of British rule in India, he worked with the Congress Radio which was broadcast secretly from various places in Bombay until 1942.
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Hans Speidel
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- university teacherstudiescareer soldiermilitary personnelresistance fighter
- Biography
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Hans Speidel was a German general, who was one of the major military leaders of West Germany during the early Cold War. The first full General in West Germany, he was a principal founder of the Bundeswehr and a major figure in German rearmament, integration into NATO and international negotiations on European and Western defence cooperation in the 1950s. He served as Commander of the Allied Land Forces Central Europe (COMLANDCENT) from 1957 to 1963 and then as President of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs from 1964.
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Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge
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- chemistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge was a German analytical chemist. Runge identified the mydriatic (pupil dilating) effects of belladonna (deadly nightshade) extract, identified caffeine, and discovered the first coal tar dye (aniline blue).
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Lion Feuchtwanger
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- journalistplaywrighttranslatorwriter
- Biography
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Lion Feuchtwanger was a German Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht.
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Ferdinand Lassalle
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- writerlawyerpoliticianeconomistphilosopher
- Biography
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Ferdinand Lassalle was a Prussian-German jurist, philosopher, socialist and politician who is best remembered as the initiator of the social-democratic movement in Germany. "Lassalle was the first man in Germany, the first in Europe, who succeeded in organising a party of socialist action", according to Élie Halévy. Or, as Rosa Luxemburg put it: "Lassalle managed to wrestle from history in two years of flaming agitation that needed decades to come about".
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Wilhelm Grimm
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- collector of fairy taleslaw librarianpedagoguechildren's writermythographer
- Biography
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Wilhelm Carl Grimm was a German author and anthropologist. He was the younger brother of Jacob Grimm, of the literary duo the Brothers Grimm.
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Mihajlo Pupin
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- physicistuniversity teacherchemistinventormathematician
- Biography
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Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin, also known as Michael Pupin, was a Serbian physicist, physical chemist and philanthropist based in the United States.
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Ernst Cassirer
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- university teacherart historianphilosopher
- Biography
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Ernst Alfred Cassirer was a German philosopher. Trained within the Neo-Kantian Marburg School, he initially followed his mentor Hermann Cohen in attempting to supply an idealistic philosophy of science.
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Theodor Storm
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- Studied in 1838
- Occupations
- lawyerpoetnovelistwriter
- Biography
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Hans Theodor Woldsen Storm, commonly known as Theodor Storm, was a German-Frisian writer and poet. He is considered to be one of the most important figures of German realism.
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Hermann Minkowski
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- university teacherphysicistmathematician
- Biography
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Hermann Minkowski was a German mathematician and professor at Königsberg, Zürich and Göttingen. He created and developed the geometry of numbers and used geometrical methods to solve problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity.
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Stéphanie, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Luxembourg
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- aristocrat
- Biography
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Princess Stéphanie, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, is the wife of Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume, the heir apparent to the throne of Luxembourg. She became engaged to the Hereditary Grand Duke on 26 April 2012 and married him, in a civil ceremony, on 19 October 2012, followed by a religious service the next day. The couple have two sons, Prince Charles and Prince François.
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Kurt Eisner
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- journalistwriterpolitician
- Biography
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Kurt Eisner was a German politician, revolutionary, journalist, and theatre critic. As a socialist journalist, he organized the socialist revolution that overthrew the Wittelsbach monarchy in Bavaria in November 1918, which led to him being described as "the symbol of the Bavarian revolution". He is used as an example of charismatic authority by Max Weber. Eisner subsequently proclaimed the People's State of Bavaria but was assassinated by far-right German nationalist Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley in Munich on 21 February 1919.
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Hans Jonas
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- university teacherenvironmentalistphilosopher
- Biography
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Hans Jonas was a German-born American Jewish philosopher, from 1955 to 1976 the Alvin Johnson Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
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Rudolf Clausius
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- Studied in 1840
- Occupations
- physicisttheoretical physicistmathematicianuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founding fathers of the science of thermodynamics. By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's principle known as the Carnot cycle, he gave the theory of heat a truer and sounder basis. His most important paper, "On the Moving Force of Heat", published in 1850, first stated the basic ideas of the second law of thermodynamics. In 1865 he introduced the concept of entropy. In 1870 he introduced the virial theorem, which applied to heat.
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Hans Modrow
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- economistpolitician
- Biography
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Hans Modrow was a German politician best known as the last communist premier of East Germany.
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Alfred von Schlieffen
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- military officerpolitician
- Biography
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Graf Alfred von Schlieffen, generally called Count Schlieffen was a German field marshal and strategist who served as chief of the Imperial German General Staff from 1891 to 1906. His name lived on in the 1905–06 "Schlieffen Plan", then Aufmarsch I, a deployment plan and operational guide for a decisive initial offensive operation/campaign in a two-front war against the French Third Republic.
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Nicolae Iorga
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- historiangeopolitical analystliterary historianorientalisttranslator
- Biography
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Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, Albanologist, poet and playwright. Co-founder (in 1910) of the Democratic Nationalist Party (PND), he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly (1931–32) as Prime Minister. A child prodigy, polymath and polyglot, Iorga produced an unusually large body of scholarly works, establishing his international reputation as a medievalist, Byzantinist, Latinist, Slavist, art historian and philosopher of history. Holding teaching positions at the University of Bucharest, the University of Paris and several other academic institutions, Iorga was founder of the International Congress of Byzantine Studies and the Institute of South-East European Studies (ISSEE). His activity also included the transformation of Vălenii de Munte town into a cultural and academic center.
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Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi
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- university teacherphysicistmathematician
- Biography
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Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi was a German mathematician who made fundamental contributions to elliptic functions, dynamics, differential equations, determinants, and number theory. His name is occasionally written as Carolus Gustavus Iacobus Iacobi in his Latin books, and his first name is sometimes given as Karl.
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Franz Brentano
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- university teacherpsychologistphilosopher
- Biography
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Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Josef Brentano was a German philosopher and psychologist. His 1874 Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, considered his magnum opus, is credited with having reintroduced the medieval scholastic concept of intentionality into contemporary philosophy.
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Azmi Bishara
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- novelistpoliticianuniversity teacherphilosopher
- Biography
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Azmi Bishara is a Palestinian-Israeli public intellectual, political philosopher and author. He is presently the General Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
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Bernhard Grzimek
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- writertelevision presenterfilm directorphotographerveterinarian
- Biography
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Bernhard Klemens Maria Grzimek was a German zoo director, zoologist, book author, editor, and animal conservationist in postwar West Germany.
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Walter Hallstein
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- juristpoliticianuniversity teacherdiplomat
- Biography
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Walter Hallstein was a German academic, diplomat and statesman who was the first president of the Commission of the European Economic Community and one of the founding fathers of the European Union.
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Albert A. Michelson
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- university teacherphysicistmilitary officer
- Biography
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Albert Abraham Michelson FFRS FRSE was a Prussian-born American physicist of Jewish descent, known for his work on measuring the speed of light and especially for the Michelson–Morley experiment. In 1907 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics, becoming the first American to win the Nobel Prize in a science. He was the founder and the first head of the physics departments of Case School of Applied Science (now Case Western Reserve University) and the University of Chicago.
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Sven Hedin
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- botanistpoliticianexplorergeologistnon-fiction writer
- Biography
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Sven Anders Hedin, KNO1kl RVO, was a Swedish geographer, topographer, explorer, photographer, travel writer and illustrator of his own works. During four expeditions to Central Asia, he made the Transhimalaya known in the West and located sources of the Brahmaputra, Indus and Sutlej Rivers. He also mapped lake Lop Nur, and the remains of cities, grave sites and the Great Wall of China in the deserts of the Tarim Basin. In his book Från pol till pol (From Pole to Pole), Hedin describes a journey through Asia and Europe between the late 1880s and the early 1900s. While traveling, Hedin visited Turkey, the Caucasus, Tehran, Iraq, lands of the Kyrgyz people and the Russian Far East, India, China and Japan. The posthumous publication of his Central Asia Atlas marked the conclusion of his life's work.
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Tamara Bunke
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- partisantranslatorrevolutionaryspyjournalist
- Biography
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Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider, better known as Tania or Tania the Guerrillera, was an Argentine-born East German Marxist revolutionary, who played a role in Cuban intelligence operations after the Cuban Revolution and in various Latin American far left revolutionary movements. She was alongside communist guerrillas led by Che Guevara during the Bolivian insurgency until she was killed in action by the Bolivian Army Rangers.
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Alfred Döblin
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- neurologistwriterpoetscience fiction writernovelist
- Biography
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Bruno Alfred Döblin was a German novelist, essayist, and doctor, best known for his novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929). A prolific writer whose œuvre spans more than half a century and a wide variety of literary movements and styles, Döblin is one of the most important figures of German literary modernism. His complete works comprise over a dozen novels ranging in genre from historical novels to science fiction to novels about the modern metropolis; several dramas, radio plays, and screenplays; a true crime story; a travel account; two book-length philosophical treatises; scores of essays on politics, religion, art, and society; and numerous letters—his complete works, republished by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag and Fischer Verlag, span more than thirty volumes. His first published novel, Die drei Sprünge des Wang-lung (The Three Leaps of Wang Lun), appeared in 1915 and his final novel, Hamlet oder Die lange Nacht nimmt ein Ende (Tales of a Long Night) was published in 1956, one year before his death.
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Carl Ritter
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- explorergeographeruniversity teacherbotanist
- Biography
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Carl Ritter was a German geographer. Along with Alexander von Humboldt, he is considered one of the founders of modern geography. From 1825 until his death, he occupied the first chair in geography at the University of Berlin.
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Richard Dedekind
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- Studied in 1852-1854
- Occupations
- university teacherphilosophermathematician
- Biography
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Julius Wilhelm Richard Dedekind [ˈdeːdəˌkɪnt] was a German mathematician who made important contributions to number theory, abstract algebra (particularly ring theory), and the axiomatic foundations of arithmetic. His best known contribution is the definition of real numbers through the notion of Dedekind cut. He is also considered a pioneer in the development of modern set theory and of the philosophy of mathematics known as Logicism.
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Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff
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- university teacherprofessorphysicistchemiststereochemist
- Biography
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Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff Jr. was a Dutch physical chemist. A highly influential theoretical chemist of his time, van 't Hoff was the first winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His pioneering work helped found the modern theory of chemical affinity, chemical equilibrium, chemical kinetics, and chemical thermodynamics. In his 1874 pamphlet, van 't Hoff formulated the theory of the tetrahedral carbon atom and laid the foundations of stereochemistry. In 1875, he predicted the correct structures of allenes and cumulenes as well as their axial chirality. He is also widely considered one of the founders of physical chemistry as the discipline is known today.
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Stefan George
- Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
- Studied in 1889
- Occupations
- poettranslatorwriterlinguist
- Biography
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Stefan Anton George was a German symbolist poet and a translator of Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Hesiod, and Charles Baudelaire. He is also known for his role as leader of the highly influential literary circle called the George-Kreis and for founding the literary magazine Blätter für die Kunst ("Journal for the Arts"). From the inception of his circle, George and his followers represented a literary and cultural revolt against the literary realism trend in German literature during the last decades of the German Empire.
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Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
- Occupations
- resistance fighterlawyerjurist
- 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.
