100 Notable alumni of
Humboldt University of Berlin

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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.

  1. Karl Marx

    Karl Marx
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1818-1883 (aged 65)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    In 1836 studied jurisprudence and philosophy
    Occupations
    writerhistoriansociologistpoetrevolutionary
    Biography

    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.

  2. Arthur Schopenhauer

    Arthur Schopenhauer
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1788-1860 (aged 72)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    Studied in 1811
    Occupations
    writeruniversity teachertranslatormusicologistphilosopher
    Biography

    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.

  3. Max Weber

    Max Weber
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1864-1920 (aged 56)
    Occupations
    economistsociologistjuristmusicologistphilosopher
    Biography

    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.

  4. Angela Davis

    Angela Davis
    Born in
    United States Flag United States
    Years
    1944-.. (age 80)
    Occupations
    women's rights activistprofessorphilosopherautobiographerwriter
    Biography

    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.

  5. Erwin Schrödinger

    Erwin Schrödinger
    Awards
    Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933
    Born in
    Austria Flag Austria
    Years
    1887-1961 (aged 74)
    Occupations
    non-fiction writerprofessortheoretical physicistphysicistacademic
    Biography

    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.

  6. Max Planck

    Max Planck
    Awards
    Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1858-1947 (aged 89)
    Occupations
    physicisttheoretical physicistuniversity teacherphilosopher
    Biography

    Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.

  7. Sahra Wagenknecht

    Sahra Wagenknecht
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1969-.. (age 55)
    Occupations
    journalisteconomistpoliticiannon-fiction writer
    Biography

    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.

  8. Felix Mendelssohn

    Felix Mendelssohn
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1809-1847 (aged 38)
    Occupations
    writerorganistpianistuniversity teachercomposer
    Biography

    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.

  9. Ivan Turgenev

    Ivan Turgenev
    Born in
    Russia Flag Russia
    Years
    1818-1883 (aged 65)
    Occupations
    prose writertranslatorwriteropinion journalistplaywright
    Biography

    Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, translator and popularizer of Russian literature in the West.

  10. W. E. B. Du Bois

    W. E. B. Du Bois
    Born in
    United States Flag United States
    Years
    1868-1963 (aged 95)
    Occupations
    economistpoetphilosophersocial workernovelist
    Biography

    William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist.

  11. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1906-1945 (aged 39)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    In 1927 graduated with doctorate in theology
    Occupations
    theologianpoetresistance fighterparsonphilosopher
    Biography

    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.

  12. Heinrich Heine

    Heinrich Heine
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1797-1856 (aged 59)
    Occupations
    publicistwriterpoet lawyeressayistliterary critic
    Biography

    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.

  13. Walter Benjamin

    Walter Benjamin
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1892-1940 (aged 48)
    Occupations
    translatorwriterphilosopherliterary criticliterary historian
    Biography

    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.

  14. Mikhail Bakunin

    Mikhail Bakunin
    Born in
    Russia Flag Russia
    Years
    1814-1876 (aged 62)
    Occupations
    anarchistwriterpoliticianphilosopher
    Biography

    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.

  15. Fritz Haber

    Fritz Haber
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1868-1934 (aged 66)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    Studied in 1886-1891
    Occupations
    physicistuniversity teacheracademicchemistengineer
    Biography

    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.

  16. Michelle Bachelet

    Michelle Bachelet
    Born in
    Chile Flag Chile
    Years
    1951-.. (age 73)
    Occupations
    surgeonpoliticianpediatricianinternational forum participantepidemiologist
    Biography

    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.

  17. Wilhelm Wundt

    Wilhelm Wundt
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1832-1920 (aged 88)
    Occupations
    writeruniversity teacherphysiologistpsychologistphilosopher
    Biography

    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.

  18. Alfred Wegener

    Alfred Wegener
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1880-1930 (aged 50)
    Occupations
    geologistgeographerphysicistmeteorologistuniversity teacher
    Biography

    Alfred Lothar Wegener was a German climatologist, geologist, geophysicist, meteorologist, and polar researcher.

  19. Edmund Husserl

    Edmund Husserl
    Born in
    Czech Republic Flag Czech Republic
    Years
    1859-1938 (aged 79)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    1878-1881 studied mathematics
    Occupations
    university teacherphilosophermathematician
    Biography

    Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of phenomenology.

  20. Emil Cioran

    Emil Cioran
    Born in
    Romania Flag Romania
    Years
    1911-1995 (aged 84)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    Studied in 1933-1935
    Occupations
    writerdiaristtranslatoraphoristphilosopher
    Biography

    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.

  21. Dieter Hallervorden

    Dieter Hallervorden
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1935-.. (age 89)
    Occupations
    writercabaret performertelevision actorvoice actorsinger
    Biography

    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.

  22. Palina Rojinski

    Palina Rojinski
    Born in
    Russia Flag Russia
    Years
    1985-.. (age 39)
    Occupations
    modeltelevision presenterfilm actoractordisc jockey
    Biography

    Palina Rojinski is a Russian-German television presenter and actress based in Germany.

  23. Rudolf Virchow

    Rudolf Virchow
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1821-1902 (aged 81)
    Occupations
    anthropologistwriterarchaeologistacademicpaleontologist
    Biography

    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".

  24. Herbert Marcuse

    Herbert Marcuse
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1898-1979 (aged 81)
    Occupations
    political theoristuniversity teachersociologistphilosopher
    Biography

    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.

  25. Joachim Sauer

    Joachim Sauer
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1949-.. (age 75)
    Occupations
    chemistuniversity teacher
    Biography

    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.

  26. Ricarda Lang

    Ricarda Lang
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1994-.. (age 30)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    2014-2019 studied jurisprudence
    Occupations
    politician
    Biography

    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.

  27. Heinrich Hertz

    Heinrich Hertz
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1857-1894 (aged 37)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    Studied in 1878
    Occupations
    physicistinventoruniversity teacherphilosopher
    Biography

    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.

  28. Ernst Haeckel

    Ernst Haeckel
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1834-1919 (aged 85)
    Occupations
    botanistexplorerphysicianbiologistphotographer
    Biography

    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.

  29. Ludwig Feuerbach

    Ludwig Feuerbach
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1804-1872 (aged 68)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    1824-1826 studied philosophy
    Occupations
    university teachertheologiananthropologistcritic of religionswriter
    Biography

    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.

  30. Gustav Stresemann

    Gustav Stresemann
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1878-1929 (aged 51)
    Occupations
    statespersondiplomatpolitician
    Biography

    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.

  31. Georg Cantor

    Georg Cantor
    Born in
    Russia Flag Russia
    Years
    1845-1918 (aged 73)
    Occupations
    university teacherphilosophermathematician
    Biography

    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.

  32. Hjalmar Schacht

    Hjalmar Schacht
    Born in
    Denmark Flag Denmark
    Years
    1877-1970 (aged 93)
    Occupations
    bankerpoliticianeconomist
    Biography

    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.

  33. Max Stirner

    Max Stirner
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1806-1856 (aged 50)
    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

    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.

  34. Oswald Spengler

    Oswald Spengler
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1880-1936 (aged 56)
    Occupations
    historianwritersociologistmathematicianphilosopher
    Biography

    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.

  35. George Santayana

    George Santayana
    Born in
    Spain Flag Spain
    Years
    1863-1952 (aged 89)
    Occupations
    university teacherwriterpoetphilosopheressayist
    Biography

    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.

  36. Bernhard Riemann

    Bernhard Riemann
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1826-1866 (aged 40)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    Studied in 1847-1849
    Occupations
    physicistmathematicianuniversity teacherprofessor
    Biography

    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.

  37. Gregor Gysi

    Gregor Gysi
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1948-.. (age 76)
    Occupations
    lawyerwriterpoliticianpresenter
    Biography

    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.

  38. Emil von Behring

    Emil von Behring
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1854-1917 (aged 63)
    Occupations
    university teachernon-fiction writerimmunologistphysicianphysiologist
    Biography

    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."

  39. Robert Schuman

    Robert Schuman
    Born in
    Luxembourg Flag Luxembourg
    Years
    1886-1963 (aged 77)
    Occupations
    diplomatpoliticianlawyer
    Biography

    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.

  40. Karl Liebknecht

    Karl Liebknecht
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1871-1919 (aged 48)
    Occupations
    lawyerpoliticianrevolutionaryeditor
    Biography

    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.

  41. Otto Hahn

    Otto Hahn
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1879-1968 (aged 89)
    Occupations
    autobiographeruniversity teacherchemistnuclear physicistnon-fiction writer
    Biography

    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.

  42. Kurt Zadek Lewin

    Kurt Zadek Lewin
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1890-1947 (aged 57)
    Occupations
    university teacherpsychologisteconomist
    Biography

    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.

  43. Franziska Giffey

    Franziska Giffey
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1978-.. (age 46)
    Occupations
    non-fiction writerpoliticiansocial scientist
    Biography

    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.

  44. Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia

    Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1907-1994 (aged 87)
    Occupations
    politiciancomposerwriter
    Biography

    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.

  45. Georg Simmel

    Georg Simmel
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1858-1918 (aged 60)
    Occupations
    university teachersociologistphilosopher
    Biography

    Georg Simmel was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic.

  46. Martin Buber

    Martin Buber
    Born in
    Austria Flag Austria
    Years
    1878-1965 (aged 87)
    Occupations
    translatorphilosopherwriterzionistuniversity teacher
    Biography

    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.

  47. Jannik Schümann

    Jannik Schümann
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1992-.. (age 32)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    Studied media studies and English studies
    Occupations
    film actortelevision actoractorstage actorvoice actor
    Biography

    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).

  48. Menachem Mendel Schneerson

    Menachem Mendel Schneerson
    Born in
    Ukraine Flag Ukraine
    Years
    1902-1994 (aged 92)
    Occupations
    Rebbe
    Biography

    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.

  49. Felix Jaehn

    Felix Jaehn
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1994-.. (age 30)
    Occupations
    manufacturermusicianremixerrecord producerdisc jockey
    Biography

    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.

  50. Christiane Paul

    Christiane Paul
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1974-.. (age 50)
    Occupations
    stage actormodelfilm actoractor
    Biography

    Christiane Paul is a German film, television and stage actress.

  51. Alois Alzheimer

    Alois Alzheimer
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1864-1915 (aged 51)
    Occupations
    university teacherneuropathologistphysicianneurologistpsychiatrist
    Biography

    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.

  52. Theodor Heuss

    Theodor Heuss
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1884-1963 (aged 79)
    Occupations
    journalistwriterpoliticianuniversity teacher
    Biography

    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.

  53. Hermann von Helmholtz

    Hermann von Helmholtz
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1821-1894 (aged 73)
    Occupations
    physiologistphysicistophthalmologistmusic theoristmusicologist
    Biography

    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.

  54. Nikolai Pirogov

    Nikolai Pirogov
    Born in
    Russia Flag Russia
    Years
    1810-1881 (aged 71)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    Studied in 1833
    Occupations
    physiciansurgeonanatomistscientist
    Biography

    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.

  55. Georg Lukács

    Georg Lukács
    Born in
    Hungary Flag Hungary
    Years
    1885-1971 (aged 86)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    Studied in 1907
    Occupations
    university teacherwriterart historianpoliticianliterary critic
    Biography

    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.

  56. Leó Szilárd

    Leó Szilárd
    Born in
    Hungary Flag Hungary
    Years
    1898-1964 (aged 66)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    In 1922 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy in physics
    Occupations
    university teacherphysicistscience fiction writerscientistnuclear physicist
    Biography

    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.

  57. Theodor Schwann

    Theodor Schwann
    Born in
    Chile Flag Chile
    Years
    1810-1882 (aged 72)
    Occupations
    biologistuniversity teacherbotanistphysicianphysiologist
    Biography

    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".

  58. George F. Kennan

    George F. Kennan
    Born in
    United States Flag United States
    Years
    1904-2005 (aged 101)
    Occupations
    university teacherhistorianwriterpoliticianpolitical scientist
    Biography

    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."

  59. Kurt Tucholsky

    Kurt Tucholsky
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1890-1935 (aged 45)
    Occupations
    prose writerwriterpoet lawyerjournalistsatirist
    Biography

    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.

  60. Walther Rathenau

    Walther Rathenau
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1867-1922 (aged 55)
    Occupations
    entrepreneurwriterscience fiction writerpoliticianengineer
    Biography

    Walther Rathenau was a German industrialist, writer and politician who served as foreign minister of Germany from February to June 1922.

  61. Max Scheler

    Max Scheler
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1874-1928 (aged 54)
    Occupations
    philosopheruniversity teachersociologistanthropologistaxiology
    Biography

    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.

  62. Robert Musil

    Robert Musil
    Born in
    Austria Flag Austria
    Years
    1880-1942 (aged 62)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    1903-1908 studied psychology and philosophy
    Occupations
    novelistplaywrightwriterscreenwriteressayist
    Biography

    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.

  63. Wolf Biermann

    Wolf Biermann
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1936-.. (age 88)
    Occupations
    singer-songwriterwriterdissidentpoetcomposer
    Biography

    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.

  64. Karen Horney

    Karen Horney
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1885-1952 (aged 67)
    Occupations
    psychiatristwriterpsychoanalystpsychotherapist
    Biography

    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.

  65. Sofia Kovalevskaya

    Sofia Kovalevskaya
    Born in
    Russia Flag Russia
    Years
    1850-1891 (aged 41)
    Occupations
    university teachercommunardwriterphysicistmathematician
    Biography

    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".

  66. Otto Heinrich Warburg

    Otto Heinrich Warburg
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1883-1970 (aged 87)
    Occupations
    university teacherphysicianbiochemistphysiologistchemist
    Biography

    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.

  67. Lothar de Maizière

    Lothar de Maizière
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1940-.. (age 84)
    Occupations
    musicianpoliticianlawyer
    Biography

    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.

  68. Paul Tillich

    Paul Tillich
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1886-1965 (aged 79)
    Occupations
    theologianuniversity teacherphilosopher
    Biography

    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.

  69. Wilhelm Dilthey

    Wilhelm Dilthey
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1833-1911 (aged 78)
    Occupations
    pedagoguetheologianhistorianuniversity teacherpsychologist
    Biography

    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.

  70. Ram Manohar Lohia

    Ram Manohar Lohia
    Born in
    India Flag India
    Years
    1910-1967 (aged 57)
    Occupations
    politicianfreedom fightereconomist
    Biography

    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.

  71. Hans Speidel

    Hans Speidel
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1897-1984 (aged 87)
    Occupations
    university teacherstudiescareer soldiermilitary personnelresistance fighter
    Biography

    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.

  72. Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge

    Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1794-1867 (aged 73)
    Occupations
    chemistuniversity teacher
    Biography

    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).

  73. Lion Feuchtwanger

    Lion Feuchtwanger
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1884-1958 (aged 74)
    Occupations
    journalistplaywrighttranslatorwriter
    Biography

    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.

  74. Ferdinand Lassalle

    Ferdinand Lassalle
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1825-1864 (aged 39)
    Occupations
    writerlawyerpoliticianeconomistphilosopher
    Biography

    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".

  75. Wilhelm Grimm

    Wilhelm Grimm
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1786-1859 (aged 73)
    Occupations
    collector of fairy taleslaw librarianpedagoguechildren's writermythographer
    Biography

    Wilhelm Carl Grimm was a German author and anthropologist. He was the younger brother of Jacob Grimm, of the literary duo the Brothers Grimm.

  76. Mihajlo Pupin

    Mihajlo Pupin
    Born in
    Serbia Flag Serbia
    Years
    1858-1935 (aged 77)
    Occupations
    physicistuniversity teacherchemistinventormathematician
    Biography

    Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin, also known as Michael Pupin, was a Serbian physicist, physical chemist and philanthropist based in the United States.

  77. Ernst Cassirer

    Ernst Cassirer
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1874-1945 (aged 71)
    Occupations
    university teacherart historianphilosopher
    Biography

    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.

  78. Theodor Storm

    Theodor Storm
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1817-1888 (aged 71)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    Studied in 1838
    Occupations
    lawyerpoetnovelistwriter
    Biography

    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.

  79. Hermann Minkowski

    Hermann Minkowski
    Born in
    Lithuania Flag Lithuania
    Years
    1864-1909 (aged 45)
    Occupations
    university teacherphysicistmathematician
    Biography

    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.

  80. Stéphanie, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Luxembourg

    Stéphanie, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Luxembourg
    Born in
    Belgium Flag Belgium
    Years
    1984-.. (age 40)
    Occupations
    aristocrat
    Biography

    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.

  81. Kurt Eisner

    Kurt Eisner
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1867-1919 (aged 52)
    Occupations
    journalistwriterpolitician
    Biography

    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.

  82. Hans Jonas

    Hans Jonas
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1903-1993 (aged 90)
    Occupations
    university teacherenvironmentalistphilosopher
    Biography

    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.

  83. Rudolf Clausius

    Rudolf Clausius
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1822-1888 (aged 66)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    Studied in 1840
    Occupations
    physicisttheoretical physicistmathematicianuniversity teacher
    Biography

    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.

  84. Hans Modrow

    Hans Modrow
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1928-2023 (aged 95)
    Occupations
    economistpolitician
    Biography

    Hans Modrow was a German politician best known as the last communist premier of East Germany.

  85. Alfred von Schlieffen

    Alfred von Schlieffen
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1833-1913 (aged 80)
    Occupations
    military officerpolitician
    Biography

    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.

  86. Nicolae Iorga

    Nicolae Iorga
    Born in
    Romania Flag Romania
    Years
    1871-1940 (aged 69)
    Occupations
    historiangeopolitical analystliterary historianorientalisttranslator
    Biography

    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.

  87. Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi

    Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1804-1851 (aged 47)
    Occupations
    university teacherphysicistmathematician
    Biography

    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.

  88. Franz Brentano

    Franz Brentano
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1838-1917 (aged 79)
    Occupations
    university teacherpsychologistphilosopher
    Biography

    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.

  89. Azmi Bishara

    Azmi Bishara
    Born in
    Israel Flag Israel
    Years
    1956-.. (age 68)
    Occupations
    novelistpoliticianuniversity teacherphilosopher
    Biography

    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.

  90. Bernhard Grzimek

    Bernhard Grzimek
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1909-1987 (aged 78)
    Occupations
    writertelevision presenterfilm directorphotographerveterinarian
    Biography

    Bernhard Klemens Maria Grzimek was a German zoo director, zoologist, book author, editor, and animal conservationist in postwar West Germany.

  91. Walter Hallstein

    Walter Hallstein
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1901-1982 (aged 81)
    Occupations
    juristpoliticianuniversity teacherdiplomat
    Biography

    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.

  92. Albert A. Michelson

    Albert A. Michelson
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1852-1931 (aged 79)
    Occupations
    university teacherphysicistmilitary officer
    Biography

    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.

  93. Sven Hedin

    Sven Hedin
    Born in
    Sweden Flag Sweden
    Years
    1865-1952 (aged 87)
    Occupations
    botanistpoliticianexplorergeologistnon-fiction writer
    Biography

    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.

  94. Tamara Bunke

    Tamara Bunke
    Born in
    Argentina Flag Argentina
    Years
    1937-1967 (aged 30)
    Occupations
    partisantranslatorrevolutionaryspyjournalist
    Biography

    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.

  95. Alfred Döblin

    Alfred Döblin
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1878-1957 (aged 79)
    Occupations
    neurologistwriterpoetscience fiction writernovelist
    Biography

    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.

  96. Carl Ritter

    Carl Ritter
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1779-1859 (aged 80)
    Occupations
    explorergeographeruniversity teacherbotanist
    Biography

    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.

  97. Richard Dedekind

    Richard Dedekind
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1831-1916 (aged 85)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    Studied in 1852-1854
    Occupations
    university teacherphilosophermathematician
    Biography

    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.

  98. Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff

    Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff
    Awards
    Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1901
    Born in
    Netherlands Flag Netherlands
    Years
    1852-1911 (aged 59)
    Occupations
    university teacherprofessorphysicistchemiststereochemist
    Biography

    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.

  99. Stefan George

    Stefan George
    Born in
    Germany Flag Germany
    Years
    1868-1933 (aged 65)
    Enrolled in the Humboldt University of Berlin
    Studied in 1889
    Occupations
    poettranslatorwriterlinguist
    Biography

    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.

  100. Helmuth James Graf von Moltke

    Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
    Born in
    Poland Flag Poland
    Years
    1907-1945 (aged 38)
    Occupations
    resistance fighterlawyerjurist
    Biography

    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.