Notable Alumni of Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main [Sorted List]

1. Gerhard Hund

1932-2024 (aged 92)

business informatician Wikimedian chess player mathematician photographer

Gerhard Friedrich Hund was a German chess player, mathematician and computer scientist.

2. Friedwardt Winterberg

1929-. (aged 97)

physicist university teacher

Friedwardt Winterberg is a German-American theoretical physicist and was a research professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is known for his research in areas spanning general relativity, Planck scale physics, nuclear fusion, and plasmas. His work in nuclear rocket propulsion earned him the 1979 Hermann Oberth Gold Medal of the Wernher von Braun International Space Flight Foundation and...

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3. Hans Matthöfer

1925-2009 (aged 84)

politician

Hans Hermann Matthöfer was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

4. Albrecht Wellmer

1933-2018 (aged 85)

university teacher philosopher sociologist

Albrecht Wellmer was a German philosopher at the Freie Universität Berlin.

5. Shelomo Dov Goitein

1900-1985 (aged 85)

arabist orientalist university teacher educator ethnographer

Shelomo Dov Goitein was a German-Jewish ethnographer, historian and Arabist known for his research on Jewish life in the Islamic Middle Ages, and particularly on the Cairo Geniza.

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6. Tabea Rößner

1966-. (aged 60)

politician

Tabea Rößner is a German journalist and politician of Alliance 90/The Greens who served as a member of the Bundestag from 2009 to 2025. In 2019, she unsuccessfully ran as the Green Party's candidate for Mayor of Mainz.

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7. Hilde Mangold

1898-1924 (aged 26)

biologist

Hilde Mangold was a German embryologist who was best known for her 1923 dissertation which was the foundation for her mentor, Hans Spemann's, 1935 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the embryonic organizer, "one of the very few doctoral theses in biology that have directly resulted in the awarding of a Nobel Prize". The general effect...

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8. S. H. Foulkes

1898-1976 (aged 78)

psychiatrist psychoanalyst

S. H. Foulkes was a German-British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He developed a theory of group behaviour that led to his founding of group analysis, a variant of group therapy. He initiated the Group Analytic Society, and the Institute of Group Analysis (IGA) in London. In 1933, owing to his Jewish and Welsh descent, Foulkes emigrated to England. In 1938, he...

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9. Norbert Walter

1944-2012 (aged 68)

university teacher economist banker

Norbert Walter was a German economist. He was the chief economist of Deutsche Bank from 1990 to 2009.

10. Ernst Lemmer

1898-1970 (aged 72)

trade unionist federal minister journalist correspondent minister

Ernst Lemmer was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and former member of the German Bundestag.

11. Jan Costin Wagner

1972-. (aged 54)

writer musician

Jan Costin Wagner is a German crime fiction writer. His novels are set in Finland and feature detective Kimmo Joentaa.

12. Silvia Bovenschen

1946-2017 (aged 71)

literary scholar essayist writer

Silvia Bovenschen was a German feminist literary critic, author and essayist.

13. Thomas Hettche

1964-. (aged 62)

germanist writer translator literary scholar novelist

Thomas Hettche is a German author.

14. Gerd Koenen

1944-. (aged 82)

opinion journalist historian of Modern Age writer historian journalist

Gerd Koenen is a German historian and former communist politician.

15. Patrick Breyer

1977-. (aged 49)

politician judge

Patrick Breyer is a German digital rights activist, jurist, Pirate Party Germany politician, and from 2019 to 2024, Member of the European Parliament (MEP). From 2012 to 2017 he was a member of the state parliament of Schleswig-Holstein and from April 2016 until the end of the legislative period he was also the leader of the Pirate group in that...

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16. Alexander R. Todd, Baron Todd

1907-1997 (aged 90)

politician university teacher physicist chemist biochemist

Alexander Robertus Todd, Baron Todd was a British biochemist whose research on the structure and synthesis of nucleotides, nucleosides, and nucleotide coenzymes gained him the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1957.

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17. Filiz Polat

1978-. (aged 48)

politician

Filiz Polat is a German politician for the Alliance 90/The Greens.

18. Otto Bayer

1902-1982 (aged 80)

engineer chemist

Otto Bayer was a German industrial chemist at IG Farben who was head of the research group that in 1937 discovered the polyaddition for the synthesis of polyurethanes out of poly-isocyanate and polyol.

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19. Ursula Lehr

1930-2022 (aged 92)

gerontologist psychologist university teacher politician

Ursula Lehr, née Leipold, was a German academic, age researcher and politician. She was the first professor of gerontology in Germany, with a chair at the University of Heidelberg from 1986. She served as federal minister of youth, family, women and health from 1988 to 1991. She was a member of the Bundestag from 1990 to 1994. Returning to science,...

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20. Chaim Cohn

1911-2002 (aged 91)

pedagogue jurist university teacher advocate lawyer

Haim Herman Cohn was an Israeli jurist and politician.

21. Freda Meissner-Blau

1927-2015 (aged 88)

environmentalist politician lecturer journalist nurse

Freda Meissner-Blau was an Austrian politician, activist, and prominent figurehead in the Austrian environmental movement. She was a founder and the federal spokesperson of the Austrian Green Party.

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22. Žarko Puhovski

1946-. (aged 80)

human rights defender philosopher political scientist university teacher

Žarko Puhovski is a Croatian professor, political analyst, philosopher and intellectual, former president of the Croatian Helsinki Committee.

23. Michaela Noll

1959-. (aged 67)

lawyer politician

Michaela Marion Noll is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as a member of the Bundestag from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia from 2002 until 2021.

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24. Dan Diner

1946-. (aged 80)

historian writer university teacher

Dan Diner is an Israeli-German historian and political writer, born in Munich. He is emeritus professor of modern history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Diner is Chair of the Alfred Landecker Foundation and its Governing Council. Formerly he served as Director of the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish history and Jewish culture, and professor at the historical seminary of...

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25. Wolfgang Bernhard

1960-. (aged 66)

businessperson

Wolfgang Bernhard is a German business executive known as a former member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG. He served as the former President and COO of Chrysler from 2000 to 2004.

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26. Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt

1901-1986 (aged 85)

jurist judge politician

Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). She was Federal Minister of Health in the German Cabinet from 1961 to 1966, the first woman to hold a Ministerial position in Germany.

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27. Katja Leikert

1975-. (aged 51)

politician political scientist

Katja Isabel Leikert is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag (Germany's national parliament) since 2013, representing the Hanau electoral district. Within the CDU/CSU Bundestag Group, parliamentary colleagues elected her one of the alliance's eleven Bundestag deputy chairpersons in January 2018.

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28. Wilhelm Genazino

1943-2018 (aged 75)

essayist novelist writer journalist playwright

Wilhelm Genazino was a German journalist and author. He worked first as a journalist for the satirical magazine pardon and for Lesezeichen. From the early 1970s, he was a freelance writer who became known for a trilogy of novels, Abschaffel-Trilogie, completed in 1979. It was followed by more novels and two plays. Among his many awards is the prestigious Georg...

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29. Saskia Bartusiak

1982-. (aged 44)

association football player association football coach

Saskia Bartusiak is a German retired footballer. She played as a centre back.

30. Pete Namlook

1960-2012 (aged 52)

composer record producer

Peter Kuhlmann [ˈkuːlmaːn], known professionally as Pete Namlook ("Namlook" is "Koolman", a phonetic rendering of his real name spelled backwards) was a German ambient and electronic music producer and composer. One music commentator noted that Namlook was "... comfortably the most prolific and arguably the best of the new wave of ambient/house artists of the early 1990s". Namlook himself noted,...

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31. Meşale Tolu

1984-. (aged 42)

journalist

Meşale Tolu Çorlu is a German journalist and translator of Kurdish descent. She was arrested in Turkey for allegations on spreading propaganda for an illegal organization and her membership in the organization.

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32. Alfred Schmidt

1931-2012 (aged 81)

translator philosopher sociologist university teacher

Alfred Schmidt was a German philosopher.

33. Peter Stein

1937-. (aged 89)

theatrical director film director actor screenwriter

Peter Stein is a German theatre and opera director who established himself at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, a company that he brought to the forefront of German theatre.

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34. Friedrich Pollock

1894-1970 (aged 76)

economist philosopher sociologist

Friedrich Pollock was a German social scientist and philosopher. He was one of the founders of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, and a member of the Frankfurt School of Marxist theory.

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35. Heinz Riesenhuber

1935-. (aged 91)

politician chemist

Heinz Friedrich Ruppert Riesenhuber is a German politician (CDU) who served as Minister of Scientific Research under Chancellor Helmut Kohl from 1982 to 1993.

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36. Negasso Gidada

1943-2019 (aged 76)

historian minister politician

Negasso Gidada Solon was an Ethiopian politician who was the president of Ethiopia from 1995 until 2001.

37. Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul

1942-. (aged 84)

teacher politician

Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul is a German politician and a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) since 1965.

38. Wolfgang Benz

1941-. (aged 85)

historian opinion journalist university teacher writer

Wolfgang Benz is a German historian and antisemitism researcher. He was professor and the director of the Center for Research on Antisemitism of the Technische Universität Berlin from 1990 to 2011. He is considered to be one of the most renowned and well-known historians in modern Germany, and one of the foremost scholars on antisemitism studies. He has been referred...

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39. Joachim Kaiser

1928-2017 (aged 89)

literary critic university teacher writer journalist musicologist

Joachim Kaiser was a German musicologist, critic, and journalist. He worked as a senior editor and cultural critic for the Süddeutsche Zeitung from 1959, contributing reviews and articles on music, literature, and theatre. From 1977 to 1996, he was a professor of music history at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart.

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40. Bodo Kirchhoff

1948-. (aged 78)

writer screenwriter

Bodo Kirchhoff is a German writer and novelist. He was born in Hamburg before moving with his family to Kirchzarten in the Black Forest in 1955, which he describes as a culture shock. In addition to writing literary fiction, he has worked on various projects for German television, such as long-runner Tatort, and has written movie screenplays. One of his...

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41. Gerd Binnig

1947-. (aged 79)

physicist

Gerd Karl Binnig is a German physicist. He is most famous for having won the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Heinrich Rohrer in 1986 for the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope.

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42. Karl August Wittfogel

1896-1988 (aged 92)

playwright economist historian sociologist university teacher

Karl August Wittfogel was a German-American playwright, historian, and sinologist. He was originally a Marxist and an active member of the Communist Party of Germany, but after the Second World War, he was an equally fierce anticommunist.

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43. Jörg Baberowski

1961-. (aged 65)

historian university teacher

Jörg Baberowski is a German historian and Professor of Eastern European History at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He studies the history of the Soviet Union and Stalinist violence. Baberowski earlier served as Director of the Historical Institute and Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy I at Humboldt University.

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44. Peter Grünberg

1939-2018 (aged 79)

researcher physicist teacher university teacher

Peter Andreas Grünberg was a German physicist, and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his discovery with Albert Fert of giant magnetoresistance which brought about a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disk drives.

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45. Andrea Ypsilanti

1957-. (aged 69)

politician flight attendant

Andrea Ypsilanti is a German politician.

46. Daniela Schadt

1960-. (aged 66)

journalist

Daniela Schadt is a German journalist, and, since 2000, the domestic partner of Joachim Gauck, former president of Germany, who has been legally married since 1959 to Gerhild Radtke. She has sometimes been referred to by the media as "First Lady".

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47. Wolfgang Streeck

1946-. (aged 80)

university teacher economic sociologist sociologist

Wolfgang Streeck is a German economic sociologist and emeritus director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne.

48. Heinz Nixdorf

1925-1986 (aged 61)

entrepreneur engineer

Heinz Nixdorf was a German computing pioneer, businessman and founder of Nixdorf Computer AG.

49. Bassam Tibi

1944-. (aged 82)

university teacher philosopher writer

Bassam Tibi, is a Syrian-born German political scientist and professor of international relations specializing in Islamic studies and Middle Eastern studies. He was born in 1944 in Damascus, Syria to an aristocratic family, and moved to West Germany in 1962, where he later became a naturalized citizen in 1976.

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50. Otto Stern

1888-1969 (aged 81)

university teacher chemist physicist

Otto Stern was a German-American experimental physical chemist. He is the second most nominated person for a Nobel Prize, with 82 nominations during the years 1925–1945. In 1943, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his contribution to the development of the molecular ray method and his discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton".

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51. Nicola Beer

1970-. (aged 56)

lawyer politician

Nicola Beer is a German lawyer and politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) who has been serving as a vice president of the European Investment Bank since 2024, under the leadership of president Nadia Calviño.

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52. Karin Strenz

1967-2021 (aged 54)

politician

Karin Strenz was a German politician who represented the CDU. Strenz served as a member of the Bundestag for the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern between 2009 and 2021.

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53. Boris Rhein

1972-. (aged 54)

politician

Boris Rhein is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as Minister-President of Hesse since 2022. He has been active in the politics of Hesse since the late 1990s. After being elected to the Landtag of Hesse in 1999, he served as the state's Minister for the Interior from 2010 until 2014...

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54. Reinhard Selten

1930-2016 (aged 86)

mathematician economist university teacher Esperantist

Reinhard Justus Reginald Selten was a German economist, who won the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (shared with John Harsanyi and John Nash). He is also well known for his work in bounded rationality and can be considered one of the founding fathers of experimental economics.

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55. Hermann Otto Solms

1940-. (aged 86)

politician entrepreneur treasurer

Hermann Otto Solms is a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP).

56. Thomas Metzinger

1958-. (aged 68)

university teacher philosopher writer

Thomas Metzinger is a German philosopher and Professor Emeritus of theoretical philosophy at the University of Mainz. His primary research areas include philosophy of mind, philosophy of neuroscience, and applied ethics, particularly focusing on neurotechnology, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. He has argued in his book Being No One that the phenomenal self is a mental construct created by the...

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57. Herfried Münkler

1951-. (aged 75)

university teacher political scientist

Herfried Münkler is a German political scientist. He is a Professor of Political Theory at Humboldt University in Berlin. Münkler is a regular commentator on global affairs in the German-language media and author of numerous books on the history of political ideas (German: Ideengeschichte), on state-building and on the theory of war, such as "Machiavelli" (1982), "Gewalt und Ordnung" (1992),...

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58. Marius Goring

1912-1998 (aged 86)

television actor stage actor actor film actor

Marius Re Goring CBE FRSL was an English stage and screen actor. He often portrayed urbane and morally-grey characters, and is best remembered for the four films he made with Powell & Pressburger, particularly as Conductor 71 in A Matter of Life and Death and as Julian Craster in The Red Shoes. He is also known for playing the titular...

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59. Jana Maláčová

1981-. (aged 45)

economist political scientist politician

Jana Maláčová is a Czech politician who served as the leader of the Social Democracy party from October 2024 to December 2025. In July 2018 she took up the post as the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in the Czech Republic in the Government led by Andrej Babiš. Between March 2019 and December 2021 she was also deputy chairperson...

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60. Roland Koch

1958-. (aged 68)

legal counselor business executive lawyer politician

Roland Koch is a German jurist and former conservative politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He was the 7th Minister President of Hesse from 7 April 1999, immediately becoming the 53rd President of the Bundesrat, completing the term begun by his predecessor as Minister President, Hans Eichel, until his resignation on 31 August 2010. During his time in office,...

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61. Aby Rosen

1960-. (aged 66)

art collector

Aby Rosen is a German and American real estate and hospitality tycoon living in New York City. He co-founded RFR Holding, which owns a portfolio of 93 properties valued over $15.5 billion in cities including New York City, Miami, Las Vegas, and Tel Aviv. Highlights include the Seagram Building, W South Beach, The Jaffa Tel Aviv, Gramercy Park Hotel, Paramount...

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62. Carolin Emcke

1967-. (aged 59)

LGBTQ rights activist columnist writer non-fiction writer journalist

Carolin Emcke is a German author and journalist who worked for Der Spiegel from 1998 to 2006, often writing from areas of conflicts. From 2007 to 2014, she worked as an international reporter for Die Zeit. Her book Echoes of Violence – Letters from a War Reporter was published in 2007 at Princeton University Press. In 2008, she published Stumme...

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63. Michael Roth

1936-2019 (aged 83)

engineer

Michael Helmut Roth is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who served as a member of the German Bundestag from 1998 to 2025.

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64. Tarek Al-Wazir

1971-. (aged 55)

council member political scientist minister politician

Tarek Mohammed Al-Wazir is a German politician of Alliance '90/The Greens who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag since the 2025 elections, representing the Offenbach electoral district.

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65. Peter Tauber

1974-. (aged 52)

historian politician

Peter Michael Tauber is a former German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as a member of the Bundestag from 2009 to 2021. From 16 December 2013 to 26 February 2018 he served as Secretary General of the CDU under the leadership of its chairwoman Angela Merkel.

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66. Max von Laue

1879-1960 (aged 81)

university teacher crystallographer physicist

Max Theodor Felix von Laue was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 "for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals".

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67. Alexander Kluge

1932-. (aged 94)

film director video artist director lawyer poet lawyer

Alexander Kluge is a German author, philosopher, academic and film director.

68. Giulia Enders

1990-. (aged 36)

physician writer non-fiction writer

Giulia Enders is a German writer and scientist whose first book Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ, has sold more than two million copies in Germany and was published in English, French (more than one million copies sold), Italian, Spanish, Arabic and other translations in 2015.

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69. Carl Zuckmayer

1896-1977 (aged 81)

screenwriter writer playwright film screenwriter poet

Carl Zuckmayer was a German writer and playwright. His older brother was the pedagogue, composer, conductor, and pianist Eduard Zuckmayer.

70. Bettina Stark-Watzinger

1968-. (aged 58)

politician political economist

Bettina Stark-Watzinger is a German economist and politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) who served as Minister of Education and Research in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's cabinet from 2021 to 2024. She was a member of the Bundestag from the state of Hesse from 2017 to 2025.

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71. Kurt Biedenkopf

1930-2021 (aged 91)

university teacher jurist politician

Kurt Hans Biedenkopf was a German jurist, academic teacher and politician of the Christian-Democratic Union (CDU) party. He was rector of the Ruhr University Bochum.

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72. Marion Gräfin Dönhoff

1909-2002 (aged 93)

editor-in-chief journalist opinion journalist resistance fighter

Marion Hedda Ilse Gräfin von Dönhoff was a German journalist and publisher who participated in the resistance against Nazism, along with Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, Peter Yorck von Wartenburg, and Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. After the war, she became one of Germany's leading journalists and intellectuals, working for over 55 years as an editor and later publisher of...

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73. Hans-Hermann Hoppe

1949-. (aged 77)

writer economist philosopher university teacher

Hans-Hermann Hoppe is a German-American academic associated with Austrian School economics, anarcho-capitalism, right-wing libertarianism, and opposition to democracy. From 1986 until 2008 he was professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He is a senior fellow of the Mises Institute think tank. In 2006 he emigrated to Turkey and founded the Property and Freedom Society. Some...

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74. Janine Wissler

1981-. (aged 45)

politician political scientist

Janine Natalie Wißler, known professionally as Janine Wissler, is a German politician who has been co-chairwoman of The Left and member of the Bundestag for Hesse since 2021. Prior to that, she served as member of the Landtag of Hesse since 2008 and leader of the state parliamentary group since 2009, including as sole leader since 2014, as well as...

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75. Sabine Hossenfelder

1976-. (aged 50)

scientist physicist writer YouTuber science communicator

Sabine Karin Doris Hossenfelder is a German theoretical physicist, science communicator, writer and YouTuber. After working as an academic physicist for two decades, Hossenfelder rose to prominence on YouTube in the early 2020s, gaining over 1.7 million subscribers by 2025. Hossenfelder is known for her controversial criticism of modern physics research.

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76. Ludwig Erhard

1897-1977 (aged 80)

university teacher economist politician

Ludwig Wilhelm Erhard was a German politician and economist who served as the second chancellor of West Germany from 1963 until 1966. Affiliated with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he is known for leading the West German postwar economic reforms and economic recovery (Wirtschaftswunder, German for "economic miracle") in his role as Minister of Economic Affairs under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer...

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77. Nancy Faeser

1970-. (aged 56)

jurist lawyer politician

Nancy Faeser is a German lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), served as Federal Minister of the Interior and Community in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's cabinet from 2021 to 2025. She was a member of the State Parliament of Hesse from the 2003 elections until 2021. In 2019, she became the party's leader in Hesse, as well as...

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78. Michel Friedman

1956-. (aged 70)

jurist lawyer opinion journalist politician journalist

Julien Michel Friedman is a German author, former CDU politician, and talk show host. From 2000 to 2003, Friedman was vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and president of the European Jewish Congress from 2001 to 2003, when he resigned after being convicted in a case involving forced prostitution and cocaine usage. From 1998 to 2003,...

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79. Christian Drosten

1972-. (aged 54)

university teacher virologist

Christian Heinrich Maria Drosten is a German virologist whose field of research broadly concerns RNA-viruses, specifically in the areas of ecology, epidemiology and evolution of novel viruses (emergent viruses). During the COVID-19 pandemic, Drosten's extensive work on previously described Coronaviruses (MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV) enabled him and his laboratory to notably contribute to the efforts to identify, monitor and manage the spread...

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80. Jürgen Klopp

1967-. (aged 59)

association football player association football coach

Jürgen Norbert Klopp is a German football executive, former manager and former player. Widely regarded as one of the greatest managers of all time, he has been Head of Global Soccer for Red Bull GmbH since January 2025.

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81. Peter Drucker

1909-2005 (aged 96)

university teacher columnist writer philosopher economist

Peter Ferdinand Drucker was an Austrian American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of modern management theory. He was also a leader in the development of management education, and contributed to the popularization of the concepts known as management by objectives and self-control, and he has been described as "the champion of...

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82. Mike Josef

1983-. (aged 43)

politician political scientist

Mike Josef is a German politician who has served as the Lord Mayor of Frankfurt am Main since May 2023.

83. Cora Stephan

1951-. (aged 75)

writer translator journalist

Cora Stephan is a German-speaking writer and essayist.

84. Rüdiger Safranski

1945-. (aged 81)

writer literary historian television presenter philosopher

Rüdiger Safranski is a German philosopher and author.

85. Benjamin List

1968-. (aged 58)

university teacher chemist scientist

Benjamin List is a German chemist who is one of the directors of the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research and professor of organic chemistry at the University of Cologne. He co-developed organocatalysis, a method of accelerating chemical reactions and making them more efficient. He shared the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with David MacMillan "for the development of asymmetric...

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86. Angela Davis

1944-. (aged 82)

university teacher women's rights activist human rights defender political prisoner writer

Angela Yvonne Davis is an American Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, author and social theorist. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness 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...

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87. Charlotte Link

1963-. (aged 63)

writer children's writer

Charlotte Link is a German writer. She is among the most successful contemporary authors writing in German.

88. Hans Bethe

1906-2005 (aged 99)

physicist university teacher

Hans Albrecht Eduard Bethe was a German-American physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics and solid-state physics, and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967 for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. For most of his career, Bethe was a professor at Cornell University.

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89. Lorentzos Mavilis

1860-1912 (aged 52)

chess player chess composer poet translator politician

Lorentzos Mavilis was a Greek sonneteer, war poet, and chess problems composer. He is best known for his sonnets.

90. Peter Duesberg

1936-2026 (aged 90)

university teacher chemist virologist

Peter Heinz Hermann Duesberg was a German-American molecular biologist and a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known for his early research into the genetic aspects of cancer. He was a proponent of AIDS denialism, the claim that HIV does not cause AIDS.

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91. Katja von Garnier

1966-. (aged 60)

screenwriter director film director

Katja von Garnier is a German film director.

92. Erich Fromm

1900-1980 (aged 80)

economist university teacher sociologist philosopher psychologist

Erich Seligmann Fromm was a German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the United States. He was one of the founders of The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in New York City and was associated with the Frankfurt School of...

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93. Helmut Kohl

1930-2017 (aged 87)

historian political scientist politician Chancellor of Germany

Helmut Josef Michael Kohl was a German politician who served as chancellor of Germany and governed the Federal Republic from 1982 to 1998. He was leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998 and oversaw the end of the Cold War, the German reunification and the creation of the European Union (EU). Kohl's 16-year tenure is the...

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94. Erhard Eppler

1926-2019 (aged 93)

politician

Erhard Eppler was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and founder of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ). He studied English, German and history in Frankfurt, Bern and Tübingen, achieved a PhD and worked as a teacher. He met Gustav Heinemann in the late 1940s, who became a role model. Eppler was a member of the...

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95. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard

1942-. (aged 84)

biologist university teacher biochemist psychologist geneticist

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard ( German pronunciation: [kʁɪsˈti̯anə ˈnʏslaɪ̯n ˈfɔlˌhaʁt]; born 20 October 1942) is a German developmental biologist and a 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate. She is the only woman from Germany to have received a Nobel Prize in the sciences.

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96. Günter Blobel

1936-2018 (aged 82)

university teacher biologist cell biologist biochemist physician

Günter Blobel was a Silesian German and American biologist and 1999 Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology for the discovery that proteins have intrinsic signals that govern their transport and localization in the cell.

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97. Joachim Fest

1926-2006 (aged 80)

historian film director journalist biographer historian of Modern Age

Joachim Clemens Fest was a German historian, journalist, critic and editor who was best known for his writings and public commentary on Nazi Germany, including a biography of Adolf Hitler and books about Albert Speer and German resistance to Nazism. He was a leading figure in the debate among German historians about the Nazi era.

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98. Max Horkheimer

1895-1973 (aged 78)

literary critic university teacher philosopher pedagogue sociologist

Max Horkheimer was a German philosopher and sociologist best known for his role in developing critical theory as director of the Institute for Social Research, commonly associated with the Frankfurt School.

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99. Horst Ludwig Störmer

1949-. (aged 77)

physicist university teacher

Horst Ludwig Störmer is a German physicist, Nobel laureate and emeritus professor at Columbia University. He was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Daniel Tsui and Robert Laughlin "for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations" (the fractional quantum Hall effect). He and Tsui were working at Bell Labs at the...

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100. Santiago Castro-Gómez

1958-. (aged 68)

university teacher philosopher writer

Santiago Castro-Gómez is a Colombian philosopher, a professor at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and the former director of the Pensar Institute in Bogotá.

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