Notable Alumni of Heidelberg University – Germany [Sorted List]

1. Konstantin von Notz

1971-. (aged 55)

jurist lawyer politician

Konstantin von Notz is a German lawyer and politician of the Alliance 90/The Greens party who has been a member of the Bundestag since 2009.

2. Georg Jellinek

1851-1911 (aged 60)

university teacher judge philosopher jurist sociologist

Georg Jellinek was a German public lawyer and was considered to be "the exponent of public law in Austria".

3. Friedrich Hebbel

1813-1863 (aged 50)

writer playwright poet poet lawyer

Christian Friedrich Hebbel was a German poet and dramatist.

4. Othniel Charles Marsh

1831-1899 (aged 68)

university teacher paleontologist zoologist

Othniel Charles Marsh was an American professor of paleontology. A prolific fossil collector, Marsh was one of the preeminent paleontologists of the nineteenth century. Among his legacies are the discovery or description of dozens of new species—including Stegosaurus and Triceratops—and theories on the origins of birds. He spent his academic career at Yale College and was president of the National...

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5. Gustav Landauer

1870-1919 (aged 49)

editing staff dramaturge theatre critic journalist writer

Gustav Landauer was a German anarchist writer and revolutionary. As one of the leading theorists of anarchism in Germany at the turn of the 20th century, he advocated a form of libertarian socialism that rejected both capitalism and Marxist historical materialism. Landauer's philosophy synthesized anarchism with romanticism, mysticism, and a non-racist, communitarian interpretation of völkisch thought, emphasizing spiritual renewal and...

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6. Friedrich II, Grand Duke of Baden

1857-1928 (aged 71)

monarch

Frederick II was the last sovereign Grand Duke of Baden, reigning from 1907 until the abolition of the German monarchies in 1918. The Weimar-era state of Baden originated from the area of the Grand Duchy of Baden. He was a first cousin of Wilhelm II, a second cousin of Alexander III of Russia, and an uncle of Gustaf VI Adolf.

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7. Harald zur Hausen

1936-2023 (aged 87)

physician virologist oncologist university teacher

Harald zur Hausen NAS EASA APS was a German virologist. He carried out research on cervical cancer and discovered the role of papilloma viruses in cervical cancer, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2008. He was chairman of the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) in Heidelberg.

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8. Golineh Atai

1974-. (aged 52)

journalist correspondent

Golineh Atai is a German journalist and TV-correspondent. She is known in particular as a Russia expert.

9. Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk

1851-1914 (aged 63)

university teacher economist politician

Eugen Böhm Ritter von Bawerk was an Austrian-school intellectual and political economist who served intermittently as the Minister of Finance of Austria between 1895 and 1904. Böhm-Bawerk is noted for the theory of Roundaboutness, which emphasizes the time intensity, not only capital intensity, of investments in capital goods to increase productivity. He advanced an interest rate theory centered on time...

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10. William Backhouse Astor, Sr

1792-1875 (aged 83)

entrepreneur

William Backhouse Astor Sr. was an American business magnate who inherited most of his father John Jacob Astor's fortune. He worked as a partner in his father's successful export business. His massive investment in Manhattan real estate enabled major donations to the Astor Library in the East Village, which became the New York Public Library.

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11. Hans Werner Henze

1926-2012 (aged 86)

film score composer composer university teacher musicologist jazz musician

Hans Werner Henze was a German composer. His large oeuvre is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as traditional schools of German composition. In particular, his stage works reflect "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life".

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12. Jan Assmann

1938-2024 (aged 86)

archaeologist egyptologist university teacher

Johann Christoph "Jan" Assmann was a German Egyptologist, cultural historian, and religion scholar.

13. Manfred Wörner

1934-1994 (aged 60)

diplomat jurist politician

Manfred Hermann Wörner was a German politician and diplomat. He served as the defense minister of West Germany between 1982 and 1988. He then served as the seventh Secretary General of NATO from 1988 to 1994. His term as Secretary General saw the end of the Cold War and the German reunification. Whilst serving in that position, he was diagnosed...

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14. Friedrich Rückert

1788-1866 (aged 78)

poet lawyer poet writer translator orientalist

Johann Michael Friedrich Rückert was a German poet, translator, and professor of Oriental languages.

15. Heike Kamerlingh Onnes

1853-1926 (aged 73)

inventor physicist scientist university teacher

Heike Kamerlingh Onnes was a Dutch experimental physicist who became the first to liquefy helium, cooling it to near 1.5 kelvin (K). For this work, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1913.

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16. Moritz Schlick

1882-1936 (aged 54)

physicist philosopher of science philosopher university teacher

Friedrich Albert Moritz Schlick was a German philosopher, physicist, and the founding father of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle. He was murdered by a former student, Johann Nelböck, in 1936.

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17. Juan Carlos Monedero

1963-. (aged 63)

political scientist professor politician

Juan Carlos Monedero Fernández-Gala is a Spanish political scientist and writer. He is a professor at the Complutense University of Madrid and a host of La Tuerka. He was one of the leading members of Podemos until he resigned in April 2015.

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18. Saša Stanišić

1978-. (aged 48)

writer children's writer novelist screenwriter

Saša Stanišić is a Bosnian-German writer.

19. Paweł Strzelecki

1797-1873 (aged 76)

traveler geologist discoverer scientist meteorologist

Sir Paweł Edmund Strzelecki KCMG CB FRS FRGS DCL, also known as Paul Edmund de Strzelecki and Sir Paul Strzelecki, was a Polish explorer, geologist, humanitarian, environmentalist, nobleman, scientist, businessman and philanthropist who in 1845 also became a British subject.

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20. James Franck

1882-1964 (aged 82)

university teacher chemist physicist

James Franck was a German–American atomic physicist who shared the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics with Gustav Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom."

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21. Rudolf von Jhering

1818-1892 (aged 74)

jurist university teacher

Caspar Rudolph Ritter von Jhering was a German jurist. He is best known for his 1872 book Der Kampf ums Recht (The Struggle for Law), as a legal scholar, and as the founder of a modern sociological and historical school of law. His ideas were important to the subsequent development of the "jurisprudence of interests" in Germany.

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22. Stephan Harbarth

1971-. (aged 55)

jurist lawyer judge politician

Stephan Harbarth is the president of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (Bundesverfassungsgericht), former German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). From 2009 until 2018 he served as member of the Bundestag. On 22 November 2018 he was elected to the Federal Constitutional Court by the Bundestag. He succeeded Ferdinand Kirchhof and serves in the court's first...

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23. Karl Drais

1785-1851 (aged 66)

forester land surveyor inventor designer

Karl Freiherr von Drais was a noble German forest official and significant inventor in the Biedermeier period. He is regarded as "the father" and as the inventor of the bicycle.

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24. Louis Agassiz

1807-1873 (aged 66)

philosopher writer botanical collector scientific collector physical geographer

Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz FRS FRSE was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history.

25. Thomas Strobl

1960-. (aged 66)

lawyer politician

Thomas Strobl is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as Deputy Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg since 2016.

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26. Karl Mannheim

1893-1947 (aged 54)

university teacher writer sociologist

Karl Mannheim was a Hungarian sociologist and a key figure in classical sociology as well as one of the founders of the sociology of knowledge. Mannheim is best known for his book Ideology and Utopia (1929/1936), in which he distinguishes between partial and total ideologies, the latter representing comprehensive worldviews distinctive to particular social groups, and also between ideologies that...

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27. Alexandre Kojève

1902-1968 (aged 66)

university teacher philosopher politician

Alexandre Kojève was a Russian-born French philosopher and international civil servant whose philosophical seminars had some influence on 20th-century French philosophy, particularly via his integration of Hegelian concepts into twentieth-century continental philosophy.

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28. Sasha Chorny

1880-1932 (aged 52)

poet writer prose writer children's writer opinion journalist

Alexander Mikhailovich Glikberg, better known as Sasha Chorny or Cherny (Russian: Са́ша Чёрный, IPA: [ˈsaʂə ˈtɕɵrnɨj] ), was a Russian poet, satirist and children's writer.

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29. Anna Seghers

1900-1983 (aged 83)

novelist resistance fighter writer

Anna Reiling, known by the pen name Anna Seghers, was a German writer. She was notable for exploring and depicting the moral experience of the Second World War. Born into a Jewish family and married to a Hungarian Communist, Seghers escaped Nazi-controlled territory through wartime France. She was granted a visa and gained ship's passage to Mexico, where she lived...

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30. Hans-Christian Ströbele

1939-2022 (aged 83)

jurist lawyer politician

Hans-Christian Ströbele was a German politician and lawyer. He was a member of Alliance 90/The Greens, the German green party.

31. Gottfried Keller

1819-1890 (aged 71)

novelist painter writer chancery manager poet

Gottfried Keller was a Swiss poet and writer of German literature. Best known for his novel Green Henry (German: Der grüne Heinrich) and his cycle of novellas called Seldwyla Folks (Die Leute von Seldwyla), he became one of the most popular narrators of literary realism in the late 19th century.

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32. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach

1870-1950 (aged 80)

jurist entrepreneur factory owner banker politician

Gustav Georg Friedrich Maria Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was a German diplomat and industrialist. From 1909 to 1945, he headed Friedrich Krupp AG, a heavy industry conglomerate, and led the company through two world wars along with his son Alfried, providing significant weapons and materials for the German war effort.

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33. Friedrich Ratzel

1844-1904 (aged 60)

political scientist geographer biologist university teacher geopolitical analyst

Friedrich Ratzel was a German geographer and ethnographer, notable for first using the term Lebensraum ("living space") in the sense that the National Socialists later would.

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34. Marcus Pretzell

1973-. (aged 53)

lawyer politician

Marcus Pretzell is a German politician and was Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Germany from 2016 to 2019. He was a member of the Alternative for Germany, part of the Europe of Nations and Freedom and was a member of The Blue Party.

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35. Jerome Kern

1885-1945 (aged 60)

screenwriter songwriter coin collecting film score composer composer

Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A Fine Romance", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "The Song...

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36. Josiah Willard Gibbs

1839-1903 (aged 64)

chemist theoretical physicist physicist university teacher thermodynamicist

Josiah Willard Gibbs was an American mechanical engineer and scientist who made fundamental theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics was instrumental in transforming physical chemistry into a rigorous deductive science. Together with James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann, he created statistical mechanics (a term that he coined), explaining the laws of thermodynamics...

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37. Michael Ellis DeBakey

1908-2008 (aged 100)

university teacher cardiac surgeon surgeon

Michael Ellis DeBakey was an American general and cardiovascular surgeon, scientist and medical educator who became Chairman of the Department of Surgery, President, and Chancellor of Baylor College of Medicine at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas. His career spanned nearly eight decades.

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38. Golo Mann

1909-1994 (aged 85)

historian of Modern Age writer university teacher essayist opinion journalist

Golo Mann was a popular German historian and essayist. After completing a doctorate in philosophy under Karl Jaspers at Heidelberg, in 1933 he fled Hitler's Germany. He followed his father, the writer Thomas Mann, and other members of his family in emigrating first to France, then to Switzerland and, on the eve of war, to the United States. From the...

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39. Johan van Oldenbarnevelt

1547-1619 (aged 72)

diplomat lawyer politician

Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, Heer van Berkel en Rodenrijs (1600), Gunterstein (1611) and Bakkum (1613), was a Dutch statesman and revolutionary who played an important role in the Dutch struggle for independence from Spain.

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40. Friedrich Wöhler

1800-1882 (aged 82)

university teacher biochemist chemist

Friedrich Wöhler FRS HonFRSE ( German: [ˈvøːlɐ]; 31 July 1800 – 23 September 1882) was a German chemist known for his work in both organic and inorganic chemistry, being the first to isolate the chemical elements beryllium and yttrium in pure metallic form. He was the first to prepare several inorganic compounds, including silane and silicon nitride.

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41. Karl Pearson

1857-1936 (aged 79)

statistician biographer philosopher mathematician historian of mathematics

Karl Pearson FRS FRSE was an English biostatistician and mathematician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university statistics department at University College London in 1911, and contributed significantly to the field of biometrics and meteorology. Pearson was also a proponent of Social Darwinism and eugenics, and his thought is an...

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42. Lothar Meyer

1830-1895 (aged 65)

university teacher chemist

Julius Lothar Meyer was a German chemist. He was one of the pioneers in developing the earliest versions of the periodic table of the chemical elements. The Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev (his chief rival) and he both had worked with Robert Bunsen. Meyer never used his first given name and was simply known as Lothar Meyer throughout his life.

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43. Alexandre de Beauharnais

1760-1794 (aged 34)

planter class military personnel politician

Alexandre François Marie, Viscount of Beauharnais was a French politician and general of the French Revolution. He was the first husband of Joséphine Tascher de La Pagerie, who later married Napoleon Bonaparte and became empress of France. Beauharnais was executed by guillotine during the Reign of Terror.

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44. Carl Bosch

1874-1940 (aged 66)

academic scientific collector engineer inventor chemist

Carl Bosch was a German chemist and engineer and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. He was a pioneer in the field of high-pressure industrial chemistry and founder of IG Farben, at one point the world's largest chemical company.

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45. Philipp Lenard

1862-1947 (aged 85)

university teacher inventor physicist

Philipp Eduard Anton von Lenard was a Hungarian–German experimental physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1905 for his work on cathode rays. This work led to his experimental realization of the photoelectric effect, discovering that the energy (speed) of the electrons ejected from a cathode depends only on the frequency and not the intensity of light.

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46. Luc Ferry

1951-. (aged 75)

philosopher political scientist university teacher politician

Luc Ferry is a French public intellectual and voluminous author, who is a proponent of secular humanism. He was Minister of National Education for two years during the presidency of Jacques Chirac.

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47. Götz Kubitschek

1970-. (aged 56)

political activist opinion journalist publisher

Götz Kubitschek is a German publisher, journalist and far-right political activist. He espouses ethnocentric positions and is one of the most important protagonists of the Neue Rechte (New Right) in Germany. Hailing from the staff of right-wing newspaper Junge Freiheit, Kubitschek is one of the founders of the Neue Rechte think tank Institut für Staatspolitik (Institute for State Policy; IfS)....

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48. Emanuel Lasker

1868-1941 (aged 73)

philosopher mathematician bridge player chess composer chess player

Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher. He was the second World Chess Champion, holding the title for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognised World Chess Champion, winning 6 World Chess Championships. In his prime, Lasker was one of the most dominant champions.

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49. Johann Georg Faust

1480-1540 (aged 60)

astrologer astronomer

Johann Georg Faust, sometimes also Georg Sabellicus Faustus and known in English as John Faustus, was a German itinerant alchemist, astrologer, and magician of the German Renaissance. He was often called a conman and a heretic.

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50. William Walker

1824-1860 (aged 36)

filibuster journalist physician lawyer politician

William Walker was an American journalist and mercenary. In the era of the expansion of the United States, driven by the doctrine of manifest destiny, Walker organized unauthorized military expeditions into Mexico and Central America with the intention of establishing colonies. Such an enterprise was known at the time as "filibustering".

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51. Sofia Kovalevskaya

1850-1891 (aged 41)

writer communard university teacher novelist mathematician

Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differential equations and mechanics. She was a pioneer of equality for women in mathematics. Kovalevskaya was the first woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics, in the modern sense of that term, the first woman in Europe in modern times appointed to a full professorship in...

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52. Otto Carius

1922-2015 (aged 93)

non-fiction writer veteran military personnel soldier pharmacist

Otto Carius was a German tank commander in the Wehrmacht during World War II. He fought on the Eastern Front in 1943 and 1944 and on the Western Front in 1945. Carius is considered a "panzer ace", some sources credited him with destroying more than 150 enemy tanks, although Carius, in an interview claims he had around 100 kills or...

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53. Prince Maximilian of Baden

1867-1929 (aged 62)

politician

Maximilian, Margrave of Baden, also known as Max von Baden, was a German prince, general, and politician. He was heir presumptive to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Baden, and in October and November 1918 briefly served as the last chancellor of the German Empire and minister-president of Prussia. He sued for peace on Germany's behalf at the end...

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54. Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay

1846-1888 (aged 42)

traveler zoologist marine biologist biologist anthropologist

Nicholas or Nicholai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay was a Russian explorer and scientist. He worked as an ethnologist, anthropologist and biologist. He became famous as one of the earliest scientists to settle among and study indigenous people of New Guinea "who had never seen a European".

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55. Auma Obama

1960-. (aged 66)

screenwriter writer journalist

Rita Auma Obama is a Kenyan-British community activist, sociologist, journalist, author, and half-sister of former President of the United States, Barack Obama. Obama serves as the executive chairwoman of Sauti Kuu Foundation (Strong Voices Foundation), a non-profit organisation that helps orphans and other young people struggling with poverty in Kenya.

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56. Wilhelm Dilthey

1833-1911 (aged 78)

sociologist psychologist university teacher historian theologian

Wilhelm Dilthey was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist, and hermeneutic philosopher, who held Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Chair in Philosophy at the University of Berlin. As a polymathic philosopher, working in a modern research university, Dilthey's research interests revolved around questions of scientific methodology, historical evidence and history's status as a science.

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57. Daniel Bernoulli

1700-1782 (aged 82)

economist university teacher mathematician statistician physicist

Daniel Bernoulli FRS was a Swiss mathematician and physicist and was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family from Basel. He is particularly remembered for his applications of mathematics to mechanics, especially fluid mechanics, and for his pioneering work in probability and statistics. His name is commemorated in the Bernoulli's principle, a particular example of the conservation...

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58. Franz Boas

1858-1942 (aged 84)

philosopher linguist university teacher curator ethnographer

Franz Uri Boas was a German-American anthropologist and ethnomusicologist. He was a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical particularism and cultural relativism.

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59. Nicholas of Cusa

1401-1464 (aged 63)

Catholic priest diplomat astronomer mathematician theologian

Nicholas of Cusa, also referred to as Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus, was a German Catholic bishop and polymath active as a philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Renaissance humanism, he made spiritual and political contributions to European culture. A notable example of this is his mystical or spiritual writings on "learned...

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60. F. W. Murnau

1888-1931 (aged 43)

screenwriter film director director film producer

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was a German film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is regarded as one of cinema's most influential filmmakers for his work in the silent era.

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61. Emmy Noether

1882-1935 (aged 53)

university teacher mathematician physicist

Amalie Emmy Noether was a German mathematician who made many important contributions to abstract algebra. She also proved Noether's first and second theorems, which are fundamental in mathematical physics. Noether was described by Pavel Alexandrov, Albert Einstein, Jean Dieudonné, Hermann Weyl, and Norbert Wiener as the most important woman in the history of mathematics. As one of the leading mathematicians...

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62. Karl Jaspers

1883-1969 (aged 86)

psychiatrist theologian university teacher philosopher physician

Karl Theodor Jaspers was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. His 1913 work General Psychopathology influenced many later diagnostic criteria, and argued for a distinction between "primary" and "secondary" delusions.

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63. Alexander Borodin

1833-1887 (aged 54)

composer pianist opera composer classical composer cellist

Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was one of the prominent 19th-century composers known as "The Five", a group dedicated to producing a "uniquely Russian" kind of classical music. Borodin is known best for his symphonies, his two string quartets, the symphonic poem In the Steppes of Central Asia and his opera...

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64. Talcott Parsons

1902-1979 (aged 77)

university teacher sociologist biologist

Talcott Parsons was an American sociologist of the classical tradition, best known for his social action theory and structural functionalism. Parsons is considered one of the most influential figures in sociology in the 20th century. After earning a PhD in economics, he served on the faculty at Harvard University from 1927 to 1973. In 1930, he was among the first...

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65. Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale

1864-1892 (aged 28)

politician aristocrat

Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, was the eldest child of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra). From the time of his birth, he was second in the line of succession to the British throne, but did not become king or Prince of Wales because he died before both his father...

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66. John Amos Comenius

1592-1670 (aged 78)

missionary archivist historian bishop linguist

John Amos Comenius was a Czech philosopher, pedagogue and theologian who is considered the father of modern education. He served as the last bishop of the Unity of the Brethren (direct predecessor of the Moravian Church) before becoming a religious refugee and one of the earliest champions of universal education, a concept eventually set forth in his book Didactica Magna....

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67. Max Born

1882-1970 (aged 88)

theoretical physicist non-fiction writer university teacher scientist mathematician

Max Born was a German–British theoretical physicist who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics, and supervised the work of a number of notable physicists in the 1920s and 1930s. He shared the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics with Walther Bothe "for his fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially for...

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68. Constantine I of Greece

1868-1923 (aged 55)

sovereign

Constantine I was King of Greece from 18 March 1913 to 11 June 1917 and again from 19 December 1920 to 27 September 1922. The eldest son of George I of Greece, he succeeded to the throne following his father's assassination in 1913.

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69. William Somerset Maugham

1874-1965 (aged 91)

army scout writer prose writer playwright literary critic

William Somerset Maugham CH was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories.

70. Ricarda Lang

1994-. (aged 32)

politician

Ricarda Lang is a German politician of the Alliance 90/The Greens who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag since 2021.

71. Osip Mandelstam

1891-1938 (aged 47)

literary critic essayist writer translator poet

Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam was a Russian and Soviet poet. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school.

72. Ludwig Feuerbach

1804-1872 (aged 68)

critic of religions anthropologist theologian university teacher philosopher

Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach was a German philosopher and anthropologist who was a leading figure among the Young Hegelians. He is best known for his 1841 book, The Essence of Christianity, which argued that God is a projection of the essential attributes of humanity. His critique of religion formed the basis for his advocacy of atheism, materialism, and sensualism. In his...

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73. Beatrix von Storch

1971-. (aged 55)

lawyer politician

Beatrix Amelie Ehrengard Eilika von Storch is a German politician and lawyer, who has been the Deputy Parliamentary Leader of the Alternative for Germany since July 2015 and a Member of the Bundestag since September 2017. She previously was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Germany. From April 2016 to 2017 she was also a member of the...

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74. Otto Heinrich Frank

1889-1980 (aged 91)

amateur photographer merchant banker businessperson

Otto Heinrich Frank was a German businessman, and the father of Anne Frank. He edited and published the first edition of her diary in 1947 (subsequently known in English as The Diary of a Young Girl) and advised on its later theatrical and cinematic adaptations. In the 1950s and the 1960s, he established European charities in his daughter's name and...

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75. Judith Butler

1956-. (aged 70)

sociologist university teacher women's rights activist psychoanalyst journalist

Judith Butler is an American feminist, queer philosopher, and gender studies scholar whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, psychoanalysis, and the fields of feminist and queer theory, academic freedom, and literary theory.

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76. Fritz Haber

1868-1934 (aged 66)

engineer physicist chemist university teacher

Fritz Jakob Haber was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas. This invention is important for the large-scale synthesis of fertilizers and explosives. It is estimated that a third of annual global food production...

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77. Robert Schumann

1810-1856 (aged 46)

composer pianist musicologist conductor music critic

Robert Schumann was a German composer, pianist, and music critic of the early Romantic era. He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, voice and piano, chamber groups, orchestra, choir and the opera. His works typify the spirit of the Romantic era in German music.

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78. Mileva Marić

1875-1948 (aged 73)

mathematician teacher physicist

Mileva Marić, sometimes called Mileva Marić-Einstein (Милева Марић-Ајнштајн, Mileva Marić-Ajnštajn), was the first wife of Albert Einstein from 1903 to 1919. She was the only woman among Einstein's fellow students at Zürich Polytechnic. Marić and Einstein were study colleagues and lovers, and had a daughter Lieserl in 1902, who likely died of scarlet fever at one and a half years...

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79. W. E. B. Du Bois

1868-1960 (aged 92)

journalist art historian human rights defender photographer novelist

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

80. Muhammad Iqbal

1877-1938 (aged 61)

poet lawyer writer children's writer philosopher

Sir Muhammad Iqbal was an Islamic philosopher and poet. His poetry in Urdu is considered to be among the greatest of the 20th century, and his vision of a cultural and political ideal for the Muslims of British India is widely regarded as having animated the impulse for the Pakistan Movement. He is commonly referred to by the honorific Allamah...

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81. 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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82. Max Weber

1881-1961 (aged 80)

writer painter sculptor draftsperson

Maximilian Carl Emil Weber was a German sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sciences more generally. His ideas continue to influence social theory and research.

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83. José Rizal

1861-1896 (aged 35)

ophthalmologist

José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda was a Filipino nationalist, writer and polymath active at the end of the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. He is popularly considered a national hero of the Philippines. An ophthalmologist by profession, Rizal became a writer and a key member of the Filipino Propaganda Movement in the 1880s, which advocated political reforms...

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84. 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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85. Fritz Bauer

1903-1968 (aged 65)

prosecutor judge

Fritz Bauer was a German Jewish judge and prosecutor. He played an instrumental role in the post-war capture of former Holocaust planner Adolf Eichmann, and in bringing about the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials.

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86. Philipp Melanchthon

1497-1560 (aged 63)

philosopher astrologer theologian university teacher Protestant reformer

Philip Melanchthon was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, an intellectual leader of the Lutheran Reformation, and influential designer of educational systems.

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87. Wilhelm Wundt

1832-1920 (aged 88)

university teacher writer philosopher psychologist physiologist

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt was a German physiologist, philosopher, professor, and one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and biology, was the first person to call himself a psychologist.

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88. Hans Jonas

1903-1993 (aged 90)

university teacher philosopher environmentalist

Hans Jonas was a German and American philosopher. From 1955 to 1976 he was the Alvin Johnson Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York City.

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89. Kurt Hahn

1886-1974 (aged 88)

pedagogue teacher head teacher

Kurt Matthias Robert Martin Hahn was a German educator. He was decisive in founding Stiftung Louisenlund, Schule Schloss Salem, Gordonstoun, Outward Bound, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, and the first of the United World Colleges, Atlantic College.

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90. Bernhard Schlink

1944-. (aged 82)

poet lawyer jurist screenwriter university teacher novelist

Bernhard Schlink is a German lawyer, academic, and novelist. He is best known for his novel The Reader, which was first published in 1995 and became an international bestseller. He won the 2014 Park Kyong-ni Prize.

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91. Norbert Elias

1897-1990 (aged 93)

poet writer sociologist university teacher musicologist

Norbert Elias was a German sociologist who later became a British citizen. He is especially famous for his theory of civilizing/decivilizing processes.

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92. Hannah Arendt

1906-1975 (aged 69)

sociologist university teacher historian resistance fighter writer

Hannah Arendt was a German and American historian and philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century.

93. Adolf von Baeyer

1835-1917 (aged 82)

university teacher chemist

Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer was a German chemist who synthesised indigo and developed a nomenclature for cyclic compounds (that was subsequently extended and adopted as part of the IUPAC organic nomenclature). He was ennobled in the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1885 and was the 1905 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

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94. Richard von Krafft-Ebing

1840-1902 (aged 62)

philosopher university teacher author writer psychiatrist

Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing was a German psychiatrist and author of the foundational work Psychopathia Sexualis (1886).

95. Helmuth James Graf von Moltke

1907-1945 (aged 38)

jurist lawyer resistance fighter

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...

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96. Joseph von Eichendorff

1788-1857 (aged 69)

poet lawyer playwright writer translator novelist

Joseph Karl Benedikt Freiherr von Eichendorff was a German poet, novelist, playwright, literary critic, translator, and anthologist. Eichendorff was one of the major writers and critics of Romanticism. Ever since their publication and up to the present day, some of his works have been very popular in German-speaking Europe.

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97. Hans Kelsen

1881-1973 (aged 92)

university teacher lawyer judge philosopher jurist

Hans Kelsen was an Austrian and later American jurist, legal philosopher and political philosopher. He is known principally for his theory of law, which he named the "pure theory of law (Reine Rechtslehre)", and for his writings on international law and theory of democracy.

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98. Axel Kaiser

1981-. (aged 45)

university teacher columnist lawyer writer political activist

Axel Kaiser is a Chilean writer, lawyer and political scientist known for his work on free-market economics. Kaiser is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society and has published articles in Forbes and other publications. He is also the author of several books, including The Tyranny of Equality and The Populist Deception.

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99. Irina Karamanos

1989-. (aged 37)

anthropologist social scientist

Irina Sabine Alice Karamanos Adrian is a Chilean anthropologist and political scientist who, as the then partner of President Gabriel Boric, served as first lady of Chile and sociocultural coordinator of the Presidency of the Republic between March and December 2022, when both positions were officially dissolved.

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100. Farouk El-Baz

1938-. (aged 88)

space scientist geologist university teacher

Farouk El-Baz is an Egyptian American space scientist and geologist, who worked with NASA in the scientific exploration of the Moon and the planning of the Apollo program. He was a leading geologist on the program, responsible for studying the geology of the Moon, the selection of landing sites for the Apollo missions, and the training of astronauts in lunar...

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