Notable Alumni of Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg [Sorted List]

1. Karl Möbius

1825-1908 (aged 83)

biologist university teacher zoological collector botanist ecologist

Karl August Möbius was a German zoologist who was a pioneer in the field of marine ecology, founder of the Hamburg zoo and aquarium, the zoological institute at Kiel, and served as an influential director of the Natural History Museum in Berlin. He introduced the idea of a separation of research collections from the public natural history museum.

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2. James Rowland Angell

1869-1949 (aged 80)

psychologist philosopher

James Rowland Angell was an American psychologist and educator who served as the 16th President of Yale University between 1921 and 1937. His father, James Burrill Angell (1829–1916), was president of the University of Vermont from 1866 to 1871 and then the University of Michigan from 1871 to 1909.

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3. Barthold Heinrich Brockes

1680-1747 (aged 67)

librettist writer translator poet lawyer poet

Barthold Heinrich Brockes was a German poet.

4. Johannes Agricola

1494-1566 (aged 72)

Protestant reformer university teacher theologian writer philosopher

Johann or Johannes Agricola was a German Protestant Reformer during the Protestant Reformation. He was a follower and friend of Martin Luther, who became his antagonist in the matter of the binding obligation of the law on Christians.

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5. Karl Rosenkranz

1805-1879 (aged 74)

university teacher Protestant theologian writer philosopher literary historian

Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz was a German philosopher and pedagogue.

6. Jacob Christian Schäffer

1718-1790 (aged 72)

botanist mycologist theologian lepidopterist ornithologist

Jacob Christian Schäffer, alternatively Jakob, was a German dean, professor of theology, botanist, mycologist, entomologist, ornithologist, and inventor. He was a theologian and teacher at Ratisbon. His work in natural sciences includes writing comprehensive and illustrated volumes on plants, fungi, birds, and insects, proposing new classification systems, and maintaining a museum of curiosities. Schäffer also experimented with electricity, colours, optics,...

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7. Elke Erb

1938-2024 (aged 86)

translator writer

Elke Erb was a German author-poet based in Berlin. She also worked as a literary editor and translator.

8. Gerald Götting

1923-2015 (aged 92)

political scientist writer politician

Gerald Götting was a German politician and chairman of the East German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1966 until 1989. He served as President of the People's Chamber (Volkskammer) from 1969 to 1976 and deputy chairman of the State Council of East Germany from 1960 to 1989.

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9. Caspar Friedrich Wolff

1734-1794 (aged 60)

botanist military physician university teacher anatomist physiologist

Caspar Friedrich Wolff was a German physiologist and embryologist who is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of modern embryology.

10. Paul Georg von Möllendorff

1847-1901 (aged 54)

diplomat linguist

Paul Georg von Möllendorff was a German linguist and diplomat. Möllendorff is mostly known for his service as an adviser to the Korean king Gojong in the late nineteenth century and for his contributions to Sinology. In English-language publications, Möllendorff is often credited with having designed a system for romanizing the Manchu language, which was in fact the creation of...

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11. Carl Neumann

1832-1925 (aged 93)

mathematician university teacher

Carl Gottfried Neumann was a German mathematical physicist and professor at several German universities. His work focused on applications of potential theory to physics and mathematics. He contributed to the mathematical formalization of electrodynamics and analytical mechanics. Neumann boundary conditions and the Neumann series are named after him.

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12. Gáspár Károlyi

1529-1591 (aged 62)

theologian Bible translator translator

Gáspár Károlyi, or in Protestant usage, Károli was a Hungarian Calvinist pastor. He was a major figure in the Reformed Church in Hungary. He edited the Vizsoly Bible.

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13. Kuno Fischer

1824-1907 (aged 83)

writer literary historian philosopher university teacher

Ernst Kuno Berthold Fischer was a German philosopher, a historian of philosophy and a critic.

14. George Spalatin

1484-1545 (aged 61)

historian theologian jurist

Georg Spalatin ( German: [ˈʃpaːlatiːn]) was the pseudonym taken by Georg Burkhardt ( German: [ˈɡeːɔʁk ˈbʊʁkhaʁt]; 17 January 1484 – 16 January 1545), a German humanist, theologian, reformer, secretary of the Saxon Elector Frederick the Wise, as well as an important figure in the history of the Reformation.

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15. Johann Christian Reil

1759-1813 (aged 54)

military physician university teacher anatomist psychiatrist physiologist

Johann Christian Reil was a German physician, physiologist, anatomist, and psychiatrist. He coined the term psychiatry – Psychiatrie in German – in 1808.

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16. Dimitri Uznadze

1887-1950 (aged 63)

university teacher philosopher psychologist

Dimitri Uznadze was a Georgian psychologist and professor of psychology, co-founder of the Tbilisi State University (TSU) and of the Georgian Academy of Sciences (GAS).

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17. Ferenc Dávid

1510-1579 (aged 69)

theologian

Ferenc Dávid was a preacher and theologian from Transylvania, the founder of the Unitarian Church of Transylvania, and the leading figure of the Nontrinitarian Christian movements during the Protestant Reformation. He disputed the mainstream Christian doctrine of the Trinity, believing God to be one and indivisible.

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18. Arnold Ruge

1802-1880 (aged 78)

autobiographer writer translator philosopher politician

Arnold Ruge was a German philosopher and political writer. He was the older brother of Ludwig Ruge.

19. Karl Adolph von Basedow

1799-1854 (aged 55)

physician

Carl Adolph von Basedow was a German physician most famous for reporting the symptoms of what could later be dubbed Graves-Basedow disease, now technically known as exophthalmic goiter.

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20. Albrecht Ritschl

1822-1889 (aged 67)

university teacher theologian philosopher

Albrecht Benjamin Ritschl was a German Protestant theologian.

21. Adolf Stoecker

1835-1909 (aged 74)

theologian writer politician

Adolf Stoecker was a German court chaplain to Kaiser Wilhelm I, a politician and a Lutheran theologian who founded the Christian Social Party to lure members away from the Social Democratic Party.

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22. Erich von Tschermak

1871-1962 (aged 91)

biologist farmer geneticist professor botanist

Erich Tschermak, Edler von Seysenegg was an Austrian agronomist who developed several new disease-resistant crops, including wheat-rye and oat hybrids. He was a son of the Moravia-born mineralogist Gustav Tschermak von Seysenegg. His maternal grandfather was the botanist, Eduard Fenzl, who taught Gregor Mendel botany during his student days in Vienna.

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23. Joachim Heinrich Campe

1746-1818 (aged 72)

theologian publisher children's writer linguist philosopher

Joachim Heinrich Campe was a German writer, linguist, educator and publisher. He was a major representative of philanthropinism and the German Enlightenment.

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24. Immanuel Bekker

1785-1871 (aged 86)

literary critic linguist classical philologist university teacher

August Immanuel Bekker was a German philologist and critic.

25. Johann Christoph Adelung

1732-1806 (aged 74)

linguist writer translator lexicographer librarian

Johann Christoph Adelung was a German grammarian and philologist.

26. Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch

1808-1883 (aged 75)

banker politician writer jurist economist

Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch, also Hermann Schulze, was a German politician and economist. He was responsible for the organizing of the world's first credit unions. He was also co-founder of the German Progress Party.

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27. Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn

1809-1864 (aged 55)

geologist botanist botanical collector scientific collector volcanologist

Friedrich Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn was a German-born Dutch botanist and geologist. His father, Friedrich Junghuhn was a barber and a surgeon. His mother was Christine Marie Schiele. Junghuhn studied medicine in Halle and in Berlin from 1827 to 1831, meanwhile publishing a seminal paper on mushrooms in Linnaea. Ein Journal für Botanik.

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28. Lutz Seiler

1963-. (aged 63)

writer poet novelist short story writer

Lutz Seiler is a German poet and novelist. Considered one of the most important German poets living today, he is the author of numerous books of poetry, prose, and essays, and gained national attention for his debut novel Kruso. In 2023 he was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize, the most prestigious award for German literature. He has served as the...

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29. Friedrich Wieck

1785-1873 (aged 88)

music critic pianist musicologist composer music educator

Johann Gottlob Friedrich Wieck was a noted German piano teacher, voice teacher, owner of a piano store, and author of essays and music reviews. He is remembered as the teacher of his daughter, Clara, a child prodigy who was undertaking international concert tours by age eleven and who later married her father's pupil Robert Schumann, in defiance of her father's...

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30. Friedrich Georg Jünger

1898-1977 (aged 79)

translator poet lawyer philosopher writer

Friedrich "Fritz" Georg Jünger was a German writer and lawyer. He wrote poetry, cultural criticism and novels. He was the younger brother of Ernst Jünger.

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31. Arthur Ruppin

1876-1943 (aged 67)

pedagogue economist demographer sociologist zionist

Arthur Ruppin was a German Zionist and one of the founders of the city of Tel Aviv. Appointed director of Berlin's Bureau for Jewish Statistics (Büro für Statistik der Juden) in 1904, he moved to Palestine in 1907, and from 1908 was the director of the Palestine Office of the Zionist Organization in Jaffa, organizing Zionist immigration to Palestine. In...

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32. Bernhard von Gudden

1824-1886 (aged 62)

psychiatrist university teacher anatomist neurologist

Johann Bernhard Aloys von Gudden was a German neuroanatomist and psychiatrist born in Kleve.

33. Philip Schaff

1819-1893 (aged 74)

theologian church historian historian university teacher translator

Philip Schaff was a Swiss-born, German-educated Protestant theologian and ecclesiastical historian, who spent most of his adult life living and teaching in the United States.

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34. Wilhelm Heinrich Solf

1862-1936 (aged 74)

orientalist politician diplomat jurist physician

Wilhelm Heinrich Solf was a German scholar, diplomat, jurist and statesman.

35. Johannes Popitz

1884-1945 (aged 61)

economist jurist resistance fighter politician

Hermann Eduard Johannes Popitz was a Prussian lawyer, finance minister and a member of the German Resistance against the government of Nazi Germany. He was the father of Heinrich Popitz, an important German sociologist.

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36. August Hermann Francke

1663-1727 (aged 64)

university teacher theologian pedagogue

August Hermann Francke was a German Lutheran clergyman, theologian, philanthropist, and Biblical scholar. His evangelistic fervour and pietism got him expelled as lecturer from the universities of Dresden and Leipzig and as deacon from Erfurt. In 1691 he found his calling at the University of Halle, where he turned towards the education of underprivileged children; he founded an orphan asylum,...

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37. Georg Joachim Rheticus

1514-1574 (aged 60)

astrologer astronomer university teacher mathematician cartographer

Georg Joachim de Porris, also known as Rheticus, was a mathematician, astronomer, cartographer, navigational-instrument maker, medical practitioner, and teacher. He is perhaps best known for his trigonometric tables and as Nicolaus Copernicus's sole pupil. He facilitated the publication of his master's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres).

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38. Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths

1759-1839 (aged 80)

teacher geographer non-fiction writer gymnast pedagogue

Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths, also called Guts Muth or Gutsmuths, was a teacher and educator in Germany, and is especially known for his role in the development of physical education. He is thought of as the "grandfather of gymnastics" – the "father" being Friedrich Ludwig Jahn. GutsMuths introduced systematic physical exercise into the school curriculum, and he developed the basic...

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39. Friedrich Schorlemmer

1944-2024 (aged 80)

Protestant theologian theologian opinion journalist politician

Friedrich Schorlemmer was a German Protestant theologian. He was a prominent member of the civil rights movement in the German Democratic Republic, leading to the Peaceful Revolution. Remaining active in politics and society after German reunification in 1990, he was engaged in the Wittenberg town council and several organisations as an activist for peace and nature preservation, and as a...

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40. Johann Reinhold Forster

1729-1798 (aged 69)

ichthyologist naturalist traveler ornithologist bryologist

Johann Reinhold Forster was a German Reformed pastor and naturalist. Born in Dirschau, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (now Tczew, Poland), he attended school in Dirschau and Marienwerder before being admitted at the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin in 1745. Skilled in classical and biblical languages, he studied theology at the University of Halle. In 1753, he became a parson at a...

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41. Matthias Bel

1684-1749 (aged 65)

poet writer theologian teacher philosopher

Matthias Bel or Matthias Bél was a Lutheran pastor and polymath from the Kingdom of Hungary. Bel was active in the fields of pedagogy, philosophy, philology, history, and theoretical theology; he was the founder of Hungarian geographic science and a pioneer of descriptive ethnography and economy. A leading figure in pietism. He is also known as the Great Ornament of...

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42. Carl Gotthard Langhans

1732-1808 (aged 76)

architect general contractor

Carl Gotthard Langhans was a Prussian master builder and royal architect. His churches, palaces, grand houses, interiors, city gates and theatres in Silesia, Berlin, Potsdam and elsewhere belong to the earliest examples of Neoclassical architecture in Germany. His best-known work is the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, national symbol of today’s Germany and German reunification in 1989/90.

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43. Dorothea Christiane Erxleben

1715-1762 (aged 47)

physician

Dorothea Christiane Erxleben was a German medical doctor who became the first female doctor of medicine in Germany.

44. Paul Luther

1533-1593 (aged 60)

university teacher chemist physician

Paul Luther was a German physician, medical chemist, and alchemist. He was the third son of the German Protestant Reformer Martin Luther and was successively physician to John Frederick II, Duke of Saxony; Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg; Augustus, Elector of Saxony and his successor Christian I, Elector of Saxony. He taught alchemy to Anne of Denmark.

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45. Georg Wilhelm Richmann

1711-1753 (aged 42)

physicist inventor

Georg Wilhelm Richmann was a Russian physicist of Baltic German origin who did pioneering work on electricity, atmospheric electricity, and calorimetry. He died by electrocution in St. Petersburg when struck by apparent ball lightning produced by an experiment attempting to ground the electrical discharge from a storm.

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46. Ernst Kummer

1810-1893 (aged 83)

mathematician university teacher

Ernst Eduard Kummer was a German mathematician. Skilled in applied mathematics, Kummer trained German army officers in ballistics; afterwards, he taught for 10 years in a gymnasium, the German equivalent of high school, where he inspired the mathematical career of Leopold Kronecker.

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47. Andrej Sládkovič

1820-1872 (aged 52)

critic writer parson Lutheran pastor playwright

Andrej Sládkovič was a Slovak poet, critic, publicist, translator and Lutheran priest.

48. Carl Loewe

1796-1869 (aged 73)

singer cantor conductor composer organist

Johann Carl Gottfried Loewe, usually called Carl Loewe (sometimes seen as Karl Loewe), was a German composer, tenor singer and conductor from the late Classical and early Romantic periods. In his lifetime, his songs ("Balladen") were well enough known for some to call him the "Schubert of North Germany", and Hugo Wolf came to admire his work. He is less...

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49. Sarah Kirsch

1935-2013 (aged 78)

translator children's writer poet writer

Sarah Kirsch was a German poet.

50. Alfred Kerr

1867-1948 (aged 81)

librettist opinion journalist journalist poet literary critic

Alfred Kerr was an influential German theatre critic and essayist of Jewish descent, nicknamed the Kulturpapst ("Culture Pope").

51. Heinrich Hoffmann

1809-1894 (aged 85)

psychiatrist writer illustrator children's writer poet

Heinrich Hoffmann was a German psychiatrist, who also wrote some short works including Der Struwwelpeter, an illustrated book portraying children misbehaving.

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52. Siegbert Tarrasch

1862-1934 (aged 72)

writer chess theoretician chess player physician

Siegbert Tarrasch was a German chess player, considered to have been among the strongest players and most influential theoreticians of the late 19th and early 20th century.

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53. Ludwig Achim von Arnim

1781-1831 (aged 50)

poet lawyer poet writer novelist journalist

Carl Joachim Friedrich Ludwig von Arnim, better known as Achim von Arnim, was a German poet, novelist, and together with Clemens Brentano and Joseph von Eichendorff, a leading figure of German Romanticism.

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54. Frederick Muhlenberg

1750-1801 (aged 51)

politician

Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg was an American minister and politician who was the first speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1789 to 1791 and again from 1793 to 1795. Muhlenberg served as the first dean of the United States House of Representatives as well. A member of the Federalist Party, he was delegate to the Pennsylvania state...

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55. Albert Anker

1831-1910 (aged 79)

painter exlibrist draftsperson watercolorist illustrator

Albert Anker was a Swiss painter and illustrator who has been called the "national painter" of Switzerland because of his enduringly popular depictions of 19th-century Swiss rural life.

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56. Ernst Heinrich Weber

1795-1878 (aged 83)

anatomist physicist physiologist statistician physician

Ernst Heinrich Weber was a German physician who is considered one of the founders of experimental psychology.

57. Rudolf Clausius

1822-1888 (aged 66)

mathematician theoretical physicist physicist university teacher

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,...

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58. Mikael Agricola

1510-1557 (aged 47)

linguist poet Bible translator translator theologian

Mikael Agricola was a Finnish Lutheran clergyman who became the de facto founder of literary Finnish and a prominent proponent of the Protestant Reformation in Sweden, including Finland, which was a Swedish territory at the time. He is often called the "father of literary Finnish".

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59. Anton Wilhelm Amo

1703-1759 (aged 56)

university teacher philosopher writer

Anton Wilhelm Amo or Anthony William Amo was a Nzema philosopher from Axim, Dutch Gold Coast then within what was broadly considered the region of Guinea (region) (the area is now in Ghana). Amo was a professor at the universities of Halle and Jena in Germany after studying there. He was brought to Germany by the Dutch West India Company...

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60. Paul Gerhardt

1607-1676 (aged 69)

theologian hymnwriter writer Lutheran pastor poet

Paulus or Paul Gerhardt was a German theologian, Lutheran pastor and hymnodist, considered Germany's greatest hymn writer. His songs and hymns were published in contemporary hymnals such as Praxis pietatis melica, and are still part pf modern hymnals. Hymn stanzas by him feature prominently in Bach's Passions and the Christmas Oratorio.

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61. Nicolaus Zinzendorf

1700-1760 (aged 60)

theologian writer Protestant reformer reformer translator

Nikolaus Ludwig, Reichsgraf von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf was a German religious and social reformer, bishop of the Moravian Church, founder of the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, Christian mission pioneer and a major figure of 18th-century Protestantism.

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62. Wilhelm Eduard Weber

1804-1891 (aged 87)

university teacher philosopher physicist

Wilhelm Eduard Weber was a German physicist and, together with Carl Friedrich Gauss, inventor of the first electromagnetic telegraph.

63. Johann Friedrich Struensee

1737-1772 (aged 35)

politician physician

Lensgreve Johann Friedrich Struensee was a German-Danish physician, philosopher and statesman. He became royal physician to the mentally ill King Christian VII of Denmark-Norway and a minister in the Danish government. He rose in power to a position of de facto regent of the country, and he tried to carry out widespread reforms. His affair with Queen Caroline Matilda ("Caroline...

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64. Nitobe Inazō

1862-1933 (aged 71)

university teacher diplomat pedagogue linguist agronomist

Nitobe Inazō was a Japanese agronomist, diplomat, political scientist, politician, and writer. He studied at Sapporo Agricultural College under the influence of its first president William S. Clark and later went to the United States to study agricultural policy. After returning to Japan, he served as a professor at Sapporo Agricultural College, Kyoto Imperial University, and Tokyo Imperial University, and...

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65. Johann Joachim Winckelmann

1717-1768 (aged 51)

in-home tutor writer art historian librarian historian

Johann Joachim Winckelmann was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the differences between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art. "The prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology", Winckelmann was one of the founders of scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the history of art....

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66. Friedrich Schleiermacher

1768-1834 (aged 66)

pedagogue writer translator university teacher theologian

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was a German Reformed theologian, pastor, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant Christianity. He also became influential in the evolution of higher criticism, and his work forms part of the foundation of the modern field of hermeneutics. Because of his profound effect on subsequent...

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67. George Müller

1805-1898 (aged 93)

missionary

George Müller was a Christian evangelist and the director of the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol, England. He was one of the founders of the Plymouth Brethren movement. Later during the split, his group was called the Open Brethren.

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68. Ľudovít Štúr

1815-1856 (aged 41)

writer historian philologist philosopher activist

Ľudovít Štúr, also known as Ľudovít Velislav Štúr, was a Slovak revolutionary, politician, and writer. As a leader of the Slovak national revival in the 19th century and the codifier of standard Slovak, he is lauded as one of the most important figures in Slovak history.

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69. George Frideric Handel

1685-1759 (aged 74)

opera composer composer impresario organist university teacher

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti.

70. Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk

1887-1977 (aged 90)

military personnel politician diplomat jurist economist

Johann Ludwig "Lutz" Graf Schwerin von Krosigk was a German senior government official who served as the minister of finance of Germany from 1932 to 1945 and de facto chancellor of Germany during May 1945.

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71. Robert Michels

1876-1936 (aged 60)

university teacher philosopher sociologist

Robert Michels was a German-born Italian sociologist who contributed to elite theory by describing the political behavior of intellectual elites. He belonged to the Italian school of elitism. He is known best for his book Political Parties, published in 1911, which contains a description of the "iron law of oligarchy".

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72. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

1729-1781 (aged 52)

dramaturge art historian theologian librarian lyricist

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was a German philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and a representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature. He is widely considered by theatre historians to be the first dramaturg in his role at Abel Seyler's Hamburg National Theatre.

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73. Friedrich Mohs

1773-1839 (aged 66)

university teacher physicist crystallographer mineralogist mining engineer

Carl Friedrich Christian Mohs was a German chemist and mineralogist. He was the creator of the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Mohs also introduced a classification of the crystal forms in crystal systems independently of Christian Samuel Weiss.

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74. Clemens Brentano

1778-1842 (aged 64)

playwright poet collector of fairy tales writer fairy tales writer

Clemens Wenzeslaus Brentano was a German poet and novelist, and a major figure of German Romanticism. He was the uncle, via his brother Christian, of Franz and Lujo Brentano.

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75. Hermann Ebbinghaus

1850-1909 (aged 59)

university teacher pedagogue psychologist

Hermann Ebbinghaus was a German psychologist who pioneered the experimental study of memory. Ebbinghaus discovered the forgetting curve and the spacing effect. He was the first person to describe the learning curve. He was the father of the neo-Kantian philosopher Julius Ebbinghaus.

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76. Adam Ludwig Lewenhaupt

1659-1719 (aged 60)

military personnel jurist

Adam Ludwig Lewenhaupt was a Swedish general, best known for his participation in the Great Northern War.

77. Hermann Burmeister

1807-1892 (aged 85)

marine biologist botanical collector scientific collector university teacher writer

Karl Hermann Konrad Burmeister was a German Argentine zoologist, entomologist, herpetologist, botanist, and coleopterologist. He served as a professor at the University of Halle, headed the museum there and published the Handbuch der Entomologie (1832–1855) before moving to Argentina where he worked until his death.

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78. Vydūnas

1868-1953 (aged 85)

writer poet philosopher university teacher

Wilhelm Storost, artistic name Vilius Storostas-Vydūnas, mostly known as Vydūnas, was a Prussian-Lithuanian teacher, poet, humanist, philosopher and Lithuanian writer, a leader of the Prussian Lithuanian national movement in Lithuania Minor, and one of leaders of the theosophical movement in East Prussia.

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79. Peter Simon Pallas

1741-1811 (aged 70)

scientific collector geographer entomologist botanist arachnologist

Peter Simon Pallas FRS FRSE was a Prussian zoologist, botanist, ethnographer, explorer, geographer, geologist, natural historian, and taxonomist. He studied natural sciences at various universities in early modern Germany and worked primarily in the Russian Empire between 1767 and 1810.

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80. Gustav Ludwig Hertz

1887-1975 (aged 88)

physicist university teacher

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

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81. August Ferdinand Möbius

1790-1868 (aged 78)

university teacher mathematician astronomer

August Ferdinand Möbius was a German mathematician and theoretical astronomer.

82. Hermann Cohen

1842-1918 (aged 76)

university teacher philosopher

Hermann Cohen was a German philosopher, one of the founders of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be "probably the most important Jewish philosopher of the nineteenth century".

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83. Georg Cantor

1845-1918 (aged 73)

university teacher mathematician philosopher

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...

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84. Hans-Dietrich Genscher

1927-2016 (aged 89)

military personnel lawyer interior minister non-fiction writer university teacher

Hans-Dietrich Genscher was a German statesman and a member of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), who served as Federal Minister of the Interior from 1969 to 1974, and as Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs and Vice Chancellor of Germany from 1974 to 1992 (except for a two-week break in 1982, after the FDP had left the Third Schmidt cabinet),...

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85. Carl Ritter

1779-1859 (aged 80)

geographer explorer botanist university teacher

Carl Ritter was a German geographer. Along with Alexander von Humboldt, he is considered one of the founders of modern geography, as they established it as an independent scientific discipline. From 1825 until his death, he occupied the first chair in geography at the University of Berlin.

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86. Sven Hedin

1865-1952 (aged 87)

naturalist geopolitical analyst scientific explorer non-fiction writer botanical collector

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...

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87. Oswald Spengler

1880-1936 (aged 56)

writer historian philosopher mathematician sociologist

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...

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88. Hermann Haken

1927-2024 (aged 97)

author theoretical physicist physicist university teacher

Hermann Haken was a German physicist and professor emeritus in theoretical physics at the University of Stuttgart. He is known as the founder of synergetics and one of the "fathers" of quantum-mechanical laser theory. He is a cousin of the mathematician Wolfgang Haken, who proved the Four color theorem. He was a nephew of Werner Haken, a doctoral student of...

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89. Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber

1739-1810 (aged 71)

lichenologist university teacher naturalist botanical collector botanist

Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber, often styled J.C.D. von Schreber, was a German naturalist.

90. Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder

1773-1798 (aged 25)

writer jurist poet lawyer art historian

Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder was a German jurist and writer. With Ludwig Tieck and the Schlegel brothers, he co-founded German Romanticism.

91. Ludwig Tieck

1773-1853 (aged 80)

novelist writer publisher English–German translator translator

Johann Ludwig Tieck was a German poet, fiction writer, translator, and critic. He was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

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92. Gustav Hermann Nachtigal

1834-1885 (aged 51)

writer explorer botanical collector botanist

Gustav Nachtigal was a German military surgeon and explorer of Central and West Africa. He is also known as the German Empire's consul-general for Tunisia and Commissioner for West Africa. His mission as commissioner resulted in Togoland and Kamerun becoming the first colonies of a German colonial empire.

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93. Paul Tillich

1886-1965 (aged 79)

university teacher theologian philosopher

Paul Johannes Tillich was a German and American Christian existentialist philosopher, religious socialist, and Lutheran theologian who was one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. Tillich taught at German universities before immigrating to the United States in 1933, where he taught at Union Theological Seminary, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago.

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94. Hermann Staudinger

1881-1965 (aged 84)

university teacher organic chemist polymer chemist engineer chemist

Hermann Staudinger was a German organic chemist who demonstrated the existence of macromolecules, which he characterized as polymers. For this work he received the 1953 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

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95. Ernst Zermelo

1871-1953 (aged 82)

university teacher mathematician philosopher

Ernst Friedrich Ferdinand Zermelo was a German logician and mathematician, whose work has major implications for the foundations of mathematics. He is known for his role in developing Zermelo–Fraenkel axiomatic set theory and his proof of the well-ordering theorem. Furthermore, his 1929 work on ranking chess players is the first description of a model for pairwise comparison that continues to...

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96. Pierre Belon

1517-1564 (aged 47)

zoologist ichthyologist historian diplomat writer

Pierre Belon was a French traveller, naturalist, writer and diplomat. Like many others of the Renaissance period, he studied and wrote on a range of topics including ichthyology, ornithology, botany, comparative anatomy, architecture and Egyptology. He is sometimes known as Pierre Belon du Mans, or, in the Latin in which his works appeared, as Petrus Bellonius Cenomanus. The Russian physiologist...

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97. 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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98. Edmund Husserl

1859-1938 (aged 79)

mathematician philosopher university teacher phenomenologist

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

99. Horst Schumann

1906-1983 (aged 77)

military physician

Horst Schumann was an SS-Sturmbannführer (major) and medical doctor who conducted sterilization and castration experiments at Auschwitz and was particularly interested in the mass sterilization of Jews by means of X-rays. Hors d'atteinte, a book by Frédéric Couderc, published in France by Les Escales and Pocket, reveals the extent of Schumann's crimes and his life as a fugitive in Africa.

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100. Karamba Diaby

1961-. (aged 65)

politician chemist

Karamba Diaby is a Senegalese-born German chemist and politician of the Social Democratic Party who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag from the 2013 elections to 2025 elections.

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