100 Notable alumni of University of Greifswald

Veijo Olavi Puhjo was a Finnish politician who was a member of Finnish Parliament, representing the Left Alliance. He was elected to the parliament in 1995 and left after the 2011 election. Puhjo was a physician by profession. He graduated from the Greifswald Medical School of the University of Greifswald in Germany.

Philip Julius Bernhard von Platen was a Swedish politician and field marshal.

Leonard Landois was a German physiologist born in Münster.

Carl Christoffer Gjörwell, was a Swedish journalist, a prolific editor of some twenty journals and a psalmist whose hymns were published in the Moravian hymnal Sions Nya Sånger ("New songs of Zion") and elsewhere. His name is alternatively rendered as Carl Christoffersson Gjörwell, Carl Christopher Gjörwell or Karl Kristofer Gjörwell.

Anders Spole was a Swedish mathematician and astronomer. He was born at a farm in Målen, the son of blacksmith Per Andersson and his wife Gunilla Persdotter. At the age of twelve he started studying at Jönköpings skola and was sent to the University of Greifswald in 1652. After three years of studies he continued at other universities in Prussia...

Friedrich Christian Rosenthal was a German anatomist who was a native of Greifswald.

Johann Gottfried Ludwig Kosegarten was a German orientalist born in Altenkirchen on the island of Rügen. He was the son of ecclesiastic Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten (1758–1818).

Dr. Hermann Iseke was a German minister in military service.

Rudolf Gottfried Arndt was a German psychiatrist from Bialken, district of Marienwerder.

Max Albert Wilhelm Lenz was a German historian.

Walther Spielmeyer was a German neuropathologist who was a native of Dessau.

Hugo von Ziemssen (13 December 1829 – 21 January 1902) was a German physician, born in Greifswald.

Julian Lowell Coolidge was an American mathematician, historian, a professor and chairman of the Harvard University Mathematics Department.

Max Emil Julius Delbrück was a German agricultural chemist.

Rudolf Albert August Wilhelm Asmis was a German jurist, colonial official and diplomat who served as Minister to Siam and Consul-General for Australia.

Wilhelm Ahlwardt was a German orientalist who specialized in research of Arabic literature. He was the son of philologist Christian Wilhelm Ahlwardt (1760–1830).

Otto Gottlieb Mohnike was a German physician and naturalist who was a native of Stralsund. He was the son of philologist Gottlieb Mohnike (1781–1841).

Thomas K. Henning is a German astrophysicist. He was a director at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy between 2001 and 2024. Henning is an expert in the field of star and planet formation.

Antoni Stanisław Jurasz was a Polish laryngologist who was a native of Spławie (Posen). He spent most of his life living and working in what was then the German Empire. He was the father of surgeon Antoni Tomasz Jurasz (1882–1961).

Hans von Arnim was a German-Austrian classical philologist, who specialized in studies of Plato and Aristotle.

Ludwig Wilhelm Gilbert was a German physicist and chemist, and professor of physics at the University of Leipzig. From 1799-1824, he published the "Annalen der Physik", of which Poggendorffs "Annalen der Physik und Chemie" was a continuation.

Peter Adolf Hall, also known as PA Hall or Peter Adolphe Hall,, was a Swedish-French artist who mainly devoted himself to miniature painting.

Ludwig Traube was a German paleographer and held the first chair of Medieval Latin in Germany while at the University of Munich. He was a son of the physician Ludwig Traube (1818–1876), and the brother of the chemist Margarete Traube (1856–1912).

Rudolf Criegee was a German organic chemist.

August Friedrich Thienemann was a German limnologist, zoologist and ecologist. He studied zoology at the University of Greifswald.

Hermann Landois was a German zoologist. He was the brother of physiologist Leonard Landois (1837–1902). He belonged to the Catholic popularizers of science who gained attraction in late nineteenth-century Germany.

Hans Schlange-Schöningen was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and a member of the German Bundestag.

Wilhelm Biltz was a German chemist and scientific editor.

Eugen Zintgraff was a German explorer.

Anton Reichenow was a German ornithologist and herpetologist.

Johann Joachim Spalding was a German Protestant theologian and philosopher of Scottish ancestry who was a native of Tribsees, Swedish Pomerania. He was the father of Georg Ludwig Spalding, a professor at Grauen Kloster in Berlin.

Casimir VI was a member of the House of Griffin who ruled as Lutheran Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Cammin.

Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Braun was a German surgeon remembered for his work in the field of anaesthesiology. He was a native of Rawitsch, Province of Posen (today called Rawicz, Poland).

Hans Bentzien was a German writer and politician who served as the culture minister of East Germany from 1961 to 1966. Being a member of the ruling party Socialist Unity Party (SED), he held several political and public posts in East Germany.

Friedrich Hirth Ph.D. was a German-American sinologist.

Walter von Keudell was a German forest expert and politician. He served as interior minister of Germany between 1927 and 1928 during the period of the Weimar Republic.

Ludwig Richard Enno Littmann was a German orientalist. In 1906, he succeeded Theodor Nöldeke as chair of Oriental languages at the University of Strasbourg. Later on, he served as a professor of Oriental languages at the Universities of Göttingen (1914–16), Bonn (1918–21) and Tübingen (1921–49).

Haquin Spegel was a Swedish religious author and hymn writer who held several bishop's seats.

Carl Friedrich von Ledebour was a Baltic German botanist.

Carl Gustaf af Leopold was a Swedish poet.

Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten, also known as Ludwig Theobul or Ludwig Theoboul, was a German poet and Lutheran preacher. His son Gottfried (1792-1860) became an orientalist, Arabist, and historian at Jena and Greifswald.

Willy Hugo Hellpach was the sixth State President of Baden. He was a member of the German Democratic Party (DDP). He was also a physician and psychologist.

Alexander Ferdinand Koenig was a German naturalist and zoologist. Making use of the family wealth earned from the sugar business, he went on collection expeditions and founded what is now known as the Museum Koenig in Bonn in 1912.

Freiherr Hans von Pechmann was a German chemist, renowned for his discovery of diazomethane in 1894. Pechmann condensation and Pechmann pyrazole synthesis. He also first prepared 1,2-diketones (e.g., diacetyl), acetonedicarboxylic acid, methylglyoxal and diphenyltriketone; established the symmetrical structure of anthraquinone.

Carl Friedrich Michael Meinhof was a German linguist and one of the first linguists to study African languages.

Julius Friedrich Cohnheim was a German-Jewish pathologist.

Francis of Pomerania was Duke of Pomerania-Stettin and Bishop of Cammin.

Ilka Agricola is a German mathematician specialising in differential geometry and its applications in mathematical physics. She is the dean of mathematics and computer science at the University of Marburg, where she has also been responsible for making the university's collection of mathematical models public.

Carl Ludwig Schleich was a German surgeon and writer. He is best known for his contribution to clinical anesthesia. In addition, he was also a philosopher, poet and painter.

Max Johann Sigismund Schultze was a German microscopic anatomist noted for his work on cell theory.

Erik von Malottki is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He became a member of the Bundestag in the 2021 German federal election and he represents the constituency of Mecklenburgische Seenplatte I – Vorpommern-Greifswald II.

Michael Succow is a German biologist and ecologist. His numerous publications are mostly devoted to the ecology of moorlands and his typology of moorlands is today used as a standard classifications strategy for moorlands.

Peter Adolf Thiessen was a German physical chemist and a tribologist– he is credited as the founder of the tribochemistry.

Barnim XI, son of Bogislaw X, Duke of Pomerania, became duke on his father's death in 1523.

Otto Ostrowski was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and Mayor of Berlin in 1946–1947.

Ernst Bogislaw von Croÿ was a Lutheran Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Cammin and official in the service of Brandenburg-Prussia.

Josef, Baron von Mering was a German physician.

Bogislaw XIII of Pomerania (9 August 1544 – 7 March 1606), son of Philip I and Maria of Saxony, was a prince of Stettin and Wolgast, and a member of the Griffins.

Ernst Ludwig was duke of Pomerania from 1560 to 1592. From 1569 to 1592, he was duke in the Teilherzogtum Pomerania-Wolgast, sharing the rule over the Duchy of Pomerania with his older brother Johann Friedrich, duke in the other Teilherzogtum Pomerania-Stettin and bishop of Cammin.

Bengt Lidner was a Swedish poet, born in Gothenburg. His opera Medea was translated to English and played in England during his lifetime, but wasn't played in Sweden until 2004.

Karl Asmund Rudolphi was a Swedish-born German naturalist, who is credited with being the "father of helminthology".

Friedrich Spielhagen was a German novelist, literary theorist and translator. He tried a number of careers in his early 20s, but at 25 began writing and translating. His best known novel is Sturmflut and his novel In Reih' und Glied was quite successful in Russia.

Friedrich Wilhelm Weber was a German doctor, politician of the Prussian House of Deputies, and poet.

Johannes "Hans" Freyer was a German sociologist and philosopher of the conservative revolutionary movement.

Johannes Dantiscus, was prince-bishop of Warmia and Bishop of Chełmno (Culm). In recognition of his diplomatic services for Polish kings, the bishop and poet is also known as the "Father of Polish Diplomacy."

Thomas Thorild, was a Swedish poet, critic, feminist and philosopher. He was noted for his early support of women's rights. In his 1793 treatise Om kvinnokönets naturliga höghet he advocated gender equality.

John Frederick was Duke of Pomerania from 1560 to 1600, and Bishop of Cammin (Kamień) from 1556 to 1574. Elected bishop in 1556 and heir of the duchy in 1560, he remained under the tutelage of his great-uncle Barnim XI until he took on his offices in 1567.

Lars "Lasse" Johansson, usually referred to under his pseudonym Lucidor ( pronounced [ˈlʉ̌ːsɪdɔr]), was a Swedish baroque poet. He is remembered for his burlesque poetry that is seen as foreshadowing that of Johan Runius and, especially, Carl Michael Bellman, and for his dramatic death in a tumultuous brawl at the Fimmelstången tavern in Gamla stan in Stockholm. Lasse Johansson wrote...

Abraham Jacobi was a German physician and pioneer of pediatrics. He was a key figure in the movement to improve child healthcare and welfare in the United States and opened the first children's clinic in the country. To date, he is the only foreign-born president of the American Medical Association. He helped found the American Journal of Obstetrics. He is...

Walter Serner was a German-language writer and essayist. His manifesto Letzte Lockerung was an important text of Dadaism.

Gerhard Karl Erich Gentzen was a German mathematician and logician. He made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics, proof theory, especially on natural deduction and sequent calculus. He died of starvation in a Czech prison camp in Prague in 1945.

Ludwik Antoni Rydygier was a Polish surgeon, professor of medicine, rector of the University of Lwów and Brigadier General of the Polish Army. He was one of the most distinguished Polish and worldwide known surgeons in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried von Waldeyer-Hartz was a German anatomist, known for summarizing neuron theory and for naming the chromosome. He is also remembered by anatomical structures of the human body which were named after him: Waldeyer's tonsillar ring (the lymphoid tissue ring of the naso- and oropharynx) and Waldeyer's glands (of the eyelids).

Johann Friedrich Theodor Müller, better known as Fritz Müller ( Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈfɾits ˈmileʁ]), and also as Müller-Desterro, was a German biologist who emigrated to southern Brazil, where he lived in and near the city of Blumenau, Santa Catarina. There he studied the natural history of the Atlantic forest and was an early advocate of Darwinism. Müllerian mimicry is named...

Nils Otto Gustaf Nordenskjöld was a Swedish geologist, geographer, and polar explorer.

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.

René Springer is a German politician of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Springer has served as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Brandenburg since 2017, and the leader of the AfD state section in Brandenburg since 2024.

Hans Brask was a Swedish Bishop of Linköping.

Georg Stiernhielm was a Swedish civil servant, mathematician, linguist and poet. He has been called "the father of the Swedish skald art".

Curt Bräuer was a German career diplomat.

Werner Tübke was a German painter, best known for his monumental Peasants' War Panorama located in Bad Frankenhausen. Associated with the Leipzig School, he is "one of the few East German artists who gained recognition in West Germany."

Nico Lange is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as former Federal Minister of Defence Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer's chief of staff.

Lothar Collatz was a German mathematician, born in Arnsberg, Westphalia.

Johannes Stark was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1919 for his discovery of the Stark effect.

Christian Albert Theodor Billroth was a one of the most eminent surgeons of the 19. century, with spadework in gastrectomy, laryngectomy and anatomical pathology and generally regarded as the founding father of modern abdominal surgery.

Johannes Bugenhagen, also called Doctor Pomeranus by Martin Luther, was a German theologian and Lutheran priest who introduced the Protestant Reformation in the Duchy of Pomerania and Denmark in the 16th century. Contributions of Karlstadt and Luther to the translation of theology into social legislation were most fully realized by Bugenhagen. Among his major accomplishments was organization of Lutheran churches...

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.

Philipp Amthor is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been a member of the Bundestag since the 2017 German federal election.

Johann Friedrich Ludwig Christoph Jahn was a German gymnastics educator and nationalist whose writing is credited with the founding of the German gymnastics (Turner) movement, first realized at Volkspark Hasenheide in Berlin, the origin of modern sports clubs, as well as influencing the German Campaign of 1813, during which a coalition of German states effectively ended the occupation by Napoleon's...

Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin, Prince of Bülow was a German politician who served as the imperial chancellor of the German Empire and minister-president of Prussia from 1900 to 1909. A fervent supporter of Weltpolitik, Bülow devoted his chancellorship to transforming Germany into a global power. Despite presiding over sustained economic growth and major scientific breakthroughs within his country, his government's...

Ernst Walter Mayr was a German-American evolutionary biologist. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, philosopher of biology, and historian of science. His work contributed to the conceptual revolution that led to the modern evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics, systematics, and Darwinian evolution, and to the development of the biological species concept.

Ernst Moritz Arndt was a German nationalist historian, writer and poet. Early in his life, he fought for the abolition of serfdom, later against Napoleonic dominance over Germany. Arndt had to flee to Sweden for some time due to his anti-French positions. He is one of the main founders of German nationalism during the Napoleonic wars and the 19th century...

Ulrich von Hutten was a German knight, scholar, poet and satirist, who later became a follower of Martin Luther and a Protestant reformer.

Hermann Löns was a German journalist and writer. He is most famous as "The Poet of the Heath" for his novels and poems celebrating the people and landscape of the North German moors, particularly the Lüneburg Heath in Lower Saxony. Löns is well known in Germany for his famous folksongs. He was also a hunter, naturalist and conservationist. Despite being...

Ernst Ferdinand Sauerbruch was a German surgeon. His major work was on the use of negative-pressure chambers for surgery.

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...

Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach was a German surgeon. He was born in Königsberg and died in Berlin.

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.

Caspar David Friedrich was a German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation, whose often symbolic, and anti-classical work, conveys a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings often set contemplative human figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. Art historian Christopher John Murray described their presence,...