List of people from the former eastern territories of Germany

Numerous figures in German culture and history (some still living) were either born or resident in the former eastern territories of Germany. An inexhaustive list is as follows:^[1]

Politicians, statesmen and diplomats

Military figures

Scientists and mathematicians

• Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (1651 in Kieslingswalde – 1708 in Dresden) a German mathematician, physicist, physician, and philosopher
• Heinrich Göppert (1800 in Sprottau – 1884 in Breslau) a German botanist, paleontologist and paleobotanist
• Ferdinand Schichau (1814 in Elbing – 1896 in Elbing) a German mechanical engineer and businessman
• Hermann Brehmer (1826 in Strehlen – 1889 in Görbersdorf) a German physician who established the first German sanatorium for the systematic open-air treatment of tuberculosis in Görbersdorf
• Ferdinand Cohn (1828 in Breslau – 1898) a German biologist, one of the founders of modern bacteriology and microbiology.
• Ferdinand von Richthofen (1833 in Bad Carlsruhe in O.S – 1905 in Berlin) better known in English as Baron von Richthofen, was a German traveller, geographer, and scientist.
• Paul Ehrlich (1854 in Strehlen – 1915 in Bad Homburg) a German Jewish physician and scientist who worked on hematology, immunology, and antimicrobial chemotherapy
• Paul Gottlieb Nipkow (1860 in Lauenburg in Pommern – 1940 in Berlin) was a German technician and inventor of the Nipkow disk
• David Hilbert (1862 in Wehlau – 1943 in Göttingen) was a German mathematician, developed invariant theory and the axiomatization of geometry
• Hugo Münsterberg (1863 in Danzig – 1916 USA) a German-American psychologist, pioneer in applied psychology
• Johannes Thienemann (1863 – 1938 in Rossitten) a German ornithologist who in 1901 established the Rossitten Bird Observatory, the world’s first, on the Curonian Spit
• Alois Alzheimer (1864–1915 in Breslau) a German psychiatrist and neuropathologist, identified "presenile dementia", later called Alzheimer's disease
• Walther Nernst (1864 in Briesen – 1941 in Zibelle) a German chemist, worked on thermodynamics, won the 1920 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• Emil Krebs (1867 in Freiburg in Schlesien – 1930 in Berlin) a German polyglot and sinologist
• Fritz Haber (1868 in Breslau – 1934 in Basel) a German chemist, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process
• Georg von Arco (1869 in Großgorschütz – 1940 in Berlin) a German physicist, radio pioneer and joint founder of Telefunken
• Max Born (1882 in Breslau – 1970 in Göttingen) a German physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics
• Edward Sapir (1884 in Lauenburg – 1939 USA) a Prussian-American anthropologist-linguist, important figure in linguistics
• Gerhard Domagk (1895 in Lagow – 1964 in Burgberg) a German pathologist and bacteriologist, discovered the first commercially available antibiotic (Prontosil) and received the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1906 in Kattowitz – 1972 USA) a German-born American theoretical physicist, won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics for proposing the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus
• Wernher von Braun (1912 in Wirsitz – 1977 USA) a German, later American, aerospace engineer and space architect, invented the V-2 rocket for Nazi Germany and the Saturn V for the United States
• Günter Blobel (born 1936 in Waltersdorf) a Silesian German biologist and winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physiology
• Klaus Clusius (1903 in Breslau - 1963 in Zürich), physical chemist who worked on Germany's abortive nuclear weapon project

Philosophers and theologians

• George of Polentz (1478 - 1550 in Burg Balga) was the first Lutheran bishop
• Immanuel Kant (1724 in Königsberg – 1804 in Königsberg) a German philosopher and a central figure in modern philosophy
• Johann Georg Hamann (1730 in Königsberg – 1788 in Münster) a German philosopher, theologian and philologist
• Johann Gottfried Herder (1744 in Mohrungen – 1803 in Weimar) was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic
• Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 in Danzig – 1860 in Frankfurt) a German philosopher, an atheistic metaphysical and ethical pessimist
• Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768 Breslau – 1834 in Berlin) a German theologian, philosopher and biblical scholar
• Karl Gützlaff (1803 at Pyritz – 1851 in Hong Kong) a German Lutheran missionary to the Far East
• Paul Hensel (1860 in Groß-Barthen near Königsberg – 1930 in Erlangen) a German philosopher and professor at Heidelberg
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 in Breslau– in 1945 Flossenbürg) was a German pastor, theologian, spy and anti-Nazi dissident

Historians and archaeologists

• Heinrich Graetz (1817 in Xions – 1891 in Munich) an historian, wrote a history of the Jewish people from a Jewish perspective.
• Gottfried Bernhardy (1800 in Landsberg an der Warthe – 1875) German philologist and literary historian
• Ferdinand von Roemer (1818 – 1891) geologist, he formed a mineralogy collection in the Museum at Breslau
• Arthur Milchhöfer (1852 in Schirwindt – 1903) was a German archaeologist
• Otto Jaekel (1863 in Neusalz – 1929 in Beijing) was a German paleontologist and geologist.
• Fritz Gause (1893 – 1973) German historian, archivist and curator wrote a three-volume history of Königsberg
• Bolko von Richthofen (1899 in Mertschütz – 1983) German archaeologist
• Theodor Schieder (1908 – 1984) German historian, moved to Königsberg in 1934 at the age of 26
• Walter Bruno Henning (1908 in Ragnit – 1967 USA) a German scholar of Middle Iranian languages and literature

Musicians

Poets, writers and dramatists

Painters and visual artists

• Michael Willmann (1630 in Königsberg – 1706 in Leubus) a German painter and Baroque artist, "the Silesian Rembrandt"
• Karl Friedrich Lessing (1808 in Breslau - 1880 in Karlsruhe) a German historical and landscape painter
• Adolph Menzel (1815 in Breslau – 1905 in Berlin) a German Realist artist noted for drawings, etchings, and paintings.
• Lovis Corinth (1858 in Tapiau – 17 July 1925 in Zandvoort) a German artist and writer, he realized a synthesis of impressionism and expressionism.
• Käthe Kollwitz (1867 in Königsberg – 1945 in Moritzburg) a German artist, who worked with painting, printmaking and sculpture.
• Alfred Partikel (1888 in Goldap - date of death unknown) a German artist

Architects

• Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff (1699 in Kuckädel – 1753 in Berlin) designed Berlin's Sanssouci Palace
• Carl Gotthard Langhans (1732 in Landeshut – 1808 in Grüneiche) designer of the Brandenburg Gate
• Carl Ferdinand Langhans (1782 in Breslau – 1869 in Berlin) built among others the Breslau Opera
• Max Berg (1870 in Stettin – 1947 in Baden-Baden) was designer of the Centennial Hall in Breslau
• Friedrich Lahrs (1880 in Königsberg – 1964 in Stuttgart) designed the Kunsthalle Königsberg (completed 1913) in Tragheim
• Richard Konwiarz (1883 in Karlshausen – 1960 in Hanover) designed the Silesian Arena, now the Olympic Stadium in Wrocław
• Erich Mendelsohn (1887 in Allenstein) – 1953 in San Francisco) was a Jewish German architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s
• Hanns Hopp (1890 in Lübeck - 1971 in East Berlin) lived in Königsberg and designed many public and private buildings there

Film & TV

• Robert Wiene (1873 in Breslau – 1938 in Paris) a film director of the German silent cinema, particularly of expressionist films
• Hans Heinrich von Twardowski (1898 in Stettin – 1958 in New York) was a German film actor.
• Armin Mueller-Stahl (born 1930 in Tilsit) is a German film actor, painter and author, lives in Los Angeles
• Marianne Hold (1933 in Johannisburg – 1994 in Lugano) was a German movie actress, popular in the 1950s and 1960s
• Veruschka von Lehndorff (born 1939 in Königsberg) a German model, actress, and artist, popular in the 1960s
• Matthias Habich (born 1940 in Danzig) is a German actor, lives in Paris
• Volker Lechtenbrink (born 1944 in Cranz) is a German television actor and singer.
• Ulli Lommel (born 1944 in Zielenzig - 2017) was a German actor and director, collaborated with Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Miscellaneous

• Sophie Ursinus (1760 in Glatz – 1836 in Glatz) pardoned serial killer
• Karl Godulla (1781 in Makoschau - 1848 in Breslau) industrialist, the "King of Zinc", industrialised Silesia
• Karl Denke (1860 in Münsterberg – 1924 in Münsterberg) a notorious cannibalistic serial killer in Silesia
• Emanuel Lasker (1868 in Berlinchen – 1941 USA) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher
• Herbert Meinhard Mühlpfordt (1893 in Königsberg – 1982 in Lübeck) a German internist, art historian, and cultural historian.
• Sir Ludwig Guttmann CBE FRS (1899 in Tost – 1980 in Aylesbury) founder of the Paralympic Games
• Paul Mross (1910 in Bismarckhütte – 1991 in Düsseldorf) was a Polish–German chess master
• Herta Heuwer (1913 in Königsberg – 1999 in Berlin) inventor of the currywurst
• Beate Uhse-Rotermund (1919 in Cranz – 2001 in St Gallen) aviator and founder of the world's first sex shop, Beate Uhse AG
• Hardy Rodenstock (born 1941 in Marienwerder) publisher, wine connoisseur and suspected wine fraudster

See also

• List of people from Breslau
• List of people born in the Free City of Danzig
• List of people from Königsberg
• List of people from Stettin

References