Famous People Born in Germany

Baroque composer known for instrumental compositions and sacred music.

German composer and pianist of the Romantic period, known for his symphonies, concertos, chamber works, and choral compositions that combined classical structural rigor with expressive depth.

German poet, playwright and theatre theorist who reshaped modern drama.

German Romantic painter celebrated for contemplative landscapes such as 'Wanderer above the Sea of Fog'.

German Renaissance painter, printmaker and theorist noted for engravings and woodcuts such as 'Melencolia I'.

Theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics.

German painter, sculptor and pioneer of Dada and Surrealism; noted for inventing frottage techniques.

German writer known for politically engaged fiction.

German canoeist who won gold medals across six Olympics.

German novelist and poet.

Jewish diarist girl whose writings from hiding during the Holocaust became one of the world’s most widely read and poignant firsthand accounts of life under Nazi persecution.

British painter known for psychologically intense realist portraiture.

German luger and multiple Olympic champion.

Inventor of the movable-type printing press.

German poet and essayist.

Physicist known for the uncertainty principle.

German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves proposed by James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism.

German filmmaker known for influential and unconventional cinema.

German‑Swiss novelist and poet exploring spirituality and self‑discovery; Nobel Prize in Literature (1946).

Astronomer who formulated the laws of planetary motion.

German painter and sculptor exploring myth, memory and history with monumental materials.

German novelist and essayist noted for allegorical novels; Nobel Prize in Literature (1929).

German novelist and short story writer.

German singer who rose to international fame in 1983 as the lead vocalist of the band Nena with the Neue Deutsche Welle song "99 Luftballons".

German philosopher and cultural critic whose writings on morality, power, and the human condition profoundly influenced modern intellectual history.

Physicist considered the father of quantum theory.

German visual artist known for photorealistic paintings, abstractions and innovative techniques.

German poet, playwright, and philosopher, best known for his dramas such as William Tell and Mary Stuart and for his influence on German Idealism and classical literature.

(Duplicate entry; already listed above).

German writer and poet of Realism.

Turkish pop singer popular across Eurasia.

Composer and pianist, crucial figure in transition between Classical and Romantic eras in music.

German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language.

German equestrian with multiple dressage gold medals.

German figure skater and two-time Olympic champion.