Greatest German Geniuses and Thinkers

Albert Einstein

Synonym for genius and one of humanity greatest scientific minds

Albrecht Dürer

A German painter, printmaker and theorist

Alexander von Humboldt

A German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science.

Alfred Wegener

A German polar researcher, geophysicist and meteorologist.

Arnold Sommerfeld

A German theoretical physicist who pioneered developments in atomic and quantum physics

Arthur Schopenhauer

a German philosopher best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844).

Athanasius Kircher

A German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works.

August von Kotzebue

A German dramatist and writer who also worked as a consul in Russia and Germany.

Augustin Pyramus de Candolle

A 19th-century Swiss botanist, noted for his contributions to taxonomy.

Baron d'Holbach

Benjamin Constant

A Swiss-French political activist and writer on political theory and religion.

Bernhard Riemann

A German mathematician who made contributions to analysis, number theory, and differential geometry.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

A German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science.

Carl Jung

A Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology.

Christian Doppler

An Austrian mathematician and physicist.

Christian Thomasius

A German jurist and philosopher.

Felix Klein

A German mathematician and mathematics educator.

Christian Charles Josias von Bunsen

A German diplomat and scholar.

Christian Wolff

A German philosopher.

Christoph Willibald Gluck

A composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period.

Christoph Martin Wieland

A German poet and writer best-remembered for having written the first Bildungsroman (Geschichte des Agathon) as well as

Daniel Bernoulli

A Swiss mathematician and physicist for pioneering work in probability and statistics

Daniel Sennert

A renowned German physician and a prolific academic writer, especially in the field of alchemy or chemistry.

David Hilbert

A German mathematician and one of the most influential mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries

David Strauss

A German liberal Protestant theologian and writer, who influenced Christian Europe with his portrayal of the "historical

Meister Eckhart

A German theologian, philosopher and mystic who rose into prominence during the Avignon Papacy.

Edmund Husserl

A German philosopher, known as the father of phenomenology - the philosophical study of the structures of experience an

Emmy Noether

A genius German mathematician who discovered Noether's theorem. Albert Einstein described her as the most important woma

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

An Austrian-born American composer and conductor who became one of the most important and influential composers in Holly

Erich Fromm

A German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was one o

Ernst Mach

An Austrian physicist and philosopher, noted for his contributions to physics such as the study of shock waves. He was a

Ernst Haeckel

A genius German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, and philosopher who mapped a genealogical tree relating all life form

Erwin Schrödinger

A Nobel Prize-winning Austrian-Irish physicist best known for his "Schrödinger's cat" thought experiment.

Felix Mendelssohn

A German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period best known for A Midsummer Night's Dream

Franz Mesmer

A doctor who theorised the existence of a natural energy transference occurring between all animated and inanimate objec

Joseph Haydn

Austrian composer who was a mentor of Mozart, a tutor of Beethoven, and the older brother of Michael Haydn.

Franz Schubert

19th-century Austrian composer

William Herschel

A German-born British astronomer and composer who discovered the planet Uranus.

Frederick the Great

A Prussian king and military leader who reorganized the Prussian armies and noted for his Silesian wars and the Partitio

Friedrich Schiller

German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

A German philosopher who was a prominent figure in the German idealism school.

Friedrich Schleiermacher

A German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the

Friedrich August Wolf

German Classicist and is considered the founder of modern Philology.

Friedrich Nietzsche

German philosopher cultural critic, poet, and philologist whose work has exerted a profound influence on modern intellec

Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock

Opening German literature up to exploration outside of French models

Fritz Albert Lipmann

A German-American biochemist and a co-discoverer in 1945 of coenzyme A.

Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher

A Prussian Generalfeldmarschall who fought Napoleon at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in 1813 and the Battle of Wa

Georg Ernst Stahl

A German chemist, physician, and philosopher whose works helped to explain the chemical processess.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

A German physicist, satirist, and Anglophile who coined the term "scrapbooks".

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Phenomenology of Spirit

George Frideric Handel

18th-century German, later British, Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi and

Georges-Louis Le Sage

A Genevan physicist and is most known for his theory of gravitation

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

A German philosopher, mathematician, scientist, diplomat and polymath. He is a prominent figure in both the history of p

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

A German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and an outstanding representative of the Enlightenmen

Gottlob Frege

A genius German philosopher, logician, and mathematician who is considered to be the father of analytic philosophy

Gustav Fechner

A German experimental psychologist, philosopher, and physicist who was an early pioneer in experimental psychology and f

Gustav Kirchhoff

A German physicist who contributed to the fundamental understanding of electrical circuits, spectroscopy, and the emissi

Hannah Arendt

A German-born American political theorist who was an avid critic of totalitarian regimes, Nazism and Fascism in particul

Hans Lipperhey

A German-Dutch spectacle-maker commonly associated with the invention of the telescope.

Heinrich Hertz

A German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

A German polymath, physician, theologian, and occult writer widely considered as the top occultists of the early modern

Heinrich Heine

A German poet, writer, and literary critic best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry.

Hennig Brand

A German merchant, pharmacist and alchemist, who discoverer of the chemical element phosphorus

Hermann Staudinger

A German organic chemist who demonstrated the existence of macromolecules, which he characterized as polymers

Hermann von Helmholtz

A German physicist and physician known for his mathematics of the eye, theories of vision, ideas on the visual perceptio

Hildegard of Bingen

A German Benedictine abbess who is among the best best-known composers of sacred monophony

Immanuel Kant

A German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers.

Jacob Grimm

A German philologist, jurist, and folklorist who was the editor of Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Jacob Bernoulli

A Swiss mathematician who was a proponent of Leibnizian calculus.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer whose political philosophy influenced the progress of the Enlightenment throug

Johann Sebastian Bach

18th-century German composer & music genius

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism.

Johann Reuchlin

A German Catholic humanist whose work centered on advancing German knowledge of Greek and Hebrew

Johann Joachim Winckelmann

German art historian and archaeologist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman, and Roman art.

Ludwig Tieck

A German poet, fiction writer, translator, and critic who was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement.

Johann Gottfried Herder

Volksgeist

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

German writer, scientist artist, & politician best known for his drama Faust and is considered to be the greatest German

Johann Joachim Becher

A German physician, alchemist, precursor of chemistry, scholar and adventurer, best known for his development of the phl

Johannes Kepler

A German astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer who was a key figure in the 17th-century scientific revolution, best

Johannes Brahms

A German composer, pianist, and conductor of the Romantic period.