Notable Austrians, Germans and Swiss

Biographies of people from the German-speaking countries who have played a significant role in German and world history in the areas of politics, science, the arts, and technology.

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J

Helmut Jahn (1940-2021)
Jahn was a German-American architect with offices in Chicago, Frankfurt, and Munich. Born on 4 January 1940 in Zirndorf near Nuremberg, Germany, Jahn studied architecture at the Technische Hochschule in Munich and at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He died at 81 on 8 May 2021 in a bicycle accident in the Chicago suburb of Campton Hills. His bike was struck by two cars when Jahn failed to stop for a stop sign at a T-intersection. In 1981 he became a principal in the architectural firm of Murphy/Jahn (just Jahn after 2012). In 1991 Jahn was chosen as one of the Ten Most Influential Living American Architects. In addition to teaching, Jahn designed the following notable projects: Sony Center, Berlin; Messeturm (trade fair tower), Frankfurt; James R. Thompson Center (State of Illinois Center), Chicago; United Airlines Terminal, O’Hare Airport, Chicago; The Tower, 10940 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles; Kempinski Airport Hotel (now a Hilton), Munich. See jahn-us.com for his past and recent projects. Jahn married the American Deborah Lampe in 1970. Their only child, Evan, was born in 1978. The family owned Seven Oaks Farms in St. Charles, Illinois, not far from where he died. (For architecture, also see Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Richard Neutra.)

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)
Swiss psychologist, psychiatrist and inventor of analytical psychology. Born near Basel, Jung was at one time an important collaborator with Sigmund Freud, but he broke with Freud in 1912 in a disagreement over the causes of certain psychological disorders. Jung also placed heavy emphasis on the psychological meaning of dreams.

K

Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
He did not even want his “kafkaesque” works published, but the Prague-born author who wrote in German became posthumously famous for his stories of people fighting to survive in a bizarre, inhumane world, as in Der Prozess (The Trial) and Die Verwandlung (Metamorphosis), the tale of a man who wakes up one day to discover he is a giant bug.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

One of the greatest philosophers of all time, he was born in Königsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). A teacher and professor (of logic and metaphysics at the Univ. of Königsberg) for most of his life, Kant’s best known work, Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft), was first published in 1781. A second revised edition appeared in 1787. In Critique, Kant criticized the assumptions of Leibniz and other earlier philosophers that man was capable of understanding “truths” through pure reason and thought. The idea of the “thing in itself” (“das Ding an sich”), existing independent of any human subjective view, stems from Kant.

Karl der Große
See Charlemagne.

Martin Kaymer (1984- )
German golf pro and briefly the world’s No. 1 ranked golfer (Feb.-April 2011).
BIO: Martin Kaymer, German golf pro

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
German astronomer and mathematician, most famous for his work on planetary motion. Kepler was a mathematics teacher in Graz, and later in Linz, Austria. NASA named its Kepler space observatory, launched in 2009, for Kepler’s contributions to the field of astronomy.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1926-1968)
Dr. King wasn’t German, but he has German connections besides his name! More…

Henry A. Kissinger (1923- )
Born in Fürth, Germany, Kissinger came to the US at the age of 15. After graduating from Harvard, he went on to become Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State in 1973. Known for his policy of Realpolitik, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that same year for his Vietnam war negotiations. Kissinger also served as Secretary of State under Gerald Ford, following Nixon’s resignation. Primarily because of his Vietnam war policies, Kissinger has long been a controversial figure. His memoirs, entitled Years of Renewal were published in 1999. – Kissinger has two children, Elizabeth and David, from his first wife, Ann Fleischer (divorced in 1964). He now lives in Kent, Connecticut and New York City with his current wife, Nancy Maginnes (since 1974). His son David was an executive with NBCUniversal before becoming head of Conaco, Conan O’Brien’s television production company.

Famous Graves in Germany
Where are they buried?

Paul Klee (1879-1940)
Klee became one of the most famous artists of the 20th century. Born near Bern, Switzerland to a German father and a Swiss mother, Klee produced an astounding number of paintings, graphics, and sculptures in his lifetime – some 9,000 works, almost all of which he personally cataloged. Although considered Swiss, Klee was never granted Swiss citizenship until after his death – despite the fact that he was born, died, and spent half his life in Switzerland. Between 1898 and 1933, Klee worked in Germany, primarily in Munich and Düsseldorf. He was associated for a time with the Bauhaus design school and the Blaue Reiter artists’ group in Germany. But, although he was also claimed by the Dadaists and the Surrealists, Klee is not so easily classified. Klee lived and worked in his own universe. Best known for whimsical works such as “Twittering Machine,” colorful abstract designs, and his naive/primitive paintings that often resemble cave drawings or petroglyphs, Klee was also a talented musician and writer. He wrote prolifically about his own theory of art.

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)
Austrian artist who developed a unique graphic style that helped create and promote art nouveau/Jugendstil. The son of an engraver, born on July 14 in Baumgarten near Vienna, Klimt left out the conventional fig-leaf and scandalized fin-de-siècle Vienna with his openly erotic paintings of aloof femmes fatales. Klimt’s stylized, geometric compositions, particularly in his later period — “The Kiss” (1908) is a classic example — have been described as possessing a “bloodless eroticism.” Klimt was one of the founders of the Vienna Secessionist art movement in 1897, from which he himself later seceded in order to follow his own artistic path in 1908. (Also see Egon Schiele.) More: Gustav Klimt – Biography.com and The Art of Gustav Klimt (Web Museum).

Heidi Klum (1973- )
German-American fashion model and TV personality.
BIO: Heidi Klum

Robert Koch (1843-1910)
Celebrated German physician and microbiologist who won the Nobel Prize in 1905 for his work on tuberculosis. Koch also made important discoveries related to anthrax, diphtheria, cholera, and other diseases. Robert Koch was born in Clausthal, Hanover, Germany, on December 11, 1843. The Robert-Koch-Institut (RKI) in Berlin was founded in 1891 as The Royal Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases. Robert Koch led the Institute until 1904. Today the RKI has several branch offices and labs, including one in Wernigerode in the Harz region of former East Germany.

Helmut Kohl (1930-2017)
The former German Bundeskanzler (1982-1998, CDU) presided over German reunification and proved to be more clever a politician than some had thought, weathering considerable difficulties in bringing eastern and western Germans together. He won re-election in 1994 and served a total of 16 years as German chancellor, breaking Konrad Adenauer’s old record for length of time in office. Gerhard Schröder succeeded Kohl as chancellor in September 1998. – Commenting on Kohl’s death in June 2017, The Wall Street Journal wrote: “Among the many leaders who shaped modern Europe, few have been as consequential as Helmut Kohl… [who] saw his country through the death of the Cold War and the birth of a reunited Germany at the center of a more deeply integrated European Union.” Kohl’s former protégé, Angela Merkel beat Schröder to become Germany’s first female chancellor in 2005.

Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980)
Austrian artistic pioneer. Also a writer, his major work was in painting, and his impressionistic portraits and landscapes never took on the cubist, expressionist style of his time, but had a unique, splashy style that was Kokoschka’s alone. He later took up the cause of children’s education and welfare, dedicating much of his art to that end. He published an autobiography, My Life, in 1974.

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Karl Lagerfeld (Karl Otto Lagerfeldt, 1933-2019)
The noted German fashion designer, photographer, and trendsetter was born in Hamburg, but for much of his career Lagerfeld lived and worked primarily in Paris and other world fashion capitals. (His official year of birth has always been given as 1938, but Lagerfeld was actually born on September 10, 1933.) He had apartments in Monte Carlo, Rome and New York, as well as a house in Hamburg. During the early days of his career (in the 1950s), Lagerfeld went by the name of Roland Karl. After working for various French fashion houses, Lagerfeld turned to freelance design in 1962, collaborating with various other designers and houses. By the early 1980s he had gained international fame for his stylish costume design, fashion work and creative photography. He was also noted for his sharp tongue, calling Adele “a little too fat” and Meryl Streep “cheap.”

Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000)
Austrian film actress and inventor! She was a Hollywood superstar in the 1940s and ’50s.
BIO: Hedy Lamarr

Bernhard Langer (1957- )
Langer is the only other German golfer, besides Martin Kaymer, to be ranked number one in the world. The Bavarian Langer turned professional in 1976 and was the inaugural world number one when the Official World Golf Rankings first came into being in 1986. He won the Masters twice, something Kaymer has been unable to do in four tries so far. More…

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)
German philosopher and mathematician born in Leipzig. Leibniz, later recognized as a vital pioneer in developing a philosophy of pure logic based on mathematical concepts, died virtually forgotten in Hannover.

Otto Lilienthal (1848-1896)
German aviation pioneer and inventor of the first practical glider (1877). Lilienthal demonstrated the advantages of curved surfaces for wings, and his designs were studied by the American Wright brothers prior to their first motorized flight (1903). Beginning in 1891, Lilienthal made some 2500 successful glider flights, most from an artificial hill near Lichterfelde, before he was killed in a crash on Aug. 9, 1896 in the Stollerier mountains. He published Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst in 1889 (Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation, 1911).

Peter Lorre (1904-1964)
Austrian film actor who appeared in many Hollywood films, including The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, the Mr. Moto series, Arsenic and Old Lace, and Beat the Devil.
BIO: Peter Lorre

“Mad” Ludwig II (Louis II of Bavaria, 1845-1886; King of Bavaria, 1864-1886)
Was Mad King Ludwig really mad? In any case, the ”Swan King” has become a legendary figure in Bavarian history.
BIO: King Ludwig II

Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Started the Protestant Reformation with his “Ninety-Five Theses.” After his excommunication, at his heresy trial in Worms, he defiantly refused to recant his Protestant beliefs. Luther also had an impact on standardizing the German language through his translation of the Bible into German.
BIO: Martin Luther

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1926-1968)
The other Martin Luther wasn’t German, but he has several German connections, including his 1964 visit to both East and West Berlin.
MORE: Martin Luther King, Jr. in Germany and his name change

M

Ernst Mach (1838-1916)
Gave his name to the air speed system that measures the speed of an aircraft in relation to the speed of sound, Mach 1 being the local speed of sound. Mach was an Austrian scientist and philosopher who served as a professor in Graz, Vienna, and Prague. He wrote many scholarly works, some of which are credited with helping to pave the way for Einstein’s departure from Newtonian physics.

Thomas Mann (1875-1955)
Buddenbrooks (1900), Death in Venice (1912), The Magic Mountain (1924), and Felix Krull (1954) are the most famous works of this Nobel Prize-winning writer (1929). His older brother Heinrich Mann (1871-1950) was also a noted novelist and writer (Professor Unrat, 1905 – the basis for the famous film, The Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich). Both brothers spent the years after 1933 living in exile, most of that time in Santa Monica, California.

Karl Marx (1818-1883)
German philosopher and writer whose enormous impact on the world — for good or bad — continues today. The “co-inventor” of communism was born Karl Heinrich Marx in the city of Trier (then in Prussia) to a Jewish family whose members were all Lutherans. Marx studied at the universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Jena. He was greatly influenced by the writings of the German philosopher Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). Because of his rebellious tendencies, Marx spent most of his adult life in exile.
BIO: Karl Marx

Kurt Masur (1927- )
East German orchestra conductor (Gewandhausorchester, Leipzig) who also headed the New York Philharmonic from 1991 to 2002. Masur supported anti-government demonstrators in the period leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Karl May (1842-1912)
German writer who wrote some of his books about the American West in prison. Before writing his tales of the “Wild West,” he had never seen the US. He made a brief visit to America shortly before his death, but he never saw the western United States he had written about. Like most Germans today, he preferred the Indians over the cowboys. Generations of German-speaking youth have grown up with the May-created characters of Old Shatterhand and Winnetou in books and movies. His numerous adventure books, including Durch die Wüste (1892), Winnetou (1893), and Im Lande des Mahdi (1896), are well-known in the German-speaking world. Only a few of May’s works have ever been translated into English.

Ulrike Marie Meinhof (1934-1976)
Meinhof was a member of the infamous Baader-Meinhof gang. More in Terrorism in Germany.

Lise Meitner (1878-1968)
Austrian physicist, born in Vienna, who did important work in beta and gamma radiation. In 1905 Meitner became only the second Austrian woman to receive a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna. Two years later she went to Berlin to work with the chemist Otto Hahn, an association that lasted some 30 years. The Jewish Meitner became a professor of physics at the University of Berlin in 1926. After the Nazis came to power, Meitner was forced to leave Germany and continued her scientific work in Stockholm. It was during her work in Scandinavia (while still in contact with Hahn) that she discovered and coined the term “nuclear fission.” However, she refused to work on the atomic bomb, and later retired to England. Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1944 without acknowledging the vital contribution of Meitner to his work.

Phillip Melanchthon (Phillip Schwartzerd, 1497-1560)
German scholar and religious reformer, who worked with Martin Luther and wrote or helped draft several important Protestant works, including the Augsburg Confession (1530), the key document of the Lutheran faith. Melanchthon helped temper Luther’s views and was a force for reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
Henry Louis Mencken was the son of German-Americans in Baltimore. He became a famous and controversial journalist and literary critic. His authoritative multivolume work, The American Language, was published between 1919 and 1948. In the Smart Set, the American Mercury, and the Baltimore Sun, Mencken wrote his unflinching, politically incorrect criticisms of American life, to the point of being called “the most hated man in America.” He also wrote about the Germans in America, lamenting the fading of their native language and literature. Among his last written words: “After all these years, I remain a foreigner.”
BIO: H.L. Mencken

Ottmar Mergenthaler (1854-1899)
Invented the famous Linotype typesetting machine, first used in 1886 for the New York Tribune. His invention required ten years of hard work and revolutionized the printing of books and newspapers. Mergenthaler was born in Hachtel, Germany. He died in Baltimore, Maryland.

Angela Merkel (1954- , pron. AHN-gay-luh MEHRK-ell)
Germany’s first female chancellor was born Angela Dorothea Kasner in Hamburg on July 17, 1954.
BIO: Angela Merkel

Franz Johann Mesmer (1734-1815)
Austrian physician who gave us the word “mesmerize.” After being accused of practicing magic rather than medicine, Mesmer was forced to leave Austria in 1778. His technique of mesmerism was an early form of hypnotism, misunderstood both by the medical community and Mesmer himself. A French commission, of which Benjamin Franklin was a member, rendered an unfavorable judgment against Mesmer in 1784, claiming his cures were not due to “animal magnetism” as he claimed.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Began his musical career at the age of four. His musical creations in opera, chamber music, symphonies, and piano concertos are considered by many to be some of the most superb of all time. Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria but spent most of his working life in Vienna.

F. W. Murnau (Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe, 1888-1931)
Film director. German-born Murnau worked briefly in Hollywood (Sunrise, 1927) before being killed in an auto accident in Santa Barbara. His best-known film is the silent classic Nosferatu (1922), a Dracula film that influenced all that followed. He also worked with Conrad Veidt on five silent pictures in the 1920s, including Der Januskopf (1920, an early Jekyll/Hyde film, now lost), Sehnsucht/Desire (1921, also lost) and Der Gang in die Nacht (1921). Also see: Murnau’s grave in Germany.

“In heaven all the interesting people are missing.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

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Thomas Nast (1840-1902)
Born in Landau, Germany, Nast later went to America and became the creator of the Democratic and Republican party mascots and the “American” image of Santa Claus. He is famous for his biting political cartoons.
BIO: Thomas Nast

Nena (Susanne Kerner, 1961- )
German pop singer Nena made a big splash in the 1980s with “99 Luftballons” (1983, “99 Red Balloons” 1984). After that worldwide hit, her career leveled off, especially in the non-German-speaking world. But in 2005 Nena released a new CD album that brought her back into the spotlight. Several songs from her “willst du mit mir gehn” CD, recorded in Berlin, Nena’s adopted hometown, shot up in the German radio charts. Nena was born in Hagen, in the German region of Westphalia (Westfalen). After a short stint with a German band known as Stripes, she recorded her first hit, “Nur geträumt” (“only dreamed”) in 1982.

Richard Josef Neutra (1892-1970)
The Austrian-American architect came to the US in 1923 to work in Chicago with Frank Lloyd Wright and other American architects. He became known for his own unique designs in steel and concrete after his earlier work with houses, using natural materials.

Helmut Newton (1920-2004)
Noted German fashion photographer. Newton, who hailed from Berlin, helped revolutionize fashion photography in the 1970s by foregoing the studio in favor of natural outdoor settings. He was infamous for his stylish photos of leggy women (often in the nude) and erotic, kinky fashion photos. Newton died following an auto accident in Los Angeles.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
The German philosopher and writer, born in Saxony in eastern Germany, became famous for his Übermensch (superman) and the wisdom of his Zarathustra. His philosophy, expounded in works like Die Geburt der Tragödie (The Birth of Tragedy, 1872), Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1883), and Der Wille zur Macht (The Will to Power, 1888), was falsely adopted by the Nazis (aided by Nietzsche’s sister), but only by corrupting and editing Nietzsche’s true ideas, which rejected anti-Semitism, as well as German nationalistic and racist tendencies. Nietzsche suffered from physical and mental illness in his last years. (See Nietzsche quotation above.) – Web: View Nietzsche’s grave in Germany.

Emmy Noether (Amalie Emmy Noether, 1882-1935)
Noether was a noted mathematician born in the Bavarian town of Erlangen, Germany. She grew up and was educated at a time when German universities neither admitted female students nor hired female professors. Despite this barrier, Noether (pron. NER-ter) became a highly respected scientist and mathematician who made important contributions to the theories of algebraic invariants and vital aspects of modern physics. She is best known for Noether’s theorem, which helped explain the deep connections between the geometry of the universe and the behaviors of mass and energy. Many contemporary physicists consider Noether’s theorem “one of the most important mathematical theorems ever proved in guiding the development of modern physics, possibly on a par with the Pythagorean theorem.”* Noether, who was Jewish, was forced to leave Nazi Germany in 1933. With help from Albert Einstein and others, she was hired as a professor at Bryn Mawr College. But her story didn’t have a happy ending. Just 18 months after fleeing Germany Noether died following an operation for an ovarian cyst. She was only 53.
Also see more Notable Women from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Dirk Werner Nowitzki (1978- )
The German NBA basketball star, formerly with the Dallas Mavericks (1998-2019), was born and raised in Würzburg, Germany. Dirk Nowitzki (“Dirkules”) was the first German/European player to be voted MVP in the NBA (2007 and 2011). The 7-foot-tall German (2.13 m) has a mother who played pro basketball in Germany, but he started out with handball (his father’s sport) and tennis before switching to basketball. Nowitzki played for the Mavericks for 21 years until his retirement in 2019, making him the only player ever to play for a single NBA franchise for 21 seasons. Prior to the 2001-2002 NBA season, Nowitzki signed a six-year, $90 million contract extension, which at the time made him the second-highest-paid German athlete after Formula One champion Michael Schumacher. He is only the fourth German to play in the NBA, following Uwe Blab, Christian Welp, and Detlef Schrempf (who also played for Dallas in the 1980s). Nowitzki began his pro basketball career with DJK Würzburg (1994–1998), which was then in Germany’s 2nd-tier level league, the Second Bundesliga, South Division.

In 2009 Nowitzki made headlines for his personal life, something unusual for him, after the FBI arrested his fiancée, Crystal Taylor, at his home in Dallas. Taylor was later sentenced to five years in prison for falsifying documents, using a false identity, fraud, and violating parole. She had also falsely claimed that she was pregnant with Nowitzki’s child. Things improved for the basketball star when he met and later married the Swedish Jessica Olsson, the sister of soccer players Martin and Marcus Olsson. Jessica Olsson is the associate director of Dallas’ Goss-Michael Foundation Art Gallery (the Michael being pop star George Michael). The couple married at Nowitzki’s home on August 4, 2012 in a traditional African ceremony. Jessica’s mother is from Nanyuki, Kenya, so there was also a traditional Kikuyu wedding ceremony there, where the community learns that the daughter is engaged and relatives from both sides get to intermingle before it concludes with a “ruracio” (dowry payment) discussion. The couple now have three children, a daughter and two sons. Though Nowitzki has considered acquiring US citizenship, he remains a German national.
Also see Sports in Germany for more German athletes.

O

Auma Obama (1960- )
US President Barack Obama and his eldest half-sister, Auma (ah-oo-mah), have the same Kenyan father, Barack Obama, Sr. (1936-1982). She has worked with CARE in Kenya, which she considers her true home. Auma studied German literature in Heidelberg (1981-1987) and later earned her doctorate at the University of Bayreuth (1996). She lived in Germany for a total of 16 years (part of that time in Berlin) and speaks German well. She has been interviewed on German talk shows, including “Beckmann” (see video – in German, 9 min.). Normally her home is in London, and she is married to the British citizen Ian Manners. They have a daughter (Akinyi, b. 1997). Although they had been in touch via phone and letters before, Auma first met her brother in person in Chicago in the 1980s, and also helped him during the US presidential primary campaign.
WEB > Wie Auma Obama mit Deutschland haderte (Der Spiegel, in German)

Georg Simon Ohm (1789-1854)
German physicist for whom the ohm, a unit of electrical resistance, is named. As a professor of physics at the Polytechnische Schule in Nürnberg and later in Munich, Ohm made important discoveries about electrical properties that came to be formulated as Ohm’s Law (1827).

Adam Opel (1837-1895)
Opel was the German founder of the company that bears his name. One of Germany’s largest carmakers today was founded as a sewing machine manufacturer by Adam Opel in 1862. By 1886 the company in Rüsselsheim was also producing bicycles. The firm’s first automobile debuted in 1899, four years after Adam Opel’s death at the age of 58. Adam Opel AG became a part of General Motors between 1929 and 1931. In early 2017, the French concern Groupe PSA announced a takeover of Opel AG. For more about the company and its founder, see the Opel section on this German Way page: Auto Factory and Museum Tours in Germany for Car Buffs and Car Buyers.

Jesse Owens (1913-1980)
Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Did Hitler snub him? Or was it someone else?
BIO: Jesse Owens

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*From Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe by physicists Leon M. Lederman and Christopher T. Hill

Related Pages
MORE BIOGRAPHIES

• Mini Bios A-Z – More brief biographies of people from the German-speaking world
• Featured Biographies – More detailed bios of notable people from the German-speaking world
• Notable Women from Austria, Germany, Switzerland
• Famous Graves in Germany – Where are they buried?
• Also see Germans in Hollywood – German, Austrian and Swiss people in Hollywood