- Peter Fechter
Peter Fechter (14 January 1944 - 17 August 1962) was a bricklayer from East Berlin, who at the age of eighteen became one of the first victims of the Berlin Wall's border guards. - Otto Grotewohl
Otto Grotewohl (March 11, 1894 - September 21 1964) was an East German politician. Grotewohl was born in Braunschweig. A leader of the Social Democratic Party in the Soviet Zone of Occupation after World War II, he led his party into a merger with the Communist Party led by Wilhelm Pieck in April 1946, forming the new Socialist Unity Party (SED). Grotewohl and Pieck had received the Eulenberg estate as a life gift from the Soviet Government for the merger. - Armin Mueller-Stahl
Armin Mueller-Stahl (born December 17, 1930) is a German film actor. Mueller-Stahl was born in Tilsit, East Prussia, Germany, (now Sovetsk, Russia). He was a noted concert violinist while he was a teenager. He turned to film acting in East Berlin in 1950. He was a successful film and stage actor in East Germany, but being blacklisted by the government, he emigrated to West Germany in 1980 after protesting against Wolf Biermann's denaturalisation in 1976. - Ernst Busch
Ernst Busch (22 January, 1900 - 8 June, 1980) was a singer and actor. He was born in Kiel, Germany, and died in Berlin. Busch first rose to prominence as an interpreter of political songs, particularly those of Kurt Tucholsky, in the Berlin cabaret scene of the 1920s. He starred in the original 1928 production of Bertolt Brecht's "Threepenny Opera", as well as the subsequent 1931 film by Georg Wilhelm Pabst. - Lothar de Maizière
Lothar de Maizière is a German conservative politician who served as the first and only democratically elected Prime Minister of the German Democratic Republic in 1990, and as such was the last leader of an independent East Germany. He was born in Nordhausen and studied viola at the College of Music "Hanns Eisler" in East Berlin from 1959 to 1965. - Robert Havemann
Robert Havemann was a chemist, communist and an East German dissident. He studied chemistry in Berlin and Munich from 1929 to 1933, and then later received a doctorate in physical chemistry from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. Havemann joined the German Communist Party in 1932 and worked for the resistance until his arrest by the Gestapo in 1943. He received a death sentence, but due to his knowledge he was instead forced to do research while in jail. - Chris Gueffroy
Chris Gueffroy was the last person to die while trying to escape across the Berlin Wall. Together with his friend Christian Gaudian, Gueffroy attempted on the night of February 5-6, 1989 to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin, along the Britz district canal. The two believed that the "Schießbefehl", the standing order to shoot anyone who attempted to cross the wall, had been lifted. - Elisabeth Hauptmann
Elisabeth Hauptmann (born June 20 1897 in Peckelsheim, Westphalia; died April 20 1973 in East Berlin) was a German writer who worked with Bertolt Brecht. She got to know Brecht in 1922, the same year she came to Berlin. She began collaborating with him in 1924, and is listed as a co-author of The Threepenny Opera. She was the main text author of the musical comedy Happy End. She was in exile in the United States from 1934 to 1949; she married Paul Dessau in 1943. - Walter Felsenstein
Walter Felsenstein was a theater and opera director. Felsenstein was born in Vienna and began his career at the Burgtheater in his birthcity and from 1923 to 1932 was a theater actor in Lübeck, Mannheim, and Bytom, where he first worked as a director. In Basel and Freiburg im Breisgau, he became closely acquainted with the contemporary concert hall. From 1932 to 1934 he worked as an opera director in Cologne, and from 1934 to 1936 at Frankfurt. - Peter Hacks
Peter Hacks, was a German playwright, author, and essayist. Displaced by World War II, Hacks settled in Munich in 1947, where he made acquaintance with Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht. Hacks then followed Brecht to East Berlin in 1955, where the two collaborated closely. - Franziska van Almsick
Franziska van Almsick (born April 5, 1978 in East Berlin, Germany) is a German swimmer. She won her first Olympic Medals in 1992 at the Barcelona Olympic Games aged fourteen. Over her career, Van Almsick earned ten career Olympic medals, none of them gold. She ended her career at the Athens Olympic Games in 2004. In 1993, she was named by "Swimming World magazine" as the Female World Swimmer of the Year. Her son Don Hugo was born on January 7 2007. - Gonzales
Gonzales (real name Jason Beck) is a Canadian musician currently residing in Paris, France. Though most well known for his first MC and electro albums, he is also a pianist. He regularly collaborates with the Canadian musicians Feist, Peaches and Mocky. Additionally, he has collaborated with Jamie Lidell on the album "Multiply", and Buck 65 on the album "Secret House Against the World". - Johannes Bobrowski
Johannes Bobrowski (born April 9, 1917 in Tilsit, "present day Russia" – died September 2, 1965 in East Berlin) was an important German lyricist, narrative writer, adaptor and essayist. - Erhard Krack
Erhard Krack (January 9, 1931 - December 13, 2000) was an East German politician and mayor of East Berlin from 1974 to 1990. He was a member of the Socialist Unity Party (SED). He was also a deputy in the Volkskammer and a member of the Central Committee of the SED. - Barbara Honigmann
Barbara Honigmann (b 12 February 1949 in Berlin) is a German author and artist. Barbara Honigmann is the daughter of German-Jewish emigrants, who returned to East Berlin in 1947 after a period of exile in Great Britain. Her father was the chief editor of the "Berliner Zeitung". From 1967 to 1972, she studied theatre at Humboldt University in East Berlin. In the following years she worked as a dramatist and director in Brandenburg and Berlin. - Gustav von Wangenheim
Gustav von Wangenheim was a German actor, screenwriter and director. Wangenheim was born Ingo Clemens Gustav Adolf Freiherr von Wangenheim in Wiesbaden, Germany, to parents Eduard Clemens Freiherr von Wangenheim and Minna Mengers. Both of his parents were actors; his father, who used the stage name Eduard von Winterstein, … - Günter Kunert
Günter Kunert is a German writer who left the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) to live in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). After attending elementary school, it was not possible for Kunert - due to the National Socialist race laws - to continue his high school education. After World War II ended, Kunert studied in East Berlin, but abandoned his studies. He joined main political party of East Germany, the Socialist Unity Party (SED) in 1948. - Claudia Pechstein
Claudia Pechstein (born 22 February 1972 in East Berlin) is a German speed skater. With a total of five Olympic gold medals, two silver and two bronze medals, she is the most successful German Winter Olympian of all time. Also her team mates Anni Friesinger and Gunda Niemann are very successful. Pechstein is the first female Winter Olympian to win medals in five consecutive Olympics (1992-2006), … - Warrick Sony
Warrick Sony is a South African composer, producer, sonic artist, and sound designer, who has worked for 2 decades on a multitude of films, documentaries, art events, theatre, dance, and project albums. He was born Warwick Swinney in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in 1958. He is the founder and sole member of the Kalahari Surfers, solo recording projects working from Shifty Studios (Johannesburg) in the mid-1980s. - Julia Franck
Julia Franck (born February 20, 1970 in East Berlin) is a German writer. In 1978 Julia Franck and her family moved to West Berlin and later to Schleswig-Holstein. She studied German Literature and American Studies at the Free University of Berlin and spent several time in the United States and the Americas. She worked as an editor at Radio Free Berlin and contributed to various newspapers and magazines. She lives with her children in Berlin. - Barbara Krause
Barbara Krause is a female German swimmer, born in East Berlin, on July 7th 1959. Being the favorite in 400 m. freestyle in Montreal Olympic Games (1976) because of her recent world record of 4'11"69 (improving the Shirley Babashoff's one) she couldn't go to Canada due to a serious bronchitis. And, however, She will save the succession of her fellow countrywoman Kornelia Ender in the world swimming top. In the West Berlin World Championships(1978), she was favorite in 100, … - Daniela Hunger
Daniela Hunger (born March 20, 1972 in East Berlin) is a former medley and freestyle swimmer from East Germany, who won two golden medals at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea: in the Women's 200m Individual Medley, and as a member of the Women's 4x100m Freestyle Team. Hunger also competed at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, where she captured three medals. - Stefan Sanderling
Stefan Sanderling (born 1964, in the former East Berlin, Germany) is an orchestra conductor. His parents are the conductor Kurt Sanderling and the double-bass player Barbara Sanderling. His half-brother is the conductor Thomas Sanderling. His brother Michael Sanderling is a cellist. In his youth, Sanderling played the piano and clarinet. His early university experience was in Halle, Germany. At a summer institute of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, … - Heinrich Rau
Heinrich Rau (2 April 1899 in Feuerbach, an area of Stuttgart; † 23. March 1961 in East Berlin) was East German statesman, member of the Politburo of the central committee of the SED, chairman of the national plan commission of the GDR as well as Minister for mechanical engineering and for foreign trade and German domestic trade. Rau completed his training as punch and Metallpresser and worked, interrupted from the war service 1917/18, … - Ulf Timmermann
Ulf Timmermann (born November 1, 1962 in East Berlin) is a German shot putter who broke many world records during the 1980s and is the first and one of only two people to ever throw over 23 metres (along with Randy Barnes). Timmermann was born in East Berlin to an athletic family and took up shot put at 13. He broke his first world record in 1985 with a throw of 22.62 meters. - Rainer Rupp
Rainer Rupp (born 1945 in Saarlouis, Germany) was a top spy who worked under the pseudonyms Mosel and later Topas for the GDR in the NATO headquarters in Brussels from 1977 until 1989, releasing documents of the highest importance to the Eastern Bloc. Rupp grew up in West Germany with strong leftist political leanings. In 1968, as a student in Mainz, work as a spy for the GDR was suggested to him, and he agreed out of conviction. - Max Vasmer
Max Vasmer (February 28, 1886-November 30, 1962) was a Russian-born German linguist who studied problems of etymology of Indo-European, Finno-Ugric and Turkic languages and worked on history of Slavic, Baltic, Iranian, and Finno-Ugric peoples. Vasmer was born of German parents in St. Petersburg and graduated from the St. Petersburg University in 1907. Since 1910, he delivered lectures there as a professor. - Ollie Harrington
Oliver Wendell Harrington, of multi-ethnic descent, is considered by many to be the greatest African-American cartoonist. An outspoken advocate against racism and for civil rights in the United States, Harrington lived in East Berlin for the last three decades of his life. - Marko Rehmer
Marko Rehmer (born 29 April 1972 in East Berlin) is a German soccer player, who is currently a free agent. He plays as a defender. In his youth Rehmer played for 1. FC Union Berlin. Later he went on to play for Hansa Rostock in 1997. From 1999 until 2005 he played for Hertha BSC Berlin, before moving to Eintracht Frankfurt in July 2005. He left Frankfurt two years later. Rehmer got 35 caps for Germany between 1998 and 2003, scoring 4 times. - Evgeni Vasiukov
Evgeni Andreyevich Vasiukov (born Moscow, March 5, 1933) is a Russian chess Grandmaster. During his career, he won the Championship of Moscow on six occasions (1955, 1958, 1960, 1962, 1972, and 1978) and scored many victories in international tournaments, such as Belgrade Open 1961, Moscow International 1961, East Berlin 1962, and Manila 1974. He was ranked as high as #11 in the world during part of 1962. He was rarely at his best in Soviet Championship Finals, … - Peter Millar
Peter Millar is a British journalist and author, primarily known for his reporting of the fall of the Cold War and fall of the Berlin Wall for "The Sunday Times" of London. He was named "Foreign Correspondent of the Year" 1989<sup>*1</sup> by the British "What the Papers Say" television programme. Millar was born in Northern Ireland and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. He subsequently worked for Reuters in East Berlin, Warsaw and Moscow, … - Steffen Zesner
Steffen Zesner (born September 9, 1967 in East Berlin) is a former freestyle swimmer from Germany, who won a total number of four medals as a relay member at the Summer Olympics. His best result was a silver medal, on the 4x200 metres Freestyle, alongside Uwe Dassler, Thomas Flemming, and Sven Lodziewski in Seoul, South Korea. He swam for SC Dynamo Berlin. - Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider
Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider, better known as Tania or Tania the Guerilla, was a communist revolutionary and spy who played a prominent role in the Cuban government after the Cuban Revolution and in various Latin American revolutionary movements. She was the only woman to fight alongside Bolivian communist rebels under Che Guevara. - Rudi Arnstadt
Rudi Arnstadt was an East German border guard who was shot and killed while serving as a captain of the border troops of the former East Germany. He was shot by Hans Plüschke, a twenty-three year old West German border guard. The incident took place at Wiesenfeld on the East-West border in the East German province of Thuringia. His death occurred along with the deaths of another four East German border troops in quite a short time. - Karl Leonhard
Karl Leonhard (born March 21, 1904 in Edelsfeld, Bavaria, Germany; died April 23, 1988 in East Berlin, GDR) was an German psychiatrist, who stood in the tradition of Carl Wernicke and Karl Kleist. He created a complex classification of psychotic illnesses called nosological. His work covered Psychology, Psychotherapy, Biological psychiatry and Biological psychology. Moreover he created a classification of Nonverbal communication. He was born as the sixth of eleven children, … - Stefan Beinlich
Stefan Beinlich (born January 13, 1972 in East Berlin) is a German footballer. The midfielder began his career at Berlin clubs BFC Dynamo and SG Bergmann-Borsig. For SG, he played 20 times in the 1990-91 season, scoring 5 goals. During the 1991-92 season he signed for English Premiership side Aston Villa in his first professional contract. In total Beinlich played sixteen times for Aston Villa, scoring one goal. - Gennady Varenik
Gennady Varenik was a KGB official who also a CIA agent. He was arrested in East Berlin in 1985 by KGB, tried for treason and executed. He is one of the 25 Soviets betrayed by Aldrich Ames - Helga Haase
"Helga Haase", born June 9th, 1934 in Danzig; died on June 16 1989 in East Berlin was a speedskater in the GDR. - Gisela Birkemeyer
Gisela Birkemeyer, born Köhler (* December 22 1931 in Fahsendorf/Ore Mountains, Saxony), is a former athlete and Olympia participant, who was a part of the best athlets at the 80m hurdling. Gisela won with the GDR championships in gold at the 80m hurds in the years 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959 and 1960. At the 200m sprint and won gold in the years 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959 and 1960. At the 80m hurds she won continuous the GDR masters in the years 1953 to 1961. - Peggy Beer
Peggy Beer (born 15 September 1969 in East Berlin) is a retired German heptathlete. Her personal best was 6531 points, achieved at the 1990 European Championships in Split. This ranks her tenth among German heptathletes, behind Sabine Braun, Sabine Paetz, Ramona Neubert, Anke Behmer-Vater, Heike Drechsler, Ines Schulz, Sibylle Thiele, Heike Tischler and Mona Steigauf.
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