- Martin Luther
Martin Franz Julius Luther was an early member of the National-Socialist Party. He served as an advisor to Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, first in the "Dienststelle Ribbentrop" ("Ribbentrop Bureau"), and later in the "Auswärtiges Amt" ("Foreign Ministry") when von Ribbentrop replaced Konstantin von Neurath. He is perhaps most remembered for having participated in the infamous Wannsee Conference, in which the Final Solution was planned.
- Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-born actress, singer, and entertainer. Throughout her long career, starting as a cabaret singer, chorus girl and film actress in 1920s Berlin, Hollywood movie star in the 1930s, World War II frontline entertainer during the 1940s, and finally as an international stage show performer from the 1950s to the 1970s, Dietrich constantly re-invented herself and eventually became one of the entertainment icons of the 20th century.
- Nina Hagen
Nina Hagen (born Catharina Hagen on March 11, 1955) is a singer from Berlin, Germany.
- Klaus Wowereit
Klaus Wowereit (born October 1, 1953 in Berlin) is a German politician, member of the SPD (Social Democratic Party), and has been the mayor of Berlin since the 2001 state elections. He served as President of the Bundesrat in 2001/02. His SPD-led coalition was re-elected in the 2006 elections. He is also sometimes mentioned as a possible SPD candidate for the Chancellorship of Germany ("Kanzlerkandidat"), …
- Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German Marxist literary critic, essayist, translator, and philosopher. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory and was also greatly inspired by the Marxism of Bertolt Brecht and Jewish mysticism as presented by Gershom Scholem. As a sociological and cultural critic, Benjamin combined ideas of historical materialism, German idealism, …
- Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, dancer and actress, and widely noted for her aesthetics and advances in film technique. Her most famous film was "Triumph des Willens", a documentary of the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party, which was used by the Third Reich as a powerful propaganda film. Because of Riefenstahl's social prominence in the Third Reich, including a personal acquaintance with Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, …
- Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, born and known generally as Felix Mendelssohn (February 3, 1809 - November 4, 1847) was a German composer and conductor of the early Romantic period. Born to a notable Jewish family, being the grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. His work includes symphonies, concertos, oratorios, piano and chamber music. After a long period of relative denigration due to changing musical tastes in the late 19th century, …
- Harris
Oliver Harris, better known as Harris, is a German rapper from Berlin Kreuzberg. He founded the hip hop duo Spezializtz and the record label G.B.Z. Imperium with Dean Dawson. Together with Sido, he forms the duo Deine Lieblingsrapper. He is married to pop/soul singer Bintia. Harris is best known for his "party tracks", G.B.Z. stands for "Gras, Beck's und Zärtlichkeit" ("Weed, Beck's and tenderness").
- Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (May 18, 1883 - July 5, 1969) was a German architect and founder of Bauhaus. Along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, he is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of "modern" architecture.
- Christiane F.
Christiane F. (full name: "Vera Christiane Felscherinow"), was born in Hamburg on May 20, 1962. Her family moved to West Berlin when she was a child. Christiane is famous for her struggle with her drug addiction, especially to heroin. When she was 12 years old, she first smoked hashish; by the time she was 14, she was a junkie and prostitute in the Bahnhof Zoo scene, an infamous group of teenaged drug-users and prostitutes (of both sexes) in Berlin.
- Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch, was a German-born Jewish film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."
- Gustav Stresemann
Gustav Stresemann (May 10, 1878 - October 3, 1929) was a German liberal politician and statesman who served as Chancellor and Foreign Secretary during the Weimar Republic. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926.
- Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter (Bruno Walter Schlesinger) (September 15, 1876 - February 17, 1962) was a German-born conductor and composer. He was born in Berlin, but moved to several countries between 1933 and 1939, finally settling in the United States in 1939. He began using Walter as his surname in 1896, and officially upon naturalising to Austria in 1911.
- Gershom Scholem
Gershom Scholem (December 5, 1897 - February 21, 1982), also known as Gerhard Scholem, was a Jewish philosopher and historian raised in Germany. He is widely regarded as the modern founder of the scholarly study of Kabbalah, becoming the first Professor of Jewish Mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Scholem is best known for his collection of lectures, "Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism" (1941) and for his biography "Sabbatai Zevi, …
- Kurt Eisner
Kurt Eisner was a German and Bavarian politician and journalist. As a German socialist journalist and statesman, he organized the Socialist Revolution that achieved the overthrow of the monarchy in Bavaria (in 1918). He is used as an example of "charismatic authority" by Max Weber.
- Karl Dönitz
Karl Dönitz ; September 16, 1891-December 24, 1980) was a German naval leader, who was in command of the "Kriegsmarine" during World War II and was President of Germany for 23 days after Adolf Hitler's suicide. Dönitz was born in the suburb Grünau of Berlin. He entered the "Kaiserliche Marine" (Imperial German Navy) in 1911. During World War I, he served on surface ships before transferring to submarines.
- Max Delbrück
Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück was a German-American biophysicist and Nobel laureate.
- Magda Goebbels
Johanna Maria Magdalena Goebbels, (November 11, 1901 - May 1, 1945) was the wife of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. As Berlin was being overrun by the Red Army at the end of World War II, she killed their six children and then committed suicide. (Her oldest child by another marriage was not present at this event; he was a Luftwaffe pilot who survived the war.)
- Kurt Tucholsky
Kurt Tucholsky was a German journalist, satirist and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser, Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger, Cornelius Jagdmann and Ignaz Wrobel. Born in Berlin-Moabit, he moved in 1924 to Paris and in 1930 to Sweden. Tucholsky was one of the most important journalists of the Weimar Republic.
- Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer.
- Joachim Fest
Joachim Clemens Fest (December 8, 1926-September 11, 2006), German historian, journalist, critic and editor, is best known for his writings and public commentary on Nazi Germany, including an important biography of Adolf Hitler and books about Albert Speer and the German Resistance. He was a leading figure in debate among German historians about the Nazi period.
- Peaches
Merrill Beth Nisker (b. 1968; Toronto, Canada), better known as Peaches, is an electronica musician. Her songs are mainly concerned with sex. She lives and works in Berlin.
- Walther Rathenau
Walther Rathenau was a German industrialist, politician, writer, and statesman who served as Foreign Minister of Germany during the Weimar Republic.
- Nikki Sudden
Nikki Sudden born Adrian Nicholas Godfrey in London, was a prolific English singer-songwriter and guitarist. He co-founded the post-punk band Swell Maps with his brother Epic Soundtracks born Kevin Paul Godfrey whilst attending Solihull School in Solihull. Following the band's break-up in 1980 he started a solo career, as well as releasing records with Dave Kusworth as The Jacobites. Kusworth had been a member of the Dogs D'Amour and led his own band, …
- Gregor Gysi
Gregor Gysi (born January 16, 1948) is a German politician of the Left Party. He was a key figure in the end of East German communist rule in 1989, and in the post-reunification Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). Gysi's political career started in the then-ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) of East Germany, to which he was admitted in 1967. In 1971 he became a licensed attorney, and during the 1970s and 1980s defended several notable dissidents, including Rudolf Bahro, …
- Jim Avignon
Jim Avignon (born c. 1967) is a contemporary German pop artist. A lauded and much-respected cult figure in the Techno subculture in Berlin. Currently he lives and works in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and Berlin. Jim Avignon was born Christian Reisz. He started painting when he was 21 years old, exhibiting in techno clubs. His ideas on art were very clear: "I'd rather sell a thousand images for one dollar, …
- Eberhard Diepgen
Eberhard Diepgen (born November 13 1941 in Berlin) is a German politician of the CDU. He studied law at the Free University of Berlin. He was mayor of Berlin from 1984 to 1989 and from 1991 to 2001.
- Erich von Manstein
Erich von Manstein (November 24, 1887-June 10 1973) served the German military as a lifelong professional soldier. He became one of the most prominent commanders of Nazi Germany's armed forces ("Wehrmacht"). During World War II he attained the rank of Field Marshal ("Generalfeldmarschall") and was held in high esteem by his fellow officers as one of the Wehrmacht's best military minds.
- Arnold Dreyblatt
Arnold Dreyblatt (b. New York City, 1953) is an American composer and visual artist. He studied with Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young, and Alvin Lucier and has been based in Berlin, Germany since 1984. His compositions are based on harmonics, and thus just intonation, played either through a bowing technique he developed for his modified bass, a children's piano he specially tuned, or conventional instruments.
- Hans Joachim Roedelius
Hans-Joachim Roedelius is a German experimental / ambient / electronic musician. He is known as a co-founder of the German krautrock group "Cluster".
- Meshell Ndegeocello
Meshell Ndegeocello is an American singer, rapper, bassist, and multi-instrumentalist. She has been hailed in the music press as a redeemer of soul music. Her music incorporates funk, soul, hip-hop, reggae, R&B, rock and jazz. She has been nominated for 9 Grammy Awards.
- Rahel Varnhagen
Rahel Varnhagen née Levin (June 19, 1771 - March 7, 1833) was a German writer of Jewish descent who hosted one of the most prominent salons in Europe during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She is the subject of a celebrated biography, "Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess" (1958) written by Hannah Arendt.
- Hermann Müller
Hermann Müller was a German athlete, who won the silver medal in the 3000 metre walk at the 1906 Summer Olympics held in Athens, Greece.
- 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.
- Katarina Witt
Katarina Witt (born December 3, 1965) is a German figure skater, in Germany she was commonly affectionately called "Kati" in the past, but today her full name is used more often. She won two Olympic gold medals for East Germany, first in the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics and the second in 1988 at the Calgary Olympics. She won the World Championships in 1984, 1985, 1987, and 1988, and six consecutive European Championships (1983-1988).
- Julia Jentsch
Julia Jentsch is a German actress. Jentsch was born to a family of lawyers in Berlin and began her acting education there at a high school for drama. Her first prominent screen role was in the 2004 cult film "The Edukators", starring opposite Daniel Brühl. Jentsch garnered further attention playing the title role in the 2005 film, "Sophie Scholl – The Final Days", which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
- Dominic Monaghan
Dominic Bernard Patrick Luke Monaghan (born December 8, 1976) is an English actor. He has received international attention from the success of playing Merry Brandybuck in Peter Jackson's adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and his role as Charlie Pace on the television show "Lost".
- Frank Beyer
Frank Beyer was a German film director. He studied theatre science and worked as a director for small plays before studying film at the Prager film school. In 1957 came his debut film, "Zwei Mütter". But it was "Nackt unter Wölfen" and "Jakob der Lügner" which made him famous for their portrayals of life in the concentration camp and Ghetto. His later work came increasingly under the censorship of East Germany, …
- Robert Hoyzer
Robert Hoyzer (born August 28, 1979 in Berlin, Germany) is a former football referee who scandalized German football by fixing matches in the Bundesliga scandal of 2005. Hoyzer, a member of the Bundesliga's Hertha BSC Berlin was registered by the German Football Association (DFB) as a referee in 2003. He refereed in the second division and regional leagues but was not selected to officiate in the top division.
- Otto Wels
Otto Wels (September 15 1873 - September 16 1939) was the chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 1919 and a member of parliament from 1920 to 1930. On March 23, 1933 the Berlin-born Wels was the only member of the Reichstag to speak against Adolf Hitler's Enabling Act (the "Law for Removing the Distress of People and Reich"). The vote took place during the last official session of the Reichstag, on March 23, 1933.