FAMOUS GERMANS
Th e roster of famous Germans is long in most fi elds of endeavor.
Th e name of Johann Gutenberg (1400?–1468?), who is generally
regarded in the Western world as the inventor of movable
precision-cast metal type, and therefore as the father of modern
book printing, might well head the list of notable Germans.
Martin Luther (1483–1546), founder of the Reformation, still exerts
profound infl uence on German religion, society, music, and
language.
Th e earliest major names in German literature were the poets
Wolfram von Eschenbach (1170?–1220?), Gottfried von Strassburg
(d.1210?), and Sebastian Brant (1457?–1521). Hans Sachs
(1494–1576) wrote thousands of plays, poems, stories, and songs.
Hans Jakob Christoff el von Grimmelshausen (1620?–76) created
a famous picaresque novel, Simplicissimus. Th e fl owering of
German literature began with such renowned 18th-century poets
and dramatists as Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803),
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81), Christoph Martin Wieland
(1733–1813), and Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803),
and culminated with the greatest German poet, Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe (1749–1832), and the greatest German dramatist, Johann
Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805). Leaders of
the Romantic movement included Jean Paul (Jean Paul Friedrich
Richter, 1763–1825), August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767–1845),
Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772–1801), Ludwig Tieck
(1773–1853), E. T. A. (Ernst Th eodor Wilhelm—the A stood for
Amadeus, the middle name of Mozart) Hoff mann (1776–1822),
and Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (1777–1811). Th e brothers Jakob
Grimm (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859) are
world-famous for their collections of folk tales and myths. Heinrich
Heine (1797–1856), many of whose poems have become
folksongs, is generally regarded as the greatest German poet after
Goethe. Other signifi cant poets are Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–
1843), Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866), Eduard Mörike (1804–75),
Stefan Georg (1868–1933), and Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926).
Playwrights of distinction include Friedrich Hebbel (1813–63),
Georg Büchner (1813–37), Georg Kaiser (1878–1945), Ernst
Toller (1893–1939), and Bertolt Brecht (1898–1957). Two leading
novelists of the 19th century were Gustav Freytag (1816–95)
and Th eodor Storm (1817–88). Germany’s 20th-century novelists
include Ernst Wiechert (1887–1950), Anna Seghers (Netty Reiling,
1900–1983), and Nobel Prize winners Gerhart Johann Robert
Hauptmann (1862–1946), Thomas Mann (1875–1955), Nelly
Sachs (1891–1970), and Heinrich Böll (1917–86). Other major
writers of the 20th and 21st centuries include German-born Erich
Maria Remarque (1898–1970), Günter Grass (b.1927), Christa
Wolf (b.1929), and Peter Handke (b.1942).
Leading fi lmmakers include G. W. (Georg Wilhelm) Pabst
(b.Czechoslovakia, 1885–1967), F. W. (Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe)
Murnau (1888–1931), Fritz Lang (b.Austria, 1890–1976), German born
Ernst Lubitsch (1892–1947), Max Ophüls (Oppenheimer,
1902–57), Leni (Helene Bertha Amalie) Riefenstahl (1902–2003),
Volker Schlöndorff (b.1939), Werner Herzog (b.1942), Rainer
Werner Fassbinder (1946–82), Wim Wenders (b.1945), and Doris
Dörrie (b.1955). Outstanding performers include Emil Jannings
(Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz, b.Switzerland, 1886–1950), Marlene
Dietrich (1901–1992), and Klaus Kinski (Claus Günther
Nakszynski, 1926–91).
Th e two giants of German church music were Heinrich Schütz
(1585–1672) and, preeminently, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–
1750). Signifi cant composers of the 18th century were Germanborn
Georg Friedrich Handel (1685–1759), Carl Philipp Emanuel
Bach (1714–88), and Christoph Willibald von Gluck (1714–87).
Th e classical period and music in general were dominated by the
titanic fi gure of Ludwig von Beethoven (1770–1827). Romanticism
in music was ushered in by Carl Maria von Weber (1786–
1826), among others. Outstanding composers of the 19th century
were Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809–47), Robert Schumann
(1810–56), Richard Wagner (1813–83), and Johannes Brahms
(1833–97). Major fi gures of the 20th and 21st centuries are Richard
Strauss (1864–1949), Paul Hindemith (1895–1963), Carl Orff
(1895–1982), German-born Kurt Weill (1900–50), Hans Werner
Henze (b.1926), and Karlheinz Stockhausen (b.1928). Important
symphonic conductors included Otto Klemperer (1885–1973),
Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886–1954), Karl Böhm (1894–1981), and
Eugen Jochum (1902–87). Among Germany’s outstanding musical
performers are singers Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (b.1915) and
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b.1925), and pianists Walter Gieseking
(1895–1956) and Wilhelm Kempff (1895–91).
Veit Stoss (1440?–1533) was one of the greatest German sculptors
and woodcarvers of the 15th century; another was Tilman
Riemenschneider (1460?–1531). Outstanding painters, engravers,
and makers of woodcuts were Martin Schongauer (1445?–91), Matthias
Grünewald (1460?–1528?), Hans Holbein the Elder (1465?–
1524), Lucas Cranach (1472–1553), Hans Holbein the Younger
(1497?–1543), and above all, Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). More
recent artists of renown are the painters Emil Nolde (1867–1956),
Franz Marc (1880–1916), Max Beckmann (1884–1950), the USborn
Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956), Otto Dix (1891–1969), Max
Ernst (1891–1976), and Horst Antes (b.1936); the painter and cartoonist
George Grosz (1893–1959); the sculptors Ernst Barlach
(1870–1938) and Wilhelm Lehmbruck (1881–1919); the painteretcher-
sculptor Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945); the Dadaist Hannah
Höch (1889–1978); the painter-sculptor-installation artist Joseph
Beuys (1921–1986); the painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer
(b.1945); and the architects Walter Gropius (1883–1969), leader of
the Bauhaus School of Design, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–
1969), Erich Mendelsohn (1887–1953), Gottfried Böhm (b.1920),
and Helmut Jahn (b.1940).