List of Humboldt University of Berlin people

The following is a list of individuals associated with Humboldt University of Berlin through attending as a student, or serving as a member of the faculty or staff. As of October 2020, the university has been associated with 57 Nobel Prize winners (including former students, faculty and researchers).

• Bozorg Alavi (1904–1997), novelist and writer
• Alexander Altmann (1906–1987), rabbi and scholar of Jewish philosophy and mysticism
• Gerhard Anschütz (1867–1948), leading jurisprudent and "father of the constitution" of the state of Hesse
• Arthur Arndt (1893–1974), physician who hid with his family during the Holocaust, the largest known surviving group of people to hide in Germany
• Jörg Baberowski (born 1961), professor of eastern European history
• Michelle Bachelet (born 1951), pediatrician and epidemiologist, president of the Republic of Chile
• Shepard Barclay (1847–1925), justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri^[1]
• Bruno Bauer (1809–1882), theologian, Bible critic and philosopher
• Jurek Becker (1937–1997), writer (Jacob the Liar)
• Max Bergmann (1886–1944), biochemist
• Azmi Bishara (born 1956), Arab-Israeli politician
• Inke Siewert (1980), professor of inorganic chemistry at University of Göttingen
• Eliezer Berkovits (1908–1992), rabbi, philosopher and theologian
• Willibald Beyschlag (1823–1900), theologian, publisher
• Algernon Sydney Biddle (1847–1891), American lawyer and law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School
• Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), first German chancellor
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945), theologian and resistance fighter
• Beatrix Borchard, (born 1950), musicologist
• Louis Borchardt, (1816/17-1883), paediatrician
• Max Born (1882–1970), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1954
• Siegfried Borris (1906–1987), composer, musicologist and music educator
• Aron Brand (1910–1977), pediatric cardiologist
• Rudolf Brandt (1909–1948), Nazi SS officer, executed for war crimes
• Gottlieb Burckhardt (1836–1907), psychiatrist, first physician to perform modern psychosurgery (1888)
• Stephanie Buhmann (born 1977), art critic, art historian, and curator.
• Michael C. Burda, macroeconomist
• Ezriel Carlebach (1909–1956), Israeli journalist and editorial writer
• Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945), philosopher
• Adelbert von Chamisso (1781–1838), natural scientist and writer
• Ramesh Chennamaneni (born 1956), Indian politician
• Paul Anton Cibis (1911–1965), ophthalmologist and recruit under Operation Paperclip
• Georg von Dadelsen (1918–2007), musicologist, Neue Bach-Ausgabe
• Angela Davis (born 1944), political activist, educator, author, philosopher
• Gustav Adolf Deissmann (1866–1937), theologian, New Testament Greek philologist, author, Nobel nominee
• Suat Derviş (1904/1905–1972), Turkish novelist, journalist, and political activist
• Harilal Dhruv (1856–1896), Indian lawyer, poet, indologist
• Hermann Alexander Diels, (1848–1922), classical scholar
• Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911), philosopher
• Georg Dohrn, conductor
• W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), African-American activist and scholar
• William Duane (1872–1935), physicist
• E. A. Dupont (1891–1956), film director, pioneer of the German film industry^[2]
• Benedykt Dybowski (1833–1930), zoologist, pioneer of Limnology
• Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915), physician, Nobel Prize for medicine in 1908
• Albert Einstein (1879–1955), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1921
• Gotthold Eisenstein (1823–1852), mathematician, specialized in number theory and analysis
• Friedrich Engels (1820–1895), journalist and philosopher
• Annemarie Esche, scholar of Burmese literature
• Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804–1872), philosopher
• Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), philosopher, rector of the university (1810–1812)
• Horst Fischer (1912–1966), SS concentration camp doctor executed for war crimes
• Emil Fischer (1852–1919), founder of modern biochemistry, Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1902
• Bruno Flierl (b. 1927), architect and city planner^[3]
• Werner Forßmann (1904–1979), physician, Nobel Prize for medicine in 1956
• James Franck (1882–1964), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1925
• Wilhelm Frick (1877–1946), Nazi official, executed for war crimes
• Karl Gebhardt (1897–1948), Nazi SS physician who conducted criminal medical experiments; executed for war crimes
• Ernst Gehrcke (1878–1960), experimental physicist
• Nathan Michael Gelber (1891–1966), Austrian-Israeli historian
• Jacob Grimm (1785–1863), linguist and literary critic
• Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859), linguist and literary critic
• Ernst Guhl (1818–1862), art historian
• Gregor Gysi (1948–), German politician and lawyer
• Fritz Haber (1868–1934), chemist, Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1918
• Otto Hahn (1879–1968), chemist, Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1944
• Sir William Reginald Halliday (1886–1966), principal of King's College London (1928–1952)\
• Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930), theologian, educator, academic administrator
• Roger Härtl, neurological surgeon
• Robert Havemann (1910–1982), chemist, co-founder of European Union, and leading GDR dissident
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), philosopher, rector of the university (1830–1831)
• Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), writer and poet
• Reinhart Heinrich (1946–2006), pioneer in systems biology
• Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1932
• Dieter Helm (1941–2022), farmer and politician
• Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894), physician and physicist
• Gustav Hertz (1887–1975), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1925
• Paula Hertwig (1889–1983), biologist, politician
• Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894), physicist
• Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) rabbi, philosopher, and theologian
• Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff (1852–1911), chemist, Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1901
• Johanna Hellman (1889–1982), surgeon
• Wassily Hoeffding (1914–1991), statistician who introduced U-statistic and known for Hoeffding's inequality
• Julius Hoffory (1855–1897), phonetician, associate professor
• Max Huber (1874–1960), international lawyer and diplomat
• Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (1762–1836), founder of macrobiotics
• Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835), politician, linguist, and founder of the university
• Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), natural scientist
• Zakir Husain (1897–1969), third president of India
• Yitzchok Hutner, American Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva (dean)
• Sadi Irmak (1904–1990), Prime minister of Turkey
• Elisabeth Jastrow (1890–1981), German-born American classical archaeologist
• Hermann Kasack (1896–1966), writer
• George F. Kennan (1904–2005), American diplomat, political scientist and historian
• Gustav Kirchhoff (1824–1887), physicist
• Philip Klein (1849–1926), rabbi
• Paul Alfred Kleinert, German writer, editor and translator
• Wilhelm Knabe (1923–2021), German ecologist, pacifist, civil servant and politician
• Robert Koch (1843–1910), physician, Nobel Prize for medicine in 1905
• Komitas Vardapet (1869–1935) Armenian priest, composer, ethnomusicologist, music pedagogue, singer, choirmaster and the founder of the Armenian classical music.
• Albrecht Kossel (1853–1927), physician, Nobel Prize for medicine in 1910
• Arnold Kutzinski (died 1956), psychiatrist
• Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736 – 1813), mathematician, physicist, worked at the Prussian Academy of Sciences, the predecessor of the University of Berlin
• Edmund Landau (1877–1938), mathematician
• Diana Lange, Tibetologist and Sinologist, professor of history and cultures of Central Asia^[4]
• Arnold von Lasaulx (1839–1886) mineralogist and petrographer
• Max von Laue (1879–1960), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1914
• Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994), Israeli public intellectual and polymath
• Nechama Leibowitz Israeli Bible scholar
• Wassily Leontief (1905–1999), economist, Nobel Prize for economics in 1973
• James Lewin (1887–1937), physician and psychiatrist
• Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919), socialist politician and revolutionary
• Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell (1886–1957), British-German Physicist, Advisor to Winston Churchill during WW II. Inventor of the U-Boat detecting surface radar and proponent of carpet bombing of German cities.
• Friedrich Loeffler (1852–1915), bacteriologist
• Ram Manohar Lohia (1910–1967), Indian activist and politician
• Karl Adolf Lorenz (1837–1923), composer
• Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky (1919–1984), Ukrainian-Canadian historian, political scientist, publicist
• Andreas Maercker, (born 1960), clinical psychologist
• Judah Leon Magnes, rabbi, Chancellor/President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1925–1948
• Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979), philosopher
• Karl Marx (1818–1883), philosopher and sociologist
• Lippman Mayer (1841–1904), rabbi
• Ernst Mayr (1904–2005), biologist
• Benjamin Mazar (1906–1995), President of Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Joachim Mrugowsky (1905–1948), Nazi doctor executed for war crimes
• Lise Meitner (1878–1968), physicist, Enrico Fermi Award in 1966
• Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847), composer
• Eilhard Mitscherlich (1794–1863), German chemist
• Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903), historian, Nobel Prize for literature in 1902
• Edmund Montgomery (1835–1911), philosopher, scientist, physician
• Walther Nernst (1864 – 1941), physical chemist
• John von Neumann (1903–1957), mathematician and physicist
• Adalbert Parmet (1830–1898), priest and professor
• Max Planck (1858–1947), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1918
• William Popper (1874–1963), Orientalist and professor
• Gordon Prange (1910–1980), American historian
• Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886), historian
• Otto Friedrich Ranke (1899–1959), physiologist
• Ingeborg Rapoport (1912–2017), paediatrician
• Samuel Mitja Rapoport (1912–2004), biochemist, leading scientist in the German Democratic Republic
• Tom Rapoport (born 1947), biochemist
• Adolph Moses Radin (1848–1909), rabbi
• Erich Regener (1881–1955), physicist
• Robert Remak (1815–1865), cell biologist
• Ludwig Scheeffer (1859–1885), mathematician
• Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854), philosopher
• Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834), philosopher
• Moritz Schlick (1882–1936), philosopher
• Bernhard Schlink (born 1944), writer, Der Vorleser (The Reader)
• Max Schloessinger (1877–1944), scholar
• Annette Schmiedchen (born 1966), Indologist and Padma Shri award winner
• Henry Slonimsky (1884–1970), professor
• Carl Schmitt (1888–1985), German jurist, political theorist, and professor of law
• Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), rabbi, philosopher, theologian, engineer, educator and writer
• Edith Schönert-Geiß (1933–2012), numismatist
• Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), philosopher
• Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1933
• Peter Schubert (1938–2003), diplomat and albanologist
• Stepan Shahumyan (1878–1918), Armenian communist politician and head of the Baku Commune
• Georg Simmel (1858–1918), philosopher and sociologist
• Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–1993), rabbi, philosopher, and theologian
• Herman Smith-Johannsen (1875–1987), sportsman who introduced cross-country skiing to North America
• Werner Sombart (1863–1941), philosopher, sociologist and economist
• Hans Spemann (1869–1941), biologist, Nobel Prize for biology in 1935
• Margot Sponer (1898–1945), philologist and resistance fighter
• Hermann Stieve (1886–1952), anatomist who did research on bodies of Nazi execution victims
• Max Stirner (1806–1856), philosopher
• Yemima Tchernovitz-Avidar (1909–98), Israeli author
• Gustav Tornier (1859–1938), paleontologist and zoologist
• Kurt Tucholsky (1890–1935), writer and journalist
• Luis Villar Borda (1929–2008), Colombian politician and diplomat
• Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902), physician and politician
• Filip Neriusz Walter (1810–1847), Polish organic chemist
• Max Weber (1864–1920), sociologist, philosopher, and political economist
• Alfred Wegener (1880–1930), scientist, geologist, and meteorologist, early theorist of continental drift
• Karl Weierstraß (1815–1897), mathematician
• Max Westenhöfer (1871–1957), pathologist, proposed the Aquatic ape hypothesis, reformer of field of pathology in Chile
• Stephan Westmann (1893–1964), Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Wilhelm Heinrich Westphal (1882–1978), physicist
• Wilhelm Wien (1864–1928), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1911
• Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1848–1931), philologist
• Ernest Julius Wilczynski (1876–1932), mathematician
• Richard Willstätter (1872–1942), chemist, Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1915
• Shlomo Wolbe Orthodox Rabbi and author of the Alei Shur
• Leonidas Zervas (1902–1980), Greek organic chemist