Humboldt University of Berlin - Notable Alumni, Professors and Lecturers

Notable Alumni, Professors and Lecturers

• Theodore Dyke Acland (1851–1931), surgeon and physician
• Alexander Altmann (1906–1987), rabbi and scholar of Jewish philosophy and mysticism
• Gerhard Anschütz (1908- ) leading jurisprudent and "father of the constitution" of the Bundesland Hesse
• Michelle Bachelet (1951- ), Pediatrician and epidemiologist, President of the Republic of Chile
• Azmi Bishara (1956- ), Arab-Israeli politician
• Bruno Bauer (1809–1882), theologian, Bible critic and philosopher
• Jurek Becker (1937–1997), writer (Jacob the Liar)
• Eliezer Berkovits (1908–1992), rabbi, philosopher and theologian
• Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), first German chancellor
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945), theologian and resistance fighter
• Max Born (1882–1970), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1954
• Gottlieb Burckhardt (1836–1907), psychiatrist, first physician to perform modern psychosurgery (1888)
• Michael C. Burda, macroeconomist
• George C. Butte (1877–1940), American jurist
• Stepan Shahumyan (1878–1918), communist politician and head of the Baku Commune
• Azriel Carlebach (1909–56), Israeli journalist and editorial writer
• Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945), philosopher
• Adelbert von Chamisso (1781–1838), natural scientist and writer
• Zakir Hussain (1897–1969),third president of India
• Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911), philosopher
• W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), African-American activist and scholar
• Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915), physician, Nobel Prize for medicine in 1908
• Albert Einstein (1879–1955), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1921
• Friedrich Engels (1820–1895), journalist and philosopher
• Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804–1872), philosopher
• Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), philosopher, rector of the university (1810–1812)
• Hermann Emil Fischer (1852–1919), founder of modern biochemistry, Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1902
• Werner Forßmann (1904–1979), physician, Nobel Prize for medicine in 1956
• James Franck (1882–1964), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1925
• Ernst Gehrcke (1878–1960), experimental physicist
• Jacob Grimm (1785–1863), linguist and literary critic
• Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859), linguist and literary critic
• 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)
• Robert Havemann (1910–1982), chemist, co-founder of European Union, and leading GDR dissident
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), philosopher
• Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), writer and poet
• Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1932
• Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894), physician and physicist
• Gustav Hertz (1887–1975), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1925
• 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
• 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
• Jane Ising (1902–2012), economics
• Hermann Kasack (1896–1966), writer
• George F. Kennan (1904–2005), American diplomat, political scientist and historian
• Gustav Kirchhoff (1824–1887), physicist
• Robert Koch (1843–1910), physician, Nobel Prize for medicine in 1905
• Albrecht Kossel (1853–1927), physician, Nobel Prize for medicine in 1910
• Arnold Kutzinski (d. 1956), psychiatrist
• Arnold von Lasaulx (1839–1886) mineralogist and petrographer
• Max von Laue (1879–1960), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1914
• Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–94), Israeli public intellectual and polymath
• Wassily Leontief (1905–1999), economist, Nobel Prize for economics in 1973
• Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919), socialist politician and revolutionary
• Friedrich Loeffler (1852–1915), bacteriologist
• Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979), philosopher
• Karl Marx (1818–1883), philosopher
• Ernst Mayr (1904–2005), biologist
• Lise Meitner (1878–1968), physicist, Enrico Fermi Award in 1966
• Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809–1847), composer
• Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903), historian, Nobel Prize for literature in 1902
• Edmund Montgomery (1835–1911), philosopher, scientist, physician
• Max Planck (1858–1947), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1918
• Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886), historian
• Robert Remak (1815–1865), cell biologist
• Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775–1854), philosopher
• Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834), philosopher
• Bernhard Schlink (1944- ), writer, Der Vorleser (The Reader)
• Carl Schmitt (1888–1985), German jurist, political theorist, and professor of law.
• Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), rabbi, philosopher, and theologian
• Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), philosopher
• Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1933
• Peter Schubert (1938–2003), diplomat and albanologist
• 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
• 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
• Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902), physician and politician
• Alfred Wegener (1880–1930), scientist, geologist, and meteorologist, early "Continental Drift" theorist
• Karl Weierstraß (1815–1897), mathematician
• Wilhelm Heinrich Westphal (1882–1978), physicist
• Wilhelm Wien (1864–1928), physicist, Nobel Prize for physics in 1911
• Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1848–1931), philologist
• Richard Willstätter (1872–1942), chemist, Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1915
• Komitas Vardapet (1869–1935), Armenian priest, composer, choir leader, singer, music ethnologist, music pedagogue and musicologist

There are 40 Nobel Prize winners affiliated to the Humboldt University, namely:

• 1901 Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff (Chemistry)
• 1901 Emil Adolf von Behring (Physiology or Medicine)
• 1902 Hermann Emil Fischer (Chemistry)
• 1902 Theodor Mommsen (Literature)
• 1905 Adolf von Baeyer (Chemistry)
• 1905 Robert Koch (Physiology or Medicine)
• 1907 Albert Abraham Michelson (Physics)
• 1907 Eduard Buchner (Chemistry)
• 1908 Paul Ehrlich (Physiology or Medicine)
• 1909 Karl Ferdinand Braun (Physics)
• 1910 Otto Wallach (Chemistry)
• 1910 Albrecht Kossel (Physiology or Medicine)
• 1910 Paul Heyse (Literature)
• 1911 Wilhelm Wien (Physics)
• 1914 Max von Laue (Physics)
• 1915 Richard Willstätter (Chemistry)
• 1918 Fritz Haber (Chemistry)
• 1918 Max Planck (Physics)
• 1920 Walther Nernst (Chemistry)
• 1921 Albert Einstein (Physics)
• 1925 Gustav Ludwig Hertz (Physics)
• 1925 James Franck (Physics)
• 1925 Richard Adolf Zsigmondy (Chemistry)
• 1928 Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus (Chemistry)
• 1929 Hans von Euler-Chelpin (Chemistry)
• 1931 Otto Heinrich Warburg (Physiology or Medicine)
• 1932 Werner Heisenberg (Physics)
• 1933 Erwin Schrödinger (Physics)
• 1935 Hans Spemann (Physiology or Medicine)
• 1936 Peter Debye (Chemistry)
• 1939 Adolf Butenandt (Chemistry)
• 1944 Otto Hahn (Chemistry)
• 1950 Kurt Alder (Chemistry)
• 1950 Otto Diels (Chemistry)
• 1953 Fritz Albert Lipmann (Physiology or Medicine)
• 1953 Hans Adolf Krebs (Physiology or Medicine)
• 1954 Max Born (Physics)
• 1956 Walther Bothe (Physics)
• 1991 Bert Sakmann (Physiology or Medicine)
• 2007 Gerhard Ertl (Chemistry)