CELEBRITIES from Germany

Top 3

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary German Celebrities of all time. This list of famous German Celebrities is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Fritz Pfeffer (1889 - 1944)

With an HPI of 61.97, Fritz Pfeffer is the most famous German Celebrity.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages on wikipedia.

Friedrich "Fritz" Pfeffer (30 April 1889 – 20 December 1944) was a German dentist and Jewish refugee who hid with Anne Frank and her family and the Van Pels family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. He perished in the Neuengamme concentration camp in Northern Germany. Pfeffer was given the pseudonym Albert Dussel in Frank's diary, and remains known as such in many editions and adaptations of the publication.

2. Walther Kadow (1900 - 1923)

With an HPI of 58.03, Walther Kadow is the 2nd most famous German Celebrity.  Her biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Walther Kadow (January 29, 1860 – May 31, 1923) was a German school teacher who was beaten and killed by Rudolf Höss and a group of Nazi Party accomplices in May 1923 in the forest near Parchim. Kadow, a World War I veteran, was a member of the right-wing German Völkisch Freedom Party, and was suspected of having betrayed German nationalist Albert Leo Schlageter to the French occupation authorities in the Ruhr. Schlageter was executed by the French and was later regarded as a martyr by the Nazis. Höss received a ten-year sentence but was released after four years under a general amnesty. His accomplice, Martin Bormann, a former student of Kadow, was sentenced to one year. Bormann later became Head of the Nazi Party Chancellery and private secretary to Adolf Hitler and received the Blood Order for his imprisonment over the murder. Höss later became the commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp.

3. Herbert Norkus (1916 - 1932)

With an HPI of 56.71, Herbert Norkus is the 3rd most famous German Celebrity.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Herbert Norkus (26 July 1916 – 24 January 1932) was a Hitler Youth member who was killed by German Communists. He became a role model and martyr for the Hitler Youth and was widely used in Nazi propaganda, most prominently as the subject of novel and film Hitler Youth Quex.