The Most Famous

INVENTORS from Germany

This page contains a list of the greatest German Inventors. The pantheon dataset contains 426 Inventors, 42 of which were born in Germany. This makes Germany the birth place of the 3rd most number of Inventors behind United States, and United Kingdom.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary German Inventors of all time. This list of famous German Inventors is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of German Inventors.

1. Johannes Gutenberg (1394 - 1468)

With an HPI of 87.67, Johannes Gutenberg is the most famous German Inventor. His biography has been translated into 157 different languages on wikipedia.

Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (c. 1393–1406 – 3 February 1468) was a German inventor and craftsman who invented the movable-type printing press. Though movable type was already in use in East Asia, Gutenberg's invention of the printing press enabled a much faster rate of printing. The printing press later spread across the world, and led to an information revolution and the unprecedented mass-spread of literature throughout Europe. It had a profound impact on the development of the Renaissance, Reformation, and humanist movements. His many contributions to printing include the invention of a process for mass-producing movable type; the use of oil-based ink for printing books; adjustable molds; mechanical movable type; and the invention of a wooden printing press similar to the agricultural screw presses of the period. Gutenberg's method for making type is traditionally considered to have included a type metal alloy and a hand mould for casting type. The alloy was a mixture of lead, tin, and antimony that melted at a relatively low temperature for faster and more economical casting, cast well, and created a durable type. His major work, the Gutenberg Bible, was the first printed version of the Bible and has been acclaimed for its high aesthetic and technical quality. Gutenberg is often cited as among the most influential figures in human history and has been commemorated around the world. To celebrate the 500th anniversary of his birth in 1900, the Gutenberg Museum was founded in his hometown of Mainz. In 1997, Time Life magazine picked Gutenberg's invention as the most important of the second millennium.

2. Karl Benz (1844 - 1929)

With an HPI of 79.44, Karl Benz is the 2nd most famous German Inventor. His biography has been translated into 107 different languages.

Carl (or Karl) Friedrich Benz (German: [kaʁl ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈbɛnts] ; born Karl Friedrich Michael Vaillant; 25 November 1844 – 4 April 1929) was a German engine designer and automotive engineer. His Benz Patent Motorcar from 1885 is considered the first practical modern automobile and first car put into series production. He received a patent for the motorcar in 1886, the same year he first publicly drove the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. His company Benz & Cie., based in Mannheim, was the world's first automobile plant and largest of its day. In 1926, it merged with Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft to form Daimler-Benz, which produces the Mercedes-Benz among other brands. Benz is widely regarded as "the father of the car", as well as the "father of the automobile industry".

3. Nikolaus Otto (1832 - 1891)

With an HPI of 74.40, Nikolaus Otto is the 3rd most famous German Inventor. His biography has been translated into 60 different languages.

Nicolaus August Otto (10 June 1832 – 26 January 1891) was a German engineer who successfully developed the compressed charge internal combustion engine which ran on petroleum gas and led to the modern internal combustion engine. The Association of German Engineers (VDI) created DIN standard 1940 which says "Otto Engine: internal combustion engine in which the ignition of the compressed fuel-air mixture is initiated by a timed spark", which has been applied to all engines of this type since.

4. Werner von Siemens (1816 - 1892)

With an HPI of 71.11, Werner von Siemens is the 4th most famous German Inventor. His biography has been translated into 57 different languages.

Ernst Werner Siemens (von Siemens from 1888; English: SEEM-ənz; German: [ˈziːməns, -mɛns]; 13 December 1816 – 6 December 1892) was a German electrical engineer, inventor and industrialist. Siemens's name has been adopted as the SI unit of electrical conductance, the siemens. He founded the electrical and telecommunications conglomerate Siemens and invented the electric tram, trolley bus, electric locomotive and electric elevator.

5. Karl Ferdinand Braun (1850 - 1918)

With an HPI of 70.19, Karl Ferdinand Braun is the 5th most famous German Inventor. His biography has been translated into 92 different languages.

Karl Ferdinand Braun (German pronunciation: [ˈfɛʁdinant ˈbʁaʊn] ; 6 June 1850 – 20 April 1918) was a German electrical engineer, inventor, physicist and Nobel laureate in physics. Braun contributed significantly to the development of the radio, when he invented the phased array antenna in 1905, which led to the development of radar, smart antennas and MIMO, and the television by building the first Cathode-ray tube. Braun also built the first semiconductor. He shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Guglielmo Marconi "for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy", was a founder of Telefunken, one of the pioneering communications and television companies, and has been both called the "father of television" (shared with inventors like Paul Gottlieb Nipkow), "great grandfather of every semiconductor ever manufactured" and the co-father of the radio telegraphy, together with Marconi.

6. Konrad Zuse (1910 - 1995)

With an HPI of 68.12, Konrad Zuse is the 6th most famous German Inventor. His biography has been translated into 60 different languages.

Konrad Ernst Otto Zuse (German: [ˈkɔnʁaːt ˈtsuːzə]; 22 June 1910 – 18 December 1995) was a German civil engineer, pioneering computer scientist, inventor and businessman. His greatest achievement was the world's first programmable computer; the functional program-controlled Turing-complete Z3 became operational in May 1941. Thanks to this machine and its predecessors, Zuse is regarded by some as the inventor and father of the modern computer. Zuse was noted for the S2 computing machine, considered the first process control computer. In 1941, he founded one of the earliest computer businesses, producing the Z4, which became the world's first commercial computer. From 1943 to 1945 he designed Plankalkül, the first high-level programming language. In 1969, Zuse suggested the concept of a computation-based universe in his book Rechnender Raum (Calculating Space). Much of his early work was financed by his family and commerce, but after 1939 he was given resources by the government of Nazi Germany. Due to World War II, Zuse's work went largely unnoticed in the United Kingdom and United States. Possibly his first documented influence on a US company was IBM's option on his patents in 1946. Konrad Zuse was born in Berlin on 22 June 1910. In 1912, his family moved to East Prussian Braunsberg (now Braniewo in Poland), where his father was a postal clerk. Zuse attended the Collegium Hosianum in Braunsberg, and in 1923, the family moved to Hoyerswerda, where he passed his Abitur in 1928, qualifying him to enter university. He enrolled at Technische Hochschule Berlin (now Technische Universität Berlin) and explored both engineering and architecture, but found them boring. Zuse then pursued civil engineering, graduating in 1935. After graduation, Zuse worked for the Ford Motor Company, using his artistic skills in the design of advertisements. He started work as a design engineer at the Henschel aircraft factory in Schönefeld near Berlin. This required the performance of many routine calculations by hand, leading him to theorize and plan a way of doing them by machine. Beginning in 1935, he experimented in the construction of computers in his parents' flat on Wrangelstraße 38, moving with them into their new flat on Methfesselstraße 10, the street leading up the Kreuzberg, Berlin.: 418 Working in his parents' apartment in 1936, he produced his first attempt, the Z1, a floating-point binary mechanical calculator with limited programmability, reading instructions from a perforated 35 mm film. In 1937, Zuse submitted two patents that anticipated a von Neumann architecture. In 1938, he finished the Z1 which contained some 30,000 metal parts and never worked well due to insufficient mechanical precision. On 30 January 1944, the Z1 and its original blueprints were destroyed with his parents' flat and many neighbouring buildings by a British air raid in World War II.: 426 Zuse completed his work entirely independently of other leading computer scientists and mathematicians of his day. Between 1936 and 1945, he was in near-total intellectual isolation. In 1939, Zuse was called to military service, where he was given the resources to ultimately build the Z2. In September 1940 Zuse presented the Z2, covering several rooms in the parental flat, to experts of the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt (DVL; German Research Institute for Aviation).: 424 The Z2 was a revised version of the Z1 using telephone relays. In 1940, the German government began funding him and his company through the Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt (AVA, Aerodynamic Research Institute, forerunner of the DLR), which used his work for the production of glide bombs. Zuse built the S1 and S2 computing machines, which were special purpose devices which computed aerodynamic corrections to the wings of radio-controlled flying bombs. The S2 featured an integrated analog-to-digital converter under program control, making it the first process-controlled computer.: 75 In 1941 Zuse started a company, Zuse Apparatebau (Zuse Apparatus Construction), to manufacture his machines, renting a workshop on the opposite side in Methfesselstraße 7 and stretching through the block to Belle-Alliance Straße 29 (renamed and renumbered as Mehringdamm 84 in 1947).: 418, 425 In 1941, he improved on the basic Z2 machine, and built the Z3. On 12 May 1941 Zuse presented the Z3, built in his workshop, to the public.: 425 The Z3 was a binary 22-bit floating-point calculator featuring programmability with loops but without conditional jumps, with memory and a calculation unit based on telephone relays. The telephone relays used in his machines were largely collected from discarded stock. Despite the absence of conditional jumps, the Z3 was a Turing complete computer. However, Turing-completeness was never considered by Zuse (who was unaware of Turing's work and had practical applications in mind) and only demonstrated in 1998 (see History of computing hardware). The Z3, the first fully operational electromechanical computer, was partially financed by German government-supported DVL, which wanted their extensive calculations automated. A request by his co-worker Helmut Schreyer—who had helped Zuse build the Z3 prototype in 1938—for government funding for an electronic successor to the Z3 was denied as "strategically unimportant". In 1937, Schreyer had advised Zuse to use vacuum tubes as switching elements; Zuse at this time considered it a crazy idea (Schnapsidee in his own words). Zuse's workshop on Methfesselstraße 7 (with the Z3) was destroyed in an Allied Air raid in late 1943 and the parental flat with Z1 and Z2 on 30 January the following year, whereas the successor Z4, which Zuse had begun constructing in 1942: 75 in new premises in the Industriehof on Oranienstraße 6, remained intact.: 428 On 3 February 1945, aerial bombing caused devastating destruction in the Luisenstadt, the area around Oranienstraße, including neighbouring houses. This event effectively brought Zuse's research and development to a complete halt. The partially finished, telephone relay-based Z4 computer was then packed and moved from Berlin on 14 February, arriving in Göttingen approximately two weeks later.: 428 These machines contributed to the Henschel Werke Hs 293 and Hs 294 guided missiles developed by the German military between 1941 and 1945, which were the precursors to the modern cruise missile.: 75 The circuit design of the S1 was the predecessor of Zuse's Z11.: 75 Zuse believed that these machines had been captured by occupying Soviet troops in 1945.: 75 While working on his Z4 computer, Zuse realised that programming in machine code was too complicated. He started working on a PhD thesis, containing groundbreaking research years ahead of its time, mainly the first high-level programming language, Plankalkül ("Plan Calculus") and, as an elaborate example program, the first real computer chess engine. After the 1945 Luisenstadt bombing, he fled from Berlin to the rural Allgäu. In the extreme deprivation of post-war Germany Zuse was unable to build computers. Zuse founded one of the earliest computer companies: the Zuse-Ingenieurbüro Hopferau. Capital was raised in 1946 through ETH Zurich and an IBM option on Zuse's patents. In 1947, according to the memoirs of the German computer pioneer Heinz Billing from the Max Planck Institute for Physics, there was a meeting between Alan Turing and Konrad Zuse in Göttingen. The encounter had the form of a colloquium. Participants were Womersley, Turing, Porter from England and a few German researchers like Zuse, Walther, and Billing. (For more details see Herbert Bruderer, Konrad Zuse und die Schweiz). It was not until 1949 that Zuse was able to resume work on the Z4. He would show the computer to the mathematician Eduard Stiefel of the ETH Zurich. The two men settled a deal to lend the Z4 to the ETH. In November 1949, Zuse founded another company, Zuse KG, in Haunetal-Neukirchen; in 1957, the company's head office moved to Bad Hersfeld. The Z4 was finished and delivered to the ETH Zurich in July 1950, where it proved very reliable. At that time, it was the only working digital computer in Central Europe, and the second computer in the world to be sold or loaned, beaten only by the BINAC, which never worked properly after it was delivered. Other computers, all numbered with a leading Z, up to Z43, were built by Zuse and his company. Notable are the Z11, which was sold to the optics industry and to universities, and the Z22, the first computer with a memory based on magnetic storage. Unable to do any hardware development, he continued working on Plankalkül, eventually publishing some brief excerpts of his thesis in 1948 and 1959; the work in its entirety, however, remained unpublished until 1972. The PhD thesis was submitted at University of Augsburg, but it was rejected because Zuse forgot to pay the DM 400 university enrollment fee. The rejection did not bother him. Plankalkül slightly influenced the design of ALGOL 58 but was itself implemented only in 1975 in a dissertation by Joachim Hohmann. Heinz Rutishauser, one of the inventors of ALGOL, wrote: "The very first attempt to devise an algorithmic language was undertaken in 1948 by K. Zuse. His notation was quite general, but the proposal never attained the consideration it deserved." Further implementations followed in 1998 and then in 2000 by a team from the Free University of Berlin. Donald Knuth suggested a thought experiment: What might have happened had the bombing not taken place, and had the PhD thesis accordingly been published as planned? In 1956, Zuse began to work on a high precision, large format plotter. It was demonstrated at the 1961 Hanover Fair, and became well known also outside of the technical world thanks to Frieder Nake's pioneering computer art work. Other plotters designed by Zuse include the ZUSE Z90 and ZUSE Z9004. In 1967, Zuse suggested that the universe itself is running on a cellular automaton or similar computational structure (digital physics); in 1969, he published the book Rechnender Raum (translated into English as Calculating Space). Between 1989 and 1995, Zuse conceptualized and created a purely mechanical, extensible, modular tower automaton he named "helix tower" ("Helixturm"). The structure is based on a gear drive that employs rotary motion (e.g. provided by a crank) to assemble modular components from a storage space, elevating a tube-shaped tower; the process is reversible, and inverting the input direction will deconstruct the tower and store the components. In 2009, the Deutsches Museum restored Zuse's original 1:30 functional model that can be extended to a height of 2.7 m. Zuse intended the full construction to reach a height of 120 m, and envisioned it for use with wind power generators and radio transmission installations. Between 1987 and 1989, Zuse recreated the Z1, suffering a heart attack midway through the project. It cost 800,000 DM (approximately $500,000) and required four individuals (including Zuse) to assemble it. Funding for this retrocomputing project was provided by Siemens and a consortium of five companies. Konrad Zuse married Gisela Brandes in January 1945, employing a carriage, himself dressed in tailcoat and top hat and with Gisela in a wedding veil, for Zuse attached importance to a "noble ceremony". Their son Horst, the first of five children, was born in November 1945. While Zuse never became a member of the Nazi Party, he is not known to have expressed any doubts or qualms about working for the Nazi war effort. Much later, he suggested that in modern times, the best scientists and engineers usually have to choose between either doing their work for more or less questionable business and military interests in a Faustian bargain, or not pursuing their line of work at all. After Zuse retired, he focused on his hobby of painting. He signed his paintings as "Kuno [von und zu] See". Zuse was an atheist.: 12–13 Zuse died on 18 December 1995 in Hünfeld, Hesse (near Fulda) from heart failure. Zuse received several awards for his work: Werner von Siemens Ring in 1964 (together with Fritz Leonhardt and Walter Schottky) Harry H. Goode Memorial Award in 1965 (together with George Stibitz) Wilhelm Exner Medal in 1969. Bundesverdienstkreuz in 1972 – Great Cross of Merit Computer History Museum Fellow Award in 1999 "for his invention of the first program-controlled, electromechanical, digital computer and the first high-level programming language, Plankalkül." The Zuse Institute Berlin is named in his honour. The Konrad Zuse Medal of the Gesellschaft für Informatik, and the Konrad Zuse Medal of the Zentralverband des Deutschen Baugewerbes (Central Association of German Construction), are both named after Zuse. A replica of the Z3, as well as the original Z4, is in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. The Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin has an exhibition devoted to Zuse, displaying twelve of his machines, including a replica of the Z1 and several of Zuse's paintings. The 100th anniversary of his birth was celebrated by exhibitions, lectures and workshops. John Vincent Atanasoff – American computer pioneer (1903–1995) List of German inventors and discoverers Reverse Polish notation – Mathematics notation where operators follow operands Self-replicating machine – Device able to make copies of itself Z5 (computer) – German 1950s computer Z23 (computer) – Transistorized computer delivered from 1961 to 1967 Z25 (computer) – program-controlled electronic computerPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback Zuse, Konrad. Direction-bound engraving tool with program control. U.S. Patent 3163936 U.S. Patents 3234819; 3306128; 3408483; 3356852; 3316442 Jürgen Alex, Hermann Flessner, Wilhelm Mons, Horst Zuse: Konrad Zuse: Der Vater des Computers. Parzeller, Fulda 2000, ISBN 3-7900-0317-4 Raul Rojas (ed.): Die Rechenmaschinen von Konrad Zuse. Springer, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-540-63461-4. Wilhelm Füßl (ed.): 100 Jahre Konrad Zuse. Einblicke in den Nachlass, München 2010, ISBN 978-3-940396-14-3. Jürgen Alex: "Wege und Irrwege des Konrad Zuse." In: Spektrum der Wissenschaft (German edition of Scientific American) 1/1997, ISSN 0170-2971. Hadwig Dorsch: Der erste Computer. Konrad Zuses Z1 – Berlin 1936. Beginn und Entwicklung einer technischen Revolution. Mit Beiträgen von Konrad Zuse und Otto Lührs. Museum für Verkehr und Technik, Berlin 1989. Clemens Kieser: "'Ich bin zu faul zum Rechnen': Konrad Zuses Computer Z22 im Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe." In: Denkmalpflege in Baden-Württemberg, 4/34/2005, Esslingen am Neckar, S. 180–184, ISSN 0342-0027. Mario G. Losano (ed.), Zuse. L'elaboratore nasce in Europa. Un secolo di calcolo automatico, Etas Libri, Milano 1975, pp. XVIII–184. Arno Peters: Was ist und wie verwirklicht sich Computer-Sozialismus: Gespräche mit Konrad Zuse. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-355-01510-5. Paul Janositz: Informatik und Konrad Zuse: "Der Pionier des Computerbaus in Europa – Das verkannte Genie aus Adlershof." In: Der Tagesspiegel Nr. 19127, Berlin, 9. März 2006, Beilage Seite B3. Jürgen Alex: Zum Einfluß elementarer Sätze der mathematischen Logik bei Alfred Tarski auf die drei Computerkonzepte des Konrad Zuse. TU Chemnitz 2006. Alex, Jürgen (2007). Zur Entstehung des Computers – Von Alfred Tarski zu Konrad Zuse […] – Tertium non datur. Düsseldorf, Germany: VDI-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-18-150051-4. ISSN 0082-2361. Herbert Bruderer: Konrad Zuse und die Schweiz. Wer hat den Computer erfunden? Charles Babbage, Alan Turing und John von Neumann Oldenbourg Verlag, München 2012, XXVI, 224 Seiten, ISBN 978-3-486-71366-4 Konrad Zuse Internet Archive Konrad Zuse and his computers, from Technische Universität Berlin Konrad Zuse Konrad Zuse, inventor of first working programmable computer Zuse's thesis of digital physics and the computable universe Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin Archived 1 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine Konrad Zuse Museum Hoyerswerda Archived 1 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine Computermuseum Kiel Z11 Computermuseum Kiel Z22 Computermuseum Kiel Z25 at the Wayback Machine (archived 25 July 2011) Video lecture by Zuse discussing the history of Z1 to 4 Video showing the model of the helix tower in action The Life and Work of Konrad Zuse at the Wayback Machine (archived 18 April 2010) – By Horst Zuse (Konrad Zuse's son); an extensive and well-written historical account O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Konrad Zuse", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews

7. Wilhelm Maybach (1846 - 1929)

With an HPI of 68.07, Wilhelm Maybach is the 7th most famous German Inventor. His biography has been translated into 38 different languages.

Wilhelm Maybach (German: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈmaɪbax] ; 9 February 1846 – 29 December 1929) was an early German engine designer and industrialist. During the 1890s he was hailed in France, then the world centre for car production, as the "King of Designers". From the late 19th century Wilhelm Maybach, together with Gottlieb Daimler, developed light, high-speed internal combustion engines suitable for land, water, and air use. These were fitted to the world's first motorcycle, motorboat, and after Daimler's death, a new automobile introduced in late 1902, the Mercedes model, built to the specifications of Emil Jellinek. Maybach rose to become technical director of the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) but did not get along with its chairmen. As a result, Maybach left DMG in 1907 to found Maybach-Motorenbau GmbH together with his son Karl in 1909; they manufactured Zeppelin engines. After the signing of the Versailles Treaty in 1919 the company started producing large luxury vehicles, branded as "Maybach". He died in 1929 and was succeeded by his son Karl Maybach. From around 1936 Maybach-Motorenbau designed and made almost all the engines fitted in German tanks and half-tracks used during World War 2, including those for the Panther, Tiger I and Tiger II heavy tanks. Continuing after the war, Maybach Motorenbau remained a subsidiary of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, making diesel engines. During the 1960s Maybach came under the control of Daimler-Benz and was renamed MTU Friedrichshafen. In 2002 the Maybach brand name was revived for a luxury make but it was not successful. On 25 November 2011 Daimler-Benz announced they would cease producing automobiles under the Maybach brand name in 2013. In 2014, Daimler announced production of an ultra-luxury edition of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class under the new Mercedes-Maybach brand.

8. Hans Lippershey (1570 - 1619)

With an HPI of 67.98, Hans Lippershey is the 8th most famous German Inventor. His biography has been translated into 41 different languages.

Hans Lipperhey (c. 1570 – buried 29 September 1619), also known as Johann Lippershey or Lippershey, was a German-Dutch spectacle-maker. He is commonly associated with the invention of the telescope, because he was the first one who tried to obtain a patent for it. It is, however, unclear if he was the first one to build a telescope.

9. Karl Drais (1785 - 1851)

With an HPI of 67.45, Karl Drais is the 9th most famous German Inventor. His biography has been translated into 46 different languages.

Karl Freiherr von Drais (full name: Karl Friedrich Christian Ludwig Freiherr Drais von Sauerbronn; 29 April 1785 – 10 December 1851) was a noble German forest official and significant inventor in the Biedermeier period. He was born and died in Karlsruhe. He is seen as "the father of the bicycle".

10. Emile Berliner (1851 - 1929)

With an HPI of 66.47, Emile Berliner is the 10th most famous German Inventor. His biography has been translated into 47 different languages.

Emile Berliner (May 20, 1851 – August 3, 1929) originally Emil Berliner, was a German-American inventor. He is best known for inventing the lateral-cut flat disc record (called a "gramophone record" in British and American English) used with a gramophone. He founded the United States Gramophone Company in 1894; The Gramophone Company in London, England, in 1897; Deutsche Grammophon in Hanover, Germany, in 1898; and Berliner Gram-o-phone Company of Canada in Montreal in 1899 (chartered in 1904). Berliner also invented what was probably the first radial aircraft engine (1908), a helicopter (1919), and acoustical tiles (1920s).

People

Pantheon has 45 people classified as German inventors born between 1394 and 1955. Of these 45, 2 (4.44%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living German inventors include Didi Senft, and Andy Bechtolsheim. The most famous deceased German inventors include Johannes Gutenberg, Karl Benz, and Nikolaus Otto. As of April 2024, 3 new German inventors have been added to Pantheon including Wilhelm Bauer, Heinrich Gerber, and Didi Senft.