Alumni and faculty of the university include many founders and pioneers of academic disciplines, and a large number of internationally acclaimed philosophers, poets, jurisprudents, theologians, natural and social scientists. 56 Nobel Laureates, at least 18 Leibniz Laureates, and two "Oscar" winners have been associated with Heidelberg University. Nine Nobel Laureates received the award during their tenure at Heidelberg.
Besides several Federal Ministers of Germany and Prime Ministers of German States, five Chancellors of Germany have attended the university, the latest being Helmut Kohl, the "Chancellor of the Reunification". Heads of State or Government of Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Nicaragua, Serbia, Thailand, a British prince, a Secretary General of NATO and a director of the International Peace Bureau have also been educated at Heidelberg; among them Nobel Peace Laureates Charles Albert Gobat and Auguste Beernaert. Former university affiliates in the field of religion include Pope Pius II, Cardinals, Bishops, and with Philipp Melanchthon and Zacharias Ursinus two key leaders of Protestant Reformation. Outstanding university affiliates in the legal profession include a President of the International Court of Justice, two Presidents of the European Court of Human Rights, a President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, a Vice President of the International Criminal Court, an Advocate General at the European Court of Justice, at least 16 Justices of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, a President of the Federal Court of Justice, a President of the Federal Court of Finance, a President of the Federal Labor Court, two Attorney Generals of Germany, and a British Law Lord. In business, Heidelberg alumni and faculty notably founded, co-founded or presided over ABB Group; Astor corporate enterprises; BASF; BDA; Daimler AG; Deutsche Bank; EADS; Krupp AG; Siemens AG; and Thyssen AG.
Alumni in the field of arts include classical composer Robert Schumann, philosophers Ludwig Feuerbach and Edmund Montgomery, poet Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff and writers Christian Friedrich Hebbel, Gottfried Keller, Irene Frisch, Heinrich Hoffmann, Sir Muhammad Iqbal, José Rizal, W. Somerset Maugham, Jean Paul, and Literature Nobel Laureate Carl Spitteler. Amongst Heidelberg alumni in other disciplines are the "Father of Psychology" Wilhelm Wundt, the "Father of Physical Chemistry" J. Willard Gibbs, the "Father of American Anthropology" Franz Boas, Dmitri Mendeleev, who created the periodic table of elements, inventor of the two-wheeler principle Karl Drais, Alfred Wegener, who discovered the continental drift, as well as political theorist Hannah Arendt, political scientist Carl Joachim Friedrich, and sociologists Karl Mannheim, Robert E. Park and Talcott Parsons.
Philosophers Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Jaspers, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Jürgen Habermas served as university professors, as did also the pioneering scientists Hermann von Helmholtz, Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, Emil Kraepelin, the founder of scientific psychiatry, and outstanding social scientists such as Max Weber, the founding father of modern sociology. Present faculty include Medicine Nobel Laureates Bert Sakmann (1991) and Harald zur Hausen (2008), Chemistry Nobel Laureate Stefan Hell (2014), 7 Leibniz Laureates, former Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany Paul Kirchhof, and Rüdiger Wolfrum, the former President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
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Alumni Name Affiliation Years at Heidelberg Importance / Notes Ref Herbert Baxter Adams (1850–1901) Historian ~around 1872–1876 Founder of the American Historical Association. Established one of the first history Ph.D. programs to follow the new German seminary method at Johns Hopkins University around 1880.Heidelberg alumni in the NNDB Felix Adler (1851–1933) Educator 1870–1874 Founder of the Ethical Culture Movement in 1876. Louis Agassiz (1807–1873) Paleontologist ~around 1824–1829 First to publish the Ice Age Hypothesis in 1840.Louis Agassiz: Études sur les glaciers, Neuchâtel 1840. Digital book on Wikisource . Accessed on February 25, 2008. Christoph Ahlhaus (1990–) Politician 1990–1993 Mayor and Prime Minister of Hamburg Edward Andrade (1887–1971) Physicist 1911–1913 Worked with Ernest Rutherford to show the wave nature of gamma rays in 1914. Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Political theorist 1926–1928 Author of The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition; reported on the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem. Friedrich Arnold (1803–1890) Anatomist ?–1825 Privy councillor; described the reflex of coughing when the ear is stimulated; the auricular branch of the vagus nerve was nicknamed "Arnold's nerve" William Backhouse Astor, Sr. (1850–1901) Financier Head of the Astor corporate enterprises; nicknamed "the Landlord of New York" Frederick II, Grand Duke of Baden (1857–1928) Statesman ?Head of State of the Grand Duchy of Baden; General Field Marshal of the German Imperial Army Prince Maximilian of Baden (1867–1929) Statesman ?Last Chancellor of the German Empire Adolf von Baeyer (1835–1917) Chemist ~around 1852–1858Synthesized indigo; discovered the phthalein dyes; proposed the correct formula for indole; introduced the strain theory in triple bonds and carbon rings. Chemistry Nobel laureate Matthias Basedau (1968- )German political scientist ~around 1995-2001director of the GIGA Institute for African Studies Lebenslauf, Prof. Dr. Matthias Basedau, GIGA-German Institute for Global and Area Studies, Hamburg; accessed: 28 March 2023 George Bancroft (1800–1891)Statesman and historian ~around 1813–1822U.S. Secretary of the Navy; established the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1845; Author of "History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent" Auguste Beernaert (1829–1912) Statesman ~around 1850–1853 Prime Minister of Belgium and Nobel Peace Laureate Rudolf Bernhardt (1925–) Jurisprudent 1956–1962 President of the European Court of Human Rights Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782) Mathematician 1718–1719 Developed the Bernoulli's principle and together with Leonhard Euler the Euler–Bernoulli beam equation. Manfred Bischoff (1942–) Executive Chairman of EADS; Chairman of DaimlerChrysler Franz Boas (1858–1942) Anthropologist April–September 1877Started applying the scientific method to the study of human cultures and societies; "Father of American Anthropology" Edgar Bodenheimer (1908–1991) Jurisprudent ?Author of "Jurisprudence: The Philosophy and Method of the Law", "Treatise on Justice", "Philosophy of Responsibility" Max Born (1882–1970) Physicist ? Formulated the matrix mechanics representation of quantum mechanics in collaboration with Werner Heisenberg; Physics Nobel laureate Huberta von Bronsart (1892–1978) Biologist ? Andreas von Bülow (1937–) Statesman ? Federal Minister of Education and Research Reinhard Bütikofer (1953–) Statesman ? Chairman of the Green Party of GermanyDie TeilnehmerInnen – Teilhabe und Gerechtigkeit George C. Butte (1877–1940) Jurist 1913 (Jurisprudence)Republican gubernatorial nominee in Texas, 1924; member of the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands, 1932–1936 Moritz Cantor (1829–1920) Mathematician 1848–? Founded the history of mathematics as a scientific discipline Conrad Celtes (1459–1508) Humanist scholar 1484–1485 First to teach human history as a whole; discovered the Tabula Peutingeriana Rangsit, Prince of Chainat (1885–1951) Statesman ? Prince regent of ThailandA Pillar of the Kingdom. The Birth of Chulalongkorn University. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press, 1994 John W. Chanler (1826–1877) Lawyer ? Top lawyer; U.S. Representative from New York; member of the Astor family Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale (1864–1892) Royalty 1884 Cook, Andrew (2006). Prince Eddy: The King Britain Never Had. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN . John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Theologian ? Bishop of Lissa; author of Didactica Magna; became the symbol of the Czech nation Wilhelm Cuno (1876–1933) Statesman ? Chancellor of the German Weimar Republic Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) Theologian and polymath ? Roman Catholic Cardinal Karl Drais (1785–1851) Inventor 1803–1805 Inventor of the two-wheeler principle that started mechanized transport Johann Eck (1486–1543) Theologian 1498–1501 Martin Luther's Catholic opponent during Protestant Reformation; Papal legate and Inquisitor Norbert Elias (1897–1990) Sociologist ~around 1917–1920 Founder of figurational sociology; author of The Civilizing Process Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (1788–1857) Poet 1807–1808 Author of Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing, "Die Zauberei im Herbst", Ahnung und Gegenwart, "Auch ich war in Arkadien" Richard T. Ely (1854–1943) Economist ? Co-founder and president of the American Economic Association; editor of Macmillan's Citizen's Library of Economics, Politics, and Sociology; Professor at Johns Hopkins University and University of Wisconsin–Madison Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) Philosopher ? Author of The Essence of Christianity Carl-August Fleischhauer (1930–2005) Jurist -1954 Judge in the International Court of Justice James Franck (1882–1964) Physicist ? Invented the Franck–Hertz experiment; confirmed the Bohr model of the atom; Physics Nobel laureate Sebastian Franck (1499–1542) Theologian ? Author of "Weltbuch", "Chronicle of Germany", "Universal Chronicle of the World's History from the Earliest Times to the Present", "The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil", "The Vanity of Arts and Sciences" Wilhelm Frick (1877–1946) Nazi government ?–1901 Minister of the Interior of the Third Reich, executed for war crimes Carl Joachim Friedrich (1901–1984) Political scientist ?–1925 Developed the concept of a "good democracy"; laid out a theoretical framework for the European Union; co-author of "Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy" with Zbigniew Brzezinski, author of "Man and His Government: An Empirical Theory of Politics"; Professor at Harvard University Erich Fromm (1900–1980) Psychologist ?–1922 Co-founder of political psychology; author of The Art of Loving, Escape from Freedom; co-founder of The Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy Lazarus Immanuel Fuchs (1833–1902) Mathematician ? Developed the Fuchsian groups and functions, the Picard–Fuchs equation and the Fuchsian differential equations Rüdiger Hell (1959–) Biologist 2003- "Nahrung aus giftigen Böden". Münsterland Zeitung (in German). 2021-03-23. p. 29. Otto von Gerlach (1801–1849) Theologian ? Published a major rewrite of the Old and New Testament after Martin Luther; Dome Minister and Konsistorialrat Georg Gottfried Gervinus (1805–1871) Political historian 1826–1828 Advocate of democracy before and during the 1848 revolution; member of the Göttingen Seven; member of the 1848 Frankfurt Parliament; Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu (1916–1992) Writer ? Author of "The 25th Hour", "Les inconnus de Heidelberg", "Dieu a Paris", "Le peuple des immortels", "Calligraphies sur la Neige" J. Willard Gibbs (1839–1903) Physicist, chemist and mathematician 1868 Pioneer of chemical thermodynamics and physical chemistry; inventor of vector analysis; member of the Hall of Fame for Great Americans Albert Gobat (1843–1914) Statesman ?–1867 Director of the International Peace Bureau; Member of the Swiss National Council; Nobel Peace laureate Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi government ?–1921 Minister of Public Enlightenment of the Third Reich; succeeded Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Nazi Germany Franciscus Gomarus (1563–1641) Theologian ?–1591 Founder of the Gomarist movement; leader of the 1618 Synod of Dordrecht Constantine I of Greece (1868–1920) Statesman ? King of GreeceJohn Van der Kiste, Kings of the Hellenes (Alan Sutton Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, England, 1994) p.96 ff August Grisebach