Curated playlist
German Roman Catholics
- Nicolaus CopernicusThe first attacks on Copernicus came from Protestants, not the Catholic Church.
- Ludwig van BeethovenBeethoven was deaf when a singer turned him around to see applause. It happened at the premiere on the 7th of May 1824.
- Wolfgang Amadeus MozartMozart finished more than 800 works in thirty-five years and died with his Requiem unfinished.
- Wolfgang OverathWolfgang Overath won World Cup medals of all three kinds and never played for a club besides 1. FC Köln.
- Helmut KohlGerman cartoonists drew Chancellor Helmut Kohl as a pear. He still reunited Germany in 1990.
- Francis II, Holy Roman EmperorOn August 6, 1806, Francis II ended the Holy Roman Empire with a single signed declaration. He was its last emperor.
- Anna Maria MozartAnna Maria Mozart lost five of her first seven children in infancy. She then nearly died giving birth to Wolfgang.
- Maximilian III JosephA Munich tower clock struck 77 times, and Elector Maximilian III Joseph said his years had run out.
- Jacques OffenbachJacques Offenbach died months before his last opera opened. He told his dog he would give everything to be there.
- Konrad AdenauerObservers said Konrad Adenauer became West Germany's first chancellor by one vote, his own. He was 73.
- Johannes GutenbergIn 1455, a Gutenberg Bible cost roughly three years' wages for a clerk, yet was a bargain.
- Erwin RommelErwin Rommel was forced to swallow cyanide in a German staff car a few miles from his own home.
- Leopold MozartLeopold Mozart wrote a symphony that calls for real shotguns.
- Manuel NeuerManuel Neuer, the German goalkeeper born on the 27th of March 1986, completed 244 passes at the 2014 World Cup. That was more than Lionel Messi, who managed 242, and more than Thomas Müller, who managed 221. Wesley Sneijder also finished…
- Miroslav KloseMiroslav Klose arrived in West Germany at eight knowing only two words of German.
- Albrecht DürerAlbrecht Dürer drew a rhinoceros he had never seen. His 1515 woodcut still appeared in some German school textbooks.
- Constanze MozartWidowed at twenty-nine with debts, Constanze Mozart built a business around her husband's music.
- Oskar SchindlerOskar Schindler stood on a factory floor in Brünnlitz on the 7th of May 1945, surrounded by Jewish workers who owed him their lives, and listened to a radio. The voice was Winston Churchill's, announcing that Germany had surrendered and…
- Empress Elisabeth of AustriaEmpress Elisabeth of Austria, nicknamed Sisi, left the Hôtel Beau-Rivage on the shore of Lake Geneva at 1:35 in the afternoon on Saturday the 10th of September 1898. She was 60 years old and travelling under a false name. Only one…
- Otto von HabsburgOtto von Habsburg, born to be emperor, spent nearly half a century in exile from Austria.
- Johann Joachim WinckelmannJohann Joachim Winckelmann, a cobbler's son, became the father of art history.
- Ferdinand von Hompesch zu BolheimFerdinand von Hompesch surrendered Malta to Napoleon in June 1798 after a single day of French landings.
- Johann Christian BachIn 1764, eight-year-old Mozart spent five months in London learning from Johann Christian Bach.
- Franz BeckenbauerFranz Beckenbauer won the World Cup as a captain, then again as a manager.