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Curated playlist

Heidelberg University alumni

  • Helmut KohlGerman cartoonists drew Chancellor Helmut Kohl as a pear. He still reunited Germany in 1990.
  • Joseph GoebbelsJoseph Goebbels was Chancellor of Germany for a single day.
  • Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelHegel watched Napoleon ride out of Jena the day before the 1806 battle. The philosopher called him "this world-soul."
  • Max WeberMax Weber died in 1920 with his major book unfinished on his desk. His widow spent two years preparing it.
  • Jan AssmannEgyptologist Jan Assmann later admitted he no longer held his famous theory of monotheism in its original form.
  • Max BornMax Born won his 1954 Nobel Prize for work he finished nearly three decades earlier.
  • Conrad CeltesHistorian Richard Unger calls Conrad Celtes a large-scale book thief. Celtes called it protecting German heritage.
  • Erich FrommErich Fromm argued that falling in love is not love at all. His 1956 book The Art of Loving became a bestseller.
  • Fritz HaberFritz Haber, the German chemist born in 1868, devised a method that now underpins roughly a third of the world's annual food production. The method turns nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas into ammonia, the raw material for both fertilizers and…
  • Nicholas of CusaNicholas of Cusa said the earth is not the center of the universe. This was before Copernicus published.

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