There have been many people who have set foot in Brandenburg, “Berlin’s Beautiful Backdrop”, yet some outstanding “heads of our federal state” have achieved a particular significance all over the world through their life and work. Apart from the Hohenzollern kings and emperors, you can get to know a varied selection of famous people from Brandenburg, which of course, must remain incomplete.

Heinrich von Kleist, son of a noble Prussian officer, was born in Frankfurt on the Oder. Disagreeing with the conditions around him and in the restless strive for happiness, the life of the Prussian dramatist, author and poet has tragic aspects up to his early suicide. Kleist was one of the most important dramatists of the romantic movement. His romantic play, “Käthchen von Heilbronn” (Ordeal by Fire), and dramas such as ”Hermannschlacht” (Arminius’s Battle) and the comedy “Der zerbrochene Krug” (The Broken Pitcher) are full of intellectual depth and eloquence. He spent his most beautiful years as a child and a youth in Frankfurt on the Oder, which today is also called town of Kleist, and during his mathematical and philosophical studies in Potsdam.

Bettina von Arnim was the sister of the poet Clemens Brentano and became known primarily because of her correspondence with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and because of her sociocritcal remarks on the dissolution of the Prussian National Assembly in 1848. Her husband Achim distinguished himself through his lively involvement in Heinrich von Kleist’s “Berliner Abendblätter“, a daily newspaper that Kleist edited, and in numerous romantic dramas, novellas and stories. In 1814, the Arnim writing couple moved from Berlin to the Brandenburg castle of Wiepersdorf near Jüterbog, which also served as a residence for literary figures such as Anna Seghers, Arnold Zweig and Sarah Kirsch during the 20th century. Even today, you can experience the romantic aura at Wiepersdorf Castle that certainly inspired the Arnim writing couple for the life in Mark Brandenburg far from the hectic pace of Berlin.

Otto Lilienthal was the pioneer of power-off gliding and of muscular power flight. With his very observant eye, he examined the flight of birds as a basis for the “art of flying” in the Brandenburg Havelland (the area of the river Havel), using storks as a model. Here, he conducted the world’s first attempts at flight! Until 1894, Lilienthal constructed flying and wing beating apparatus, by means of which he flew distances of up to 250m. His fundamental insights into thermal currents and construction inspired other flying pioneers, such as the Brothers Wright, although he was killed in an aeroplane crash on the Gollenberg (a mountain) near Stölln in 1896. Today, they recount the inventor’s life at the Stölln Lilienthal Memorial Site. On the world’s oldest airfield, visitors can rise into the air over Brandenburg during gliding or motor flights, as Lilienthal once did.

Gerhart Hauptmann had his residence for some years in the small Brandenburg town of Erkner, which adjoins Berlin. The later Nobel prize winner for literature lived there in a Brandenburg villa from 1886 to 1889, in which a Gerhart Hauptmann Museum is housed today. Hauptmann lived in Erkner for the first years of his married life and deepened his interest in the troubles and hardships of farmers and craftsmen, which later induced him to write attacking works of world literature and for the theatre, such as “Vor Sonnenaufgang“ (Before Dawn) or “Die Weber” (The Weavers).

Albert Einstein probably was the most famous of Brandenburg’s inhabitants. He was awarded the Nobel prize for physics for the explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1921. From 1929 to 1932, Einstein lived in a summerhouse that was located outside the gates of Berlin, before emigrating to the USA. Here, the universal genius could completely concentrate on his work and sail on the Schwielowsee (a lake) and relax on hikes through the Havelland idyll. Anyone who wishes to understand how Einstein came to his world-shattering concepts regarding theoretical physics, should go in search of clues and let his or her thoughts wander here. In addition, you can visit the observatory on Telefgrafenberg (Telegraph Hill), in nearby Potsdam, which is named after Einstein. Furthermore, the fourth largest lens telescope in the world, “The Great Refractor“, is housed there.

Bertolt Brecht is described as the most influential German playwright and lyricist of the 20th century. Brandenburg had made quite an impression on him particular in the later phase of his life. Together with his wife, Helene Weigel, Brecht resided in the village of Buckow, which is nestled in the Mark Brandenburg Switzerland Nature Park (Märkische Schweiz), until he died in 1956. There, he created predominantly melancholy poems and enjoyed the sleepy rural atmosphere. The museum in the Brecht-Weigel-Haus recalls his works. The “Dreigroschenoper” (Threepenny Opera) and the play “Mutter Courage” (Mother Courage), which deals with the period of the Thirty Years’ War, are regarded as his most renowned works internationally. At any rate, Brecht only experienced quiet and idleness in the slightly wooded hilly landscape of Märkisch-Oderland (the Mark Brandenburg countryside along the river Oder) around the Brandenburg Buckow health resort.

Rudi Dutschke was born in the Brandenburg town of Luckenwalde. In 1961, Dutschke turned his back on Brandenburg shortly before the Berlin Wall was built. His revolutionary spirit developed when reading Marx, Marcuse and Bloch at the Freie Universität Berlin (Free University of Berlin) in the middle of the sixties as well as through his commitment to student groups. Soon, he became the representative of the APO (a left-wing opposition movement founded by students and trade-unions in 1966 to promote opposition to the government from outside the parliament) in the Federal Republic of Germany of the late sixties and headed the protest activities against the Vietnam War, totalitarian systems and the Axel Springer publishing house among others. On 11/04/1968, Dutschke was seriously injured in the course of an assassination attempt by the worker Josef Bachmann and had to learn even speaking all over again with great difficulty. He pursued his idea of socialism without using force in appearances on television, in speeches and protests until he died in 1979. A memorial stone and, from 2006, also an exhibition area in the local museum in Luckenwalde recall Rudi Dutschke.

Wolfgang Joop is certainly Germany’s most successful fashion designer after Carl Lagerfeld. The Brandenburg citizen Joop was born at his parents’ manor house near Sanssouci Castle in Potsdam. In 1978, he achieved his international breakthrough with a collection of furs, which was rewarded with the heading “Prussian Designer” by the New York Times in allusion to his Brandenburg origin. In the eighties, he built up his good reputation by means of Prêt-à-porter ladies’ collections and his first perfume collections. For a few years now, the fashion designer Joop has been going in new directions, even with his company Wunderkind (infant prodigy), which is based in Potsdam and elsewhere. The cosmopolitan Wolfgang Joop has remained faithful to his home town of Potsdam, however, in spite of stays all over the world.

Hasso Plattner is one of the founders of the German software company SAP, for which he was also Chairman of the Managing Board until 2002. Under his direction, the company developed to be a global group of companies in just 30 years. Plattner is regarded as one of the richest Germans and is active as a patron in particular. For instance, he founded the Hasso-Plattner-Institut at Potsdam University from his personal assets. This institute for software systems technology in the Brandenburg state capital trains engineers for IT systems. The head of SAP hit upon the idea in 1997 during a walk through Potsdam: “Software is made where it is particularly beautiful.” Today, several IT companies, such as SAP, Oracle, ePlus and eBay are based in the vicinity of Potsdam’s castles and gardens.

She is one of the best of all times in a kayak and nobody can catch up with the lady from Brandenburg! Furthermore, with the 8 gold medals that she has now won, Birgit Fischer from Brandenburg on the Havel is Germany’s most successful Olympic sportswoman so far. School and her studies were characterised by competitive sport until, in 1980, she won her first gold medal in the single scull kayak in Moscow. In doing so, she was always aware of success: “Gold was always my aim. To stand right at the top.” Up to now, Birgit Fischer has found ideal training conditions in harmony with nature in the branched landscape of lakes and rivers between Brandenburg on  the Havel and Potsdam. Overall, she has been world champion 27 times, Olympic champion 8 times and twice European champion.

The knight Kahlbutz, landowner of Kampehl, became ingloriously known in and beyond Brandenburg. Apart from 11 children born in wedlock, he also put 30 illegitimate children into the (Brandenburg) world. He is said to have slain his shepherd, whose bride refused to be intimate with him. But he denied it and swore that he would not wish to decompose if he had done it. The mummified corpse of the knight, which can be admired in Kampehl, gives definite proof of the fact: he had lied!