List of Leipzig University people

The following is a list of notable alumni and faculty of the University of Leipzig.

Notable alumni

 * Theodore Dyke Acland, English physician
 * Georgius Agricola, Saxon mining engineer and natural philosopher
 * Joseph L. Armstrong, American scholar
 * Jan Niecisław Baudouin de Courtenay, Polish linguist and slavist
 * Kamuran Alî Bedirxan, Kurdish politician and writer
 * Lothar Bisky, German politician
 * Felix Bloch, Swiss physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics
 * Marc Bloch, French historian
 * John Bohnius, German physician
 * Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen, American writer and scholar
 * Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer
 * Sylvia Bretschneider (1960-2019), politician, member and speaker of the state assembly (Landtag) of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
 * Selig Brodetsky, President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
 * Cai Yuanpei, Chinese linguist
 * James McKeen Cattell, American psychologist
 * Wei-Liang Chow, Chinese mathematician and stamp collector born in Shanghai, known for his work in algebraic geometry.
 * Constantine I, Greek monarch
 * William David Coolidge, American physicist
 * Karl Ludwig Drobisch (1803–1854), German composer, music theorist and church musician
 * Georg Dohrn, German conductor
 * Carl H. Dorner, American politician
 * Ernst Christoph Dressler, German composer and music theorist
 * Émile Durkheim, French sociologist
 * Friedrich Adolf Ebert, Saxon librarian
 * Nishith Gupta, molecular biologist
 * Johann Arnold Ebert, Saxon writer and translator
 * Wilhelm Ehmann, musicologist, conductor, founder and director of the Herford School of Church Music
 * Ephraim Emerton, American medievalist historian
 * John O. Evjen, American theologian and church historian
 * Gustav Fechner, German psychologist
 * Wilhelm Fuchs (1898–1947), Nazi SS officer and Holocaust perpetrator executed for war crimes
 * Arnold Gehlen, German philosopher and sociologist
 * Hans-Dietrich Genscher, German politician
 * Kurt Albert Gerlach, German sociologist
 * Johann Wolfgang Goethe, German poet
 * Woldemar Ludwig Grenser, German obstetrician
 * Otto von Guericke, German scientist and politician
 * Gotthard Günther, German-American philosopher
 * Samuel Hahnemann, founder of homeopathy
 * Edith Hamilton, American essayist and educator; first female student at the university together with her sister Alice
 * Albert Hauck, German theologian and church historian
 * Elsa Herrmann (1893–1957), Jewish German feminist writer and refugee advocate
 * Johann Adam Hiller, Saxon composer
 * Milton W. Humphreys, American scholar
 * Adolf Hurwitz, German mathematician
 * Edmund Husserl, Austrian philosopher and mathematician
 * Ulrich von Hutten, Hessian humanist and political leader
 * Nicolae Iorga, Romanian historian and politician
 * Wolfgang Iser, German literary theorist
 * Jan Jesenius, Slovak physician, politician and philosopher
 * Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, founder and first president of Czechoslovakia, professor of sociology
 * Uwe Johnson, German writer and translator
 * Ernst Jünger, German novelist and nationalist activist
 * Erich Kähler, German mathematician
 * Erich Kästner, German satirist and children's writer
 * Paul Kirchhoff, German anthropologist and ethnohistorian
 * Johannes Knolleisen, German theologian
 * Alexander Kohut, Hungarian-American rabbi and orientalist
 * Ku Hung-ming, Malaysian-Chinese scholar
 * Victor Lange, German-American linguist
 * Georg Christian Lehms, German poet and novelist
 * Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, German mathematician and philosopher
 * August Leskien, German linguist
 * Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German philosopher and writer
 * Rudolf Leuckart, German zoologist
 * Karl Liebknecht, German communist activist
 * Ulrike Liedtke (born 1958), musicologist and politician (SPD)
 * Lin Yutang, Chinese novelist and inventor
 * Virgil Madgearu, Romanian economist and sociologist
 * Bronisław Malinowski, Polish anthropologist
 * Sándor Márai, Hungarian poet and novelist
 * Emil Mattiesen (1875–1939), composer, pianist and philosopher
 * Thomas Mauksch, Lutheran pastor and naturalist
 * Angela Merkel, German politician
 * Walter Miller, American philologist
 * Thomas Müntzer, Thuringian theologian and rebellion leader
 * Carl Friedrich Naumann, German mineralogist and geologist
 * Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher
 * Novalis, German writer and philosopher
 * Otto Ohlendorf (1907–1951), SS general and Holocaust perpetrator, executed for war crimes
 * George Pardee, American physician and politician
 * Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, Romanian Marxist sociologist and politician
 * James Phelan, Jr., American politician
 * Samuel Pufendorf, German jurist and historian
 * Jeff Radebe African politician and cabinet member
 * Alexander Radishchev, Russian political thinker
 * Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, Romanian psychologist and philosopher
 * Hermann Raster, German-American journalist and political figure
 * Augustus Quirinus Rivinus (1827–1891), German botanist and physician
 * Ferdinand de Saussure, Swiss linguist
 * Hans Ulrich von Schaffgotsch, Silesian nobleman and general
 * Ludwig Scheeffer, German mathematician
 * Helmut Schelsky, German sociologist
 * Hans-Joachim Schulze, German Bach scholar
 * Kurt Schumacher, German politician
 * Robert Schumann (1810–1856), German Romantic composer
 * Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), German Baroque composer
 * Christoph Graupner (1683-1760), German Baroque composer
 * Edward Teller, Hungarian-American nuclear physicist
 * Galsan Tschinag, Mongolian writer, poet and activist
 * Kārlis Ulmanis, Latvian politician
 * Dimitri Uznadze, Georgian psychologist
 * Richard Wagner (1813-1883), German Romantic composer
 * Ernst Heinrich Weber, German physician
 * Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, German physicist and philosopher
 * Gustav Zeuner, German physicist and engineer
 * Caspar Ziegler, jurist

Notable faculty

 * Ernst Bloch, philosopher
 * Felix Bloch, physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1952
 * Ludwig Boltzmann, Professor of Physics
 * Karl Brugmann, comparative linguist
 * Karl Bücher, economist
 * Ernst Adolf Coccius, ophthalmologist
 * Peter Debye, physicist, 1927-1936 Director of the Physics Institute, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1936
 * Adolf Ebert, Romance philologist
 * Gustav Fechner, psychologist
 * Paul Flechsig, neurologist
 * Hans Freyer, sociologist
 * Christian Fürchtegott Gellert, theologian and poet
 * Ludwig Wilhelm Gilbert, publisher of the Annalen der Physik
 * Rudolf Gottschall, critic, poet and dramatist
 * Johann Christoph Gottsched, philologist
 * Samuel Hahnemann, physician and lecturer at medical faculty 1812-21
 * Werner Heisenberg, physicist, 1927–1942; Professor of Theoretical Physics; winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932
 * Gustav Ludwig Hertz, physicist, 1954–1961; Head of the Physics Institute; winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1925, together with James Franck
 * Gert Jäger, Slavist and translation scholar; member of the Leipzig School
 * Otto Kade, specialist in Russian language and translation scholar; member of the Leipzig School
 * Felix Klein, mathematician
 * Werner Krauss, Romanist
 * Karl Lamprecht, historian
 * August Leskien, linguist
 * Julius Edgar Lilienfeld, inventor of the transistor
 * Wilhelm Maurenbrecher, historian
 * August Ferdinand Möbius, astronomer and mathematician
 * Theodor Mommsen, historian, 1848-1851 Professor of Law; Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902 for The History of Rome
 * Petrus Mosellanus, Greek scholar
 * Albrecht Neubert, lecturer in English language and translation scholar; member of the Leipzig School
 * Wilhelm Ostwald, chemist; 1887-1906 Chair of Physical Chemistry; Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1909
 * Svante Pääbo, Nobel Prize in Medicine, currently teaches molecular evolutionary biology at the university
 * Martin Petzoldt, systematic theology; president of the Neue Bachgesellschaft
 * Arthur Prüfer, musicologist
 * Augustus Quirinus Rivinus, botanist
 * Wilhelm Roscher, economist
 * Carl Victor Ryssel, theologian
 * Heinrich Simroth, zoologist
 * Nathan Söderblom, religious historian; Director of the Religious Studies Institute 1912–1914; Nobel Peace Prize in 1930
 * Georg Steindorff, egyptologist
 * Christian Thomasius, philosopher
 * Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965
 * Wolfgang Unger, director of university music
 * Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, mathematician
 * Ernst Heinrich Weber, physician
 * Peter Wollny, musicologist
 * Wilhelm Wundt, physician, psychologist
 * Paul Zweifel, physician, physiologist

Universitätsmusikdirektor
Several persons held the official title of director of music at the university, some of them at the same time Thomaskantor, including:
 * Friedrich Brandes
 * Werner Fabricius
 * Johann Gottlieb Görner
 * Hermann Grabner
 * Johann Georg Häser
 * Johann Adam Hiller (Thomaskantor 1789–1800)
 * Hermann Kretzschmar
 * Johann Kuhnau (Thomaskantor 1701–1722)
 * Hermann Langer
 * August Pohlenz
 * Max Pommer
 * Friedrich Rabenschlag
 * Max Reger
 * Ernst Friedrich Richter (Thomaskantor 1868–1879)
 * Hans-Joachim Rotzsch (Thomaskantor 1972–1991)
 * Johann Schelle (Thomaskantor 1677–1701)
 * Johann Gottfried Schicht (Thomaskantor 1811–1823)
 * Friedrich Schneider
 * Johann Philipp Christian Schulz
 * David Timm
 * Wolfgang Unger (Thomaskantor interim 1991–1992)
 * Heinrich Zöllner