List of people from Breslau

This list includes people who were born in or lived in Breslau before 1945. For a list of famous residents after 1945, see List of notable people from Wrocław.
 * Alois Alzheimer (1864–1915) a psychiatrist and neuropathologist, discovered Alzheimer's disease
 * Paul Amman (1634–1691), German physician and botanist.
 * Günther Anders (1902–1992) a German-Austrian Jewish émigré, philosopher, essayist and journalist.
 * Adolf Anderssen (1818–1879) a German chess master.
 * Đorđe Andrejević-Kun (1904–1964), a Serbian painter and academic.
 * Heinz Arndt (1915–2002), an Australian economist
 * Leopold Auerbach (1828–1897), a German anatomist and neuropathologist
 * Joannes Aurifaber Vratislaviensis (1517–1568), a Lutheran theologian and Protestant reformer.
 * Bertha Badt-Strauss (1885–1970), a German writer and Zionist.
 * Boleslaw Barlog (1906–1999), a German stage, film and opera director
 * Erhard Bauschke (1912–1945), a German jazz and light music reedist and bandleader.
 * Max Berg (1870–1947), a German architect and urban planner, designed the Centennial Hall
 * Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945), Lutheran clergyman, leader of the resistance against Nazism
 * Max Born (1882–1970), a German physicist and mathematician, developed quantum mechanics
 * August Borsig (1804–1854), a German businessman who made steam engines
 * Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945), a German philosopher, main interests: Epistemology & aesthetics
 * Hendrik Claudius (c1655-1697), painter and apothecary
 * Ferdinand Cohn (1828–1898), a biologist, a founder of modern bacteriology and microbiology.
 * Richard Courant (1888–1972), a German American mathematician, wrote What Is Mathematics?
 * Harri Czepuck (1927–2015), a German journalist.
 * Walter Damrosch (1862–1950), an American conductor and composer.
 * John Gunther Dean (1926–2019), an American diplomat, the United States ambassador to five nations.
 * Johann Dzierzon (1811–1906), a Polish beekeeper, discovered parthenogenesis in bees.
 * Hermann von Eichhorn (1848–1918), a Prussian Generalfeldmarschall during WWI.
 * Norbert Elias (1897–1990), a German/British sociologist, worked on civilizing/decivilizing processes.
 * Eduard Vogel von Falckenstein (1797-1885), a Prussian General der Infanterie
 * Friedrich Karl Georg Fedde (1873–1942}, a German botanist.
 * George Forell (1919–2011), a scholar, author, lecturer and guest professor re. Christian ethics.
 * Otfrid Förster (1873–1941) a German neurologist and neurosurgeon
 * Heinz Fraenkel-Conrat (1910–1999) a biochemist, researched viruses.
 * Zecharias Frankel (1801–1875), rabbi and founder of Conservative Judaism
 * Hans Freeman (1929–2008), Australian bioinorganic chemist and protein crystallographer
 * Friedrich von Gentz (1764–1832), a German diplomat and writer.
 * Alfred Gomolka (1942–2020), a German politician and MEP
 * Rudolf von Gottschall (1823–1909), a German poet, dramatist, literary critic and literary historian.
 * Felix Hausdorff (1868–1942), mathematician, one of the founders of algebraic topology
 * Martin Helwig (1516–1574) a German cartographer, created the first map of Silesia
 * Sir George Henschel (1850–1934) a British baritone, pianist, conductor and composer.
 * Johann Heß (1490–1547), Lutheran theologian, Protestant reformer of Breslau and Silesia
 * Christian Hoffmann von Hoffmannswaldau (1616–1679) a German poet of the Baroque era
 * August, Prince of Hohenlohe-Öhringen (1784–1853), a German general and nobleman.
 * Karl von Holtei (1798–1880), German poet and actor.
 * E. A. J. Honigmann (1927–2011), a British scholar of English Literature
 * Heinz Hopf (1894–1971), a German mathematician who worked on topology and geometry.
 * Vernon Ingram (1924–2006), a German–American academic professor of biology in the US.
 * Gustav Adolph Kenngott (1818–1897), a German mineralogist.
 * Alfred Kerr (1867–1948), theatre critic and essayist
 * Gustav Kirchhoff (1824–1887), a German physicist, dealt with electrical circuits and spectroscopy
 * Gerhard Kittel (1888–1948), a German Lutheran theologian and lexicographer of biblical languages.
 * Otto Klemperer (1885–1973), orchestral conductor and composer
 * August Kopisch (1799–1853), a German poet and painter.
 * Wojciech Korfanty (1873–1939), a Polish activist, journalist and politician.
 * Arthur Korn (1870–1945), physicist, invented transmission of photographs by facsimile and wireless
 * Arthur Korn (1891–1978), a German architect and urban planner, proponent of modernism
 * Carl Ferdinand Langhans (1782–1869), a Prussian architect whose specialty was theatres.
 * Carl Gotthard Langhans (1732–1808), a Prussian master builder and royal architect.
 * Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–1864), a Prussian-German jurist, philosopher and socialist.
 * Carl Friedrich Lessing (1808–1880), a German historical and landscape painter.
 * Marie Leszczyńska (1703 in Trzebnica – 1768), Queen consort of France.
 * Daniel Casper von Lohenstein (1635–1683), a Baroque Silesian playwright, lawyer, diplomat and poet
 * Peter Lorre (1904–1964), an Austrian-Hungarian and American actor.
 * Georg Lunge (1839–1923), a German chemist.
 * Rudolf Meidner (1914–2005), a Swedish economist and socialist theorist
 * Joachim Meisner (1933–2017), Cardinal priest and archbishop of Cologne
 * Adolph Menzel (1815–1905), a German Realist artist noted for drawings, etchings and paintings.
 * Jan Mikulicz-Radecki (1850-1905), surgeon, contributed to development of modern surgery
 * Richard Mohaupt (1904–1957), a German composer and Kapellmeister.
 * Edda Moser (born 1938), a German operatic soprano.
 * Moritz Moszkowski (1854–1925), a composer, pianist and teacher of Polish-Jewish descent.
 * Hugo von Pohl (1855–1916), a German admiral, commander of High Seas Fleet
 * Louis Prang (1824–1909), printer, lithographer and publisher
 * Michael Oser Rabin (born 1931), mathematician and computer scientist
 * Manfred von Richthofen (1892–1918), World War I flying ace (the "Red Baron")
 * Oskar von Riesenthal (1830–1898) a German forester, ornithologist, hunter and writer.
 * Ludwig Rosenfelder (1813-1881), German painter
 * Horst Rosenthal (1915–1942), German-born French cartoonist
 * Julius von Sachs (1832–1897), a German botanist.
 * Johann Gottfried Scheibel (1783–1843), theological professor and dissenter to the Prussian Union
 * Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) a Reformed theologian, philosopher and biblical scholar
 * Auguste Schmidt (1833–1902), a German feminist, educator, journalist and women's rights activist.
 * Margarethe Siems (1879–1952), a German operatic coloratura soprano
 * Angelus Silesius (ca.1624–1677), a German Catholic priest, physician, mystic and religious poet.
 * Karl Slotta (1895–1987), biochemist
 * Edith Stein (1891–1942), philosopher and Roman Catholic martyr
 * Michael Steinberg (1928–2009) an American music critic and author
 * Fritz Stern (1926–2016), American historian of German & Jewish history and historiography.
 * Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (1730–1794), Inspector General of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War
 * Siegbert Tarrasch (1862–1934), chess player
 * Augustin Theiner ((1804–1874), theologian and Church historian of the Vatican Apostolic Archive
 * August Tholuck (1799–1877), a German Protestant theologian, pastor and historian.
 * Michel Thomas (1914–2005), war hero and language teacher.
 * Zacharias Ursinus (1534–1583) a German Reformed theologian and Protestant reformer.
 * Christian Wolff (1679–1754), a German philosopher.
 * Adolf Wuttke (1819–1870) a German Protestant theologian.
 * Johann Heinrich Zedler (1706–1751), publisher of a German encyclopedia, the Grosses Universal-Lexicon.

Nobel laureates
listed by year of award
 * Theodor Mommsen (1902)
 * Philipp Lenard (1905)
 * Eduard Buchner (1907)
 * Paul Ehrlich (1908)
 * Gerhart Hauptmann (1912)
 * Fritz Haber (1918)
 * Friedrich Bergius (1931)
 * Erwin Schrödinger (1933)
 * Otto Stern (1943)
 * Max Born (1954)
 * Reinhard Selten (1994)