List of Famous people born in Dessau-Roßlau, Germany

Steffi Lemke is a German politician of Alliance 90/The Greens who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Saxony-Anhalt from 1994 till 2002 and since 2013.

Dieter "Didi" Hallervorden is a German comedian, actor, singer and cabaret artist.

Thomas Kretschmann is a German actor. His notable film roles include Lieutenant Hans von Witzland in Stalingrad (1993), Hauptmann Wilm Hosenfeld in The Pianist (2002), Hermann Fegelein in Downfall (2004), Major Timothy Cain in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2005), Captain Englehorn in King Kong (2005), Major Otto Remer in Valkyrie (2008), the voice of Professor Z in Cars 2 (2011), Hauptmann Peter Kahn in Stalingrad (2013). He also appeared as Baron Wolfgang von Strucker in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015).

Brigitte Grothum is a German film actress. She has appeared in 50 films since 1955. She was born in Dessau, Germany.

Moses Mendelssohn was a German-Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the Haskalah, the 'Jewish Enlightenment' of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is indebted.

Kurt Julian Weill was a German composer, active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht. With Brecht, he developed productions such as his best-known work The Threepenny Opera, which included the ballad "Mack the Knife". Weill held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose. He also wrote several works for the concert hall. He became a United States citizen on August 27, 1943.

Henriette Johanne Marie Müller, called the Zitronenjette, was a popular figure now identified with the city of Hamburg.

Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain was a German physicist, and the designer of the first operational jet engine. His first test unit ran on externally supplied hydrogen in March 1937, and it was a later development that powered the world's first flyable all-jet aircraft, the prototype of the Heinkel He 178 in late August 1939. In spite of these early successes, other German designs quickly eclipsed Ohain's, and none of his engine designs entered widespread production or operational use.

Princess Henriette Amalie of Anhalt-Dessau was the fifth and youngest daughter of Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, by his morganatic wife, Anna Louise Föhse.

Gerhard Erber was a German classical pianist and academic teacher. He played as a member of the East German ensemble Gruppe Neue Musik Hanns Eisler, which focused on contemporary chamber music. He was a professor of piano at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig, and organised a Bach competition in Köthen.