List of Famous people born in Hesse, Germany

Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank was a German-Dutch diarist of Jewish heritage. One of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust, she gained fame posthumously with the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl, in which she documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. It is one of the world's best known books and has been the basis for several plays and films.

Hans Florian Zimmer is a German film score composer and record producer. Zimmer's works are notable for integrating electronic music sounds with traditional orchestral arrangements. Since the 1980s, he has composed music for over 150 films. His works include The Lion King, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1995, the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Interstellar, Gladiator, Crimson Tide, Inception, Dunkirk, Blade Runner 2049, and The Dark Knight Trilogy. He has received four Grammy Awards, three Classical BRIT Awards, two Golden Globes, and an Academy Award. He was also named on the list of Top 100 Living Geniuses, published by The Daily Telegraph.

Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim is a German chemist, science communicator, television presenter and YouTuber. As of June 2020, she is a member of the senate of the Max Planck Society.

Bettina Stark-Watzinger is a German economist and politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) who has been serving as Minister of Education and Research in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's cabinet since 2021. She has been a member of the Bundestag from the state of Hesse since 2017. Since 2021, she has been the chairwoman of the FDP in Hesse.

Helge Reinhold Braun is a German medical doctor and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Matthias Reim is a German singer-songwriter. His 1990 single "Verdammt, ich lieb' dich", was a hit in several European countries, and spent sixteen consecutive weeks at the No.1 spot in the German charts. He unexpectedly returned 23 years later to No.1 on the charts with "Unendlich" in February 2013.

Sebastian Vettel is a German racing driver who competes in Formula One for Aston Martin, having previously driven for BMW Sauber, Toro Rosso, Red Bull and Ferrari. Vettel has won four World Drivers' Championship titles which he won consecutively from 2010 to 2013. The sport's youngest World Champion, as of 2020, Vettel has the third most race victories (53) and podium finishes (121) and the fourth most pole positions (57).

Benjamin List, also known as Ben List, is a German chemist who is one of the directors of the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research and professor of organic chemistry at the University of Cologne. He co-developed organocatalysis, a method of accelerating chemical reactions and making them more efficient. He shared the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with David MacMillan "for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis".

Jermaine Lamarr Cole is a German-born American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Born on a military base in Germany and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Cole initially gained recognition as a rapper following the release of his debut mixtape, The Come Up, in early 2007. Intent on further pursuing a musical career, he went on to release two additional mixtapes, The Warm Up (2009) and Friday Night Lights (2010) both to critical acclaim, after signing to Jay-Z's Roc Nation imprint in 2009.

John Patrick McEnroe Jr. is a former professional American tennis player. He was known for his shot-making and volleying skills, in addition to confrontational on-court behavior that frequently landed him in trouble with umpires and tennis authorities.

David Wagner is a professional football manager and former player.

Tobias Sammet is a German musician, singer, songwriter, music producer and radio host best known for being the founder of the metal opera project Avantasia and singer and primary songwriter of the power metal band Edguy.

Elke Heidenreich is a German author, TV presenter, literary critic and journalist. She has written audio plays, a magazine column, scripts for television plays and books. Heidenreich is known as the Kabarettist who created a character, Else Stratmann. She is a literary critic in the television Literaturclub of the Schweizer Fernsehen.

Peter Andreas Thiel is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. He was ranked No. 4 on the Forbes Midas List of 2014, with a net worth of $2.2 billion, and No. 391 on the Forbes 400 in 2020, with a net worth of $2.1 billion. In 2016, Thiel confirmed that he had funded Hulk Hogan in the Bollea v. Gawker lawsuit because Gawker had previously outed him as gay and he sought revenge for this embarrassment. The lawsuit eventually bankrupted Gawker.

Janine Wissler is a German politician who has been co-chairwoman of The Left since 2021. Prior, who served as member of the Landtag of Hesse since 2008 and leader of the state parliamentary group since 2009, including as sole leader since 2014, as well as deputy leader of the federal party since 2014.

Annette Kurschus is a German Protestant theologian and pastor. Since March 2012 she has been Praeses of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia and since November 2015 she has also been Vice-President of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). In 2021 she became President of the Council of the EKD.

Nico Erik Rosberg is a Finnish-German former racing driver who won the 2016 Formula One World Championship driving for Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport. The only child of Keke Rosberg and his German wife Sina Rosberg, he was raised primarily in the Principality of Monaco.

Martin Schneider, often just called "Maddin", is a German comedian, cabarettist and actor.

Diether Dehm is a German singer-songwriter, music producer and left-wing politician. He is currently a member of the Left Party, and has previously been a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the PDS.

Bernd Nickel is a German former professional footballer. Due to his straight shots his nickname was "Doktor Hammer".