List of Famous people born in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Pole is the artistic name of Stefan Betke, a German electronic music artist commonly associated with the glitch genre as well as dubtronica.

Jonas Meffert is a German professional footballer who plays as a defensive midfielder for Hamburger SV.

Prince Oscar of Prussia is a member of the House of Hohenzollern, the former ruling house of Prussia, and a pretender in line to the German throne. He is the thirty-seventh Herrenmeister of the Order of Saint John.

Markus Dieckmann is a retired professional beach volleyball player from Germany, who represented his native country at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. There he ended up in ninth place in the overall-rankings.

Albrecht Brandi was a German U-boat commander in Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. Together with Wolfgang Lüth, he was the only Kriegsmarine sailor who was awarded with the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. The Knight's Cross, and its variants were the highest awards in the military and paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany during World War II. Brandi is credited with the sinking of eight merchant ships for a total of 25,879 gross register tons (GRT), one auxiliary warship of 810 GRT, and three warships of 5,000 long tons.

Josef Schulz, also spelled Joseph Schultz, was a German soldier of the 714th Infantry Division stationed in German-occupied Serbia during World War II. He died in 1941, allegedly executed after refusing to take part in an execution of Partisans. The German High Command recorded him as killed in action. The plot of the Yugoslav short film Joseph Schultz (1973) is based on the incident. Based on a Bundesarchiv study, the incident was dismissed as a legend by many scholars in the 1990s.