List of Famous people born in Poland

Theodor Georg Knorr was an engineer and entrepreneur on the field of railroad technology and founder of the company Knorr-Bremse. He is particularly remembered for his role in the development of the compressed air brake.

Heinz Ludwig Fraenkel-Conrat was a biochemist, famous for his research on viruses.

The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and its variants were the highest awards in the military and paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany during World War II. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded for a wide range of reasons and across all ranks, from a senior commander for skilled leadership of his troops in battle to a low-ranking soldier for a single act of extreme gallantry. A total of 7,321 awards were made between its first presentation on 30 September 1939 and its last bestowal on 17 June 1945. This number is based on the analysis and acceptance of the Order Commission of the Association of Knight's Cross Recipients (AKCR). Presentations were made to members of the three military branches of the Wehrmacht—the Heer (army), Kriegsmarine (Navy) and Luftwaffe —as well as the Waffen-SS, the Reich Labour Service and the Volkssturm. There were also 43 foreign recipients of the award.

Tadeusz Mytnik is a retired Polish cyclist. He had his best achievements in the 100 km team time trial. In this event he won a silver medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics as well as two gold and one bronze medals at the world championships in 1973, 1975 and 1977. Individually, he won the Tour de Pologne in 1975, Tour of Małopolska in 1978, Flèche d'Or in 1981, and Szlakiem Grodów Piastowskich in 1983. In 2010 he was awarded the Order of Polonia Restituta.

Paul Sophus Epstein was a Russian-American mathematical physicist. He was known for his contributions to the development of quantum mechanics, part of a group that included Lorentz, Einstein, Minkowski, Thomson, Rutherford, Sommerfeld, Röntgen, von Laue, Bohr, de Broglie, Ehrenfest and Schwarzschild.

Stanisław Szozda was an elite Polish cyclist. He had his best achievements in the 100 km team time trial. In this event he won two silver medals at the 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics, as well as two gold and two bronze medals at the world championships in 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1977. He was less successful in the individual road race, finishing in 76th and 11th place at the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, respectively, and winning a silver medal at the 1973 UCI Road World Championships.

Bernhard Heisig was a German painter and graphic artist. Long-time director of the Leipzig Academy and a leading figure in East Germany's "Leipzig School," which included Wolfgang Mattheuer and Werner Tübke, he painted in the tradition of Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, and Oskar Kokoschka. His experiences from World War II on both the western and eastern fronts were a recurring subject in his art beginning in the late 1960s, and it is for these works that he is best known in the West. Highly regarded on both sides of the Berlin Wall in the 1980s, he was at the center of controversy after German unification when his painting Time and Life was selected to hang in the German parliament. The painting is a panorama of German history and hangs in the cafeteria on the first floor of the Reichstag building. The controversy was part of the larger German-German Bilderstreit over what role East German art and artists should be allowed to play in the new Germany.