List of Famous people who died in 1944

John Leslie Palmer was an English author. Under his own name, he wrote extensively about early English actors and about British literary figures. He also wrote fiction under the collaborative pseudonyms Francis Beeding, Christopher Haddon, David Pilgrim and John Somers.

Princess Maria Josepha of Saxony was the mother of Emperor Charles I of Austria and the fifth child of George of Saxony and Infanta Maria Anna of Portugal.

Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb was an American author, humorist, editor and columnist from Paducah, Kentucky, who relocated to New York in 1904, living there for the remainder of his life. He wrote for the New York World, Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, as the highest paid staff reporter in the United States.

Erich Koch-Weser was a German lawyer and liberal politician. One of the founders (1918) and later chairman (1924–1930) of the liberal German Democratic Party, he served as Minister of the Interior (1919–1921), Vice Chancellor of Germany (1920) and Minister of Justice (1928–1929).

Eugenio Gestri was an Italian professional road bicycle racer. He was born at Prato, where he also died.

Kurt Gerron was a German Jewish actor and film director.

Carl-Heinrich Rudolf Wilhelm von Stülpnagel was a German general in the Wehrmacht during World War II who was an army level commander. While serving as military commander of German-occupied France and as commander of the 17th Army in the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, under the pressure of the government in Berlin, Stülpnagel became implicated in German war crimes, including authorising reprisal operations against civilian population and cooperating with the Einsatzgruppen in their mass murder of Jews. Increasingly unable to reconcile his military task and his conscience with the regime's ideology, he joined the resistance. He was a member of the 20 July Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, being in charge of the conspirators' actions in France. After the failure of the plot, he was recalled to Berlin and attempted to commit suicide en route, but failed. Tried on 30 August 1944, he was convicted of treason and executed on the same day.

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as the pioneer of abstract art. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa, where he graduated at Grekov Odessa Art school. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in his profession—he was offered a professorship at the University of Dorpat —Kandinsky began painting studies at the age of 30.

Berthold Alfred Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was a German aristocrat and lawyer who was a key conspirator in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944, alongside his younger brother, Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. After the plot failed, Berthold was tried and executed by the Nazi regime.