List of Famous people who died in 1945

Richard Ira Bong was a United States Army Air Forces major and Medal of Honor recipient in World War II. He was one of the most decorated American fighter pilots and the country's top flying ace in the war, credited with shooting down 40 Japanese aircraft, all with the Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter. He died in California while testing a Lockheed P-80 jet fighter shortly before the war ended.

Oskar Paul Dirlewanger was a German military officer (SS-Oberführer) and war criminal who served as the founder and commander of the Nazi SS penal unit "Dirlewanger" during World War II. Serving in Poland and in Belarus, his name is closely linked to some of the most notorious crimes of the war. He also fought in World War I, the post-World War I conflicts, and the Spanish Civil War. He reportedly died after World War II while in Allied custody. According to Timothy Snyder, "in all the theaters of the Second World War, few could compete in cruelty with Dirlewanger".

Hans Paul Oster was a general in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany and a leading figure of the German resistance from 1938 to 1943. As deputy head of the counter-espionage bureau in the Abwehr, Oster was in a good position to conduct resistance operations under the guise of intelligence work.

Eduard Bloch was a medical professional practicing in Linz (Austria). Until 1907, Bloch was the physician of Adolf Hitler's family. Because Bloch was an Austrian Jew, Hitler later awarded Bloch special protection after the Nazi annexation of Austria.

Milton Snavely Hershey was an American chocolatier, businessman, and philanthropist.

Kurt Knispel was a German tank commander during World War II, notable for claiming 168 tanks destroyed, making him, if the claims can be evidenced, the most successful fighter in armored warfare.

Jannetje Johanna (Jo) Schaft was a Dutch communist resistance fighter during World War II. She became known as 'the girl with the red hair'. Her secret name in the resistance movement was "Hannie".

William Phelps Eno was an American businessman responsible for many of the earliest innovations in road safety and traffic control. He is sometimes known as the "Father of traffic safety", despite never having learned to drive a car himself.

Hans Fischer was a German organic chemist and the recipient of the 1930 Nobel Prize for Chemistry "for his researches into the constitution of haemin and chlorophyll and especially for his synthesis of haemin."

Else Lasker-Schüler was a German-Jewish poet and playwright famous for her bohemian lifestyle in Berlin and her unique poetic genius. She was one of the few women affiliated with the Expressionist movement. Lasker-Schüler fled Nazi Germany and lived out the rest of her life in Jerusalem.