List of Famous people who died in 1945

Otoemon Hiroeda was a Japanese police officer posted to Zhunan, Miaoli in Japanese-era Taiwan. During the Pacific War, he disobeyed orders that he sacrifice the lives of 2000 Taiwanese soldiers under his command in a suicidal attack, and then killed himself. His actions resulted in a spirit tablet for him being enshrined within Quanhua Temple on Lion Head Mountain, Miaoli County, Taiwan.

Roza Georgiyevna Shanina was a Soviet sniper during World War II who was credited with 59 confirmed kills, including twelve soldiers during the Battle of Vilnius. Shanina volunteered for the military after the death of her brother in 1941 and chose to be a sniper on the front line. Praised for her shooting accuracy, Shanina was capable of precisely hitting enemy personnel and making doublets.

Emily Carr was a Canadian artist and writer who was inspired by the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. One of the first painters in Canada to adopt a Modernist and Post-Impressionist style, Carr did not receive widespread recognition for her work until she changed subject matter from Aboriginal themes to landscapes—forest scenes in particular. As a writer Carr was one of the earliest chroniclers of life in British Columbia. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes her as a "Canadian icon".

Emanuel Moravec was a Czech army officer and writer who served as the collaborationist Minister of Education of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia between 1942 and 1945. He was also chair of the Board of Trustees for the Education of Youth, a fascist youth organisation in the protectorate.

Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling was a Norwegian military officer, politician, and Nazi collaborator who nominally headed the government of Norway during the occupation of the country by Nazi Germany during World War II. He first came to international prominence as a close collaborator of explorer Fridtjof Nansen, organizing humanitarian relief during the Russian famine of 1921 in Povolzhye. He was posted as a Norwegian diplomat to the Soviet Union, and for some time also managed British diplomatic affairs there. He returned to Norway in 1929, and served as Minister of Defence in the governments of Peder Kolstad (1931–32) and Jens Hundseid (1932–33), representing the Farmers' Party.

Haroutune Krikor Daghlian Jr. was an American physicist with the Manhattan Project, which designed and produced the atomic bombs that were used in World War II. He accidentally irradiated himself on August 21, 1945, during a critical mass experiment at the remote Omega Site of the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, and died 25 days later from the resulting radiation poisoning.

María Orosa e Ylagan was a Filipina food technologist, pharmaceutical chemist, humanitarian and war heroine. She experimented with foods native to the Philippines, and during World War II developed Soyalac and Darak, which she also helped smuggle into Japanese-run internment camps which helped save the lives of thousands of Filipinos, Americans, and other nationals. She introduced to the public the well-known banana ketchup.

Clara Petacci, known as Claretta Petacci, was a mistress of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. She was killed during Mussolini's execution by Italian partisans, throwing herself on him in a vain attempt to protect him from the bullets.

Irma Ida Ilse Grese was an SS guard at the Nazi concentration camps of Ravensbrück and Auschwitz, and served as warden of the women's section of Bergen-Belsen.

Robert Desnos was a French surrealist poet who played a key role in the Surrealist movement of his day.