List of Famous people who died in 1945

Prince Rainer Maria Joseph Florian Ignatius Michael Gabriel Raphael Gonzaga of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in German: Rainer Maria Joseph Florian Ignatius Michael Gabriel Raphael Gonzaga, Prinz von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha. Cadet of a reigning German dynasty, Prince Rainer was the head of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry branch of the House of Wettin, heir in the female line of one of the oldest and wealthiest families of the Hungarian nobility. He is believed to have been killed in action at Budapest in 1945.

Vilmos Apor de Altorja was a Hungarian Roman Catholic prelate, born as a baron in the noble Apor Family, and served as a bishop during World War II. He became famous for protesting against the persecution of the Hungarian Jewish population and for his steadfast commitment to the poor. His outreach also extended to abuse victims with a particular emphasis on the protection of women - it would be this latter point that saw him sustain fatal injuries leading to his death. The bishop dedicated himself to being an opponent of both communism and Nazism and used his sermons as a chance to condemn them though coming at a great personal risk to himself. But he was a beloved figure in his diocese where people hailed him as a great saint upon learning of his death which came as a profound shock and loss to the diocese he served during the course of most of the war.

Leonhard Kaupisch was a German general during World War II who served as Supreme Military Commander of occupied Denmark.

Baron Ján Jesenský was a Slovak lower nobleman of the House of Jeszenszky, poet, prose writer, translator, and politician. He was a prominent member of the Slovak national movement.

Jonas Lie was a Norwegian councilor of state in the Nasjonal Samling government of Vidkun Quisling in 1940, then acting councilor of state 1940–1941, and Minister of Police between 1941 and 1945 in the new Quisling government. Lie was the grandson of the novelist Jonas Lie and the son of the writer Erik Lie.

Paul Giesler was a German Nazi Party functionary responsible for acts of brutality which included killing opponents of the regime in southern Germany. He first joined the NSDAP in 1922, and reenrolled on 1 January 1928 with Party number 72,741. From 1941 he was Gauleiter of Westphalia-South (Westfalen-Süd) and in 1942 was appointed Gauleiter of the Gau Munich-Upper Bavaria. From 2 November 1942 to 28 April 1945 he was also the Premier (Ministerpräsident) of Bavaria.

Lord Henry Francis Montagu-Douglas Scott was a Scottish first-class cricketer and British Army officer.

Louis Till was an American soldier. He was the father of Emmett Till, whose murder in August 1955 at the age of 14 galvanized the Civil Rights Movement. A soldier during World War II, Louis Till was executed by the U.S. Army in 1945 after being found guilty of murder and rape. The circumstances of his death were little known even to his family until they were revealed after the trial of his son's murderers ten years later, which affected subsequent discourse on the death of Emmett Till.

Paul Philippe Cret was a French-born Philadelphia architect and industrial designer. For more than thirty years, he taught a design studio in the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.

Malcolm Routh Jameson, commonly known as Malcolm Jameson, was an American science fiction author. An officer in the US Navy, he was active in American pulp magazines during the Golden Age of Science Fiction. His writing career began when complications of throat cancer limited his activity. According to John W. Campbell Jr., Jameson "had much to do with the development of modern [c.1945] naval ordnance."