List of Famous people who died in 1953

Gaston Rebry was a Belgian former champion road racing cyclist between 1928 and 1935.

Paul Kemp (1896–1953) was a German stage and film actor. Kemp worked as a piano accompaniest for silent films, and then served as an ambulance driver on the Western Front during the First World War. Post-war he moved into acting on the stage in Düsseldorf and Hamburg. His career really took off when he moved to Berlin in 1929, appearing in the hit stage version of the novel Menschen im Hotel by Vicki Baum. He made his film debut in 1930, shortly after the introduction of sound film. He appeared prolifically in German and Austrian films until his death in 1953.

William Tudor Gardiner was an American politician and the 55th Governor of Maine.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Wilfrid Rhodes Freeman, 1st Baronet, was one of the most important influences on the rearmament of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the years up to and including the Second World War.

Ludwig Prandtl was a German fluid dynamicist, physicist and aerospace scientist. He was a pioneer in the development of rigorous systematic mathematical analyses which he used for underlying the science of aerodynamics, which have come to form the basis of the applied science of aeronautical engineering. In the 1920s he developed the mathematical basis for the fundamental principles of subsonic aerodynamics in particular; and in general up to and including transonic velocities. His studies identified the boundary layer, thin-airfoils, and lifting-line theories. The Prandtl number was named after him.

Erich Mendelsohn was a German architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas. Mendelsohn is a pioneer of the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne architecture, notably with his 1921 Mossehaus design.

Friedrich Wolf was a German doctor and politically engaged writer. From 1949 to 1951, he served as East Germany's first ambassador to Poland.