List of Famous people who died in 1966

Arthur C. Cope was a highly successful and influential organic chemist and member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is credited with the development of several important chemical reactions which bear his name including the Cope elimination and the Cope rearrangement.

Curt Backeberg was a German horticulturist especially known for the collection and classification of cacti.

Dezső Lauber was a Hungarian all-round sportsman and architect. He was born in Pécs and died in Budapest.

Felix Martin Julius Steiner was a German SS commander during the Nazi era. During World War II, he served in the Waffen-SS, the combat branch of the SS, and commanded several SS divisions and corps. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. Together with Paul Hausser, he contributed significantly to the development and transformation of the Waffen-SS into a combat force made up of volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and un-occupied lands.

Friedrich "Fritz" Karl Otto Wunderlich was a German lyric tenor, famed for his singing of the Mozart repertory and various lieder. He died in an accident aged 35.

Anton Starkop was Estonian sculptor.

Hermann Scherchen was a German conductor.

Wieland Wagner was a German opera director, grandson of Richard Wagner. As co-director of the Bayreuth Festival when it re-opened after World War II, he was noted for innovative new stagings of the operas, departing from the naturalistic scenery and lighting of the originals. His wartime involvement in the development of the V-2 rocket was kept secret for many years.

Erich Pommer was a German-born film producer and executive. Pommer was perhaps the most powerful person in the German and European Film Industries in the 1920s and early 1930s.