List of Famous people who died in 1971

Petra Schelm was a German member of the Red Army Faction (RAF) far-left terrorist group. She was killed in a shootout with the police and was the first RAF member to die in a police operation, being shot in Hamburg when caught in a massive cordon and search operation in northern Germany in July, 1971.

Theodora Rasche was Germany's first female aerobatics pilot.

Werner Peters was a German film actor. He appeared in 102 films between 1947 and 1971.

Giorgos or George Seferis, the pen name of Georgios Seferiades, was a Greek poet-diplomat. He was one of the most important Greek poets of the 20th century, and a Nobel laureate. He was a career diplomat in the Greek Foreign Service, culminating in his appointment as Ambassador to the UK, a post which he held from 1957 to 1962.

Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi, popularly known by his pen name Ghanshyam Vyas, was an Indian independence movement activist, politician, writer and educationist from Gujarat state. A lawyer by profession, he later turned to author and politician. He is a well-known name in Gujarati literature. He founded Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, an educational trust, in 1938.

Wilhelm List was a German field marshal during World War II who was convicted of war crimes by a US Army tribunal after the war. List commanded the 14th Army in the invasion of Poland and the 12th Army in the invasions of France, Yugoslavia and Greece. In 1941 he commanded the German forces in Southeast Europe responsible for the occupation of Greece and Yugoslavia. In July 1942 during Case Blue, the German summer offensive in Southern Russia, he was appointed commander of Army Group A, responsible for the main thrust towards the Caucasus and Baku.

Samuel Bronfman, was a Canadian businessman and philanthropist. He founded Distillers Corporation Limited, and is a member of the Canadian Jewish Bronfman family.

Kyūya Fukada was a Japanese writer and mountaineer active during the Shōwa period in Japan.

Gregorio Pietro XV Agagianian was an Armenian Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was the head of the Armenian Catholic Church from 1937 to 1962 and supervised the Catholic Church's missionary work for more than a decade, until his retirement in 1970. He was considered papabile on two occasions.

François Sully (1927-1971) was a French journalist and photographer best known for his work during the Vietnam War. Sully was one of the earliest journalists to cover the Vietnam War and spent 24 years in Indochina. At the time of his death in a command helicopter crash near the Cambodian border, he was viewed as the dean of the Saigon press corps.