List of Famous people who died in 1972

Günter Eich was a German lyricist, dramatist, and author. He was born in Lebus, on the Oder River, and educated in Leipzig, Berlin, and Paris.

Harlow Shapley was an American scientist, head of the Harvard College Observatory (1921–1952), and political activist during the latter New Deal and Fair Deal.

Gustav Schwarzenegger was an Austrian police chief, postal inspector and a military police officer. He was the father of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Claude Buffet was a French criminal who was executed along with his accomplice, Roger Bontems, on 28 November 1972 by guillotine at La Santé Prison, aged 39 years. Both men had been convicted of the murders of Guy Girardot and Nicole Comte in 1971, whom they had taken hostage while Buffet was already serving a life sentence in Clairvaux Prison. Robert Badinter was their defence lawyer.

Thomas Hale Boggs Sr. was an American Democratic politician and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the House majority leader and a member of the Warren Commission.

Alejandra Pizarnik was an Argentine poet. Her idiosyncratic and thematically introspective poetry has been considered "one of the most unusual bodies of work in Latin American literature", and has been recognized and celebrated for its fixation on "the limitation of language, silence, the body, night, the nature of intimacy, madness, [and] death".

Oscar Levant was an American concert pianist, composer, music conductor, author, radio game show panelist, television talk show host, comedian and actor. Though awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for recordings featuring his piano performances, he was as famous for his mordant character and witticisms, on the radio and later in movies and television, as for his music.

Emil Maurice was an early member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party and a founding member of the Schutzstaffel (SS). He was Hitler's first personal chauffeur, succeeded first by Julius Schreck and then Erich Kempka. He was one of the few persons of mixed Jewish and ethnic German ancestry to serve in the SS.

Modesto Llosas Rosell known professionally as Jorge Mistral was a Spanish film actor. During the 1940s, he became a star in films produced by CIFESA. In the 1950s, he lived and worked in México and appeared in Luis Buñuel's Abismos de pasión in 1954. Later, in the 1960s, he directed three films.

Hans Erwin Hagedorn was an East German serial killer who murdered three young boys from 1969 until 1971.