List of Famous people named Erich

Name Erich is among the most common names in Germany, Austria, Switzerland. Similar names: Erik, Erika, Erick, Eriko, Eirik, Erykah, Ereck, Eryk. Here are some famous Erichs:

Erich Topp

First Name Erich
Last Name Topp
Died on December 26, 2005 (aged 35)

Erich Topp was the third most successful of German U-Boat commanders of World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords of Nazi Germany. He sank 35 ships for a total of 197,460 gross register tons (GRT). After the war he served with the Federal German Navy, reaching the rank of Konteradmiral. He later served in NATO.

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Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski

First Name Erich
Last Name Bach-Zelewski
Born on March 1, 1899
Died on March 8, 1972 (aged 73)

Erich Julius Eberhard von dem Bach-Zelewski was a high-ranking SS commander of Nazi Germany. During World War II, he was in charge of the Nazi security warfare against those designated by the regime as ideological enemies and any other persons deemed to present danger to the Nazi rule or Wehrmacht's rear security in the occupied territories of Eastern Europe. It mostly involved atrocities against the civilian population. In 1944 he led the brutal suppression of the Warsaw Uprising. At the end of 1941 the forces under von dem Bach numbered 14,953 Germans, mostly officers and unteroffiziere, and 238,105 local “volunteers”

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Erich Padalewski

First Name Erich
Last Name Padalewski
Born on April 8, 1930
Died on February 24, 2018 (aged 87)
Born in Austria

Erich Padalewski (1930–2018) was an Austrian stage, film and television actor.

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Erich Lessing

First Name Erich
Last Name Lessing
Born on July 13, 1923
Died on August 29, 2018 (aged 95)
Born in Austria

Erich Lessing was an Austrian photographer. Lessing became a full member of Magnum Photos in 1955 and was a contributor since 1979. His portraits of poets, musicians, physicists and astronomers were published in around 60 books.

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Erich von Drygalski

Erich Dagobert von Drygalski
First Name Erich
Last Name Drygalski
Born on February 9, 1865
Died on January 10, 1949 (aged 83)

Erich Dagobert von Drygalski was a German geographer, geophysicist and polar scientist, born in Königsberg, then under the Province of Prussia.

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Erich Fried

First Name Erich
Last Name Fried
Born on May 6, 1921
Died on November 22, 1988 (aged 67)
Born in Austria

Erich Fried was an Austrian-born poet, writer and translator. He initially became known to a broader public in both Germany and Austria for his political poetry, and later for his love poems. As a writer he mostly wrote plays and short novels. He also translated works by different English writers from English into German, most notably works by William Shakespeare.

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Erich Iltgen

First Name Erich
Last Name Iltgen
Born on July 10, 1940
Died on June 9, 2019 (aged 78)

Erich Iltgen was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union. From 1990 to 2009, he was president of the Saxony state parliament, the Landtag of Saxony.

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Erich Knauf

First Name Erich
Last Name Knauf
Born on February 21, 1895
Died on May 2, 1944 (aged 49)
Born in Germany, Saxony

Erich Knauf was a German journalist, writer, and songwriter. He was executed for making jokes about the Nazi regime.

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Erich Mühsam

Erich Kurt Mühsam
First Name Erich
Last Name Mühsam
Died on July 10, 1934
Born in Germany

Erich Mühsam was a German-Jewish antimilitarist anarchist essayist, poet and playwright. He emerged at the end of World War I as one of the leading agitators for a federated Bavarian Soviet Republic, for which he served 5 years in prison.

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Erich Priebke

First Name Erich
Last Name Priebke
Born on July 29, 1913
Died on October 11, 2013 (aged 100)
Born in Germany, Brandenburg

Erich Priebke was a German mid-level SS commander in the SS police force (SiPo) of Nazi Germany. In 1996, he was convicted of war crimes in Italy, for commanding the unit which was responsible for the Ardeatine massacre in Rome on 24 March 1944 in which 335 Italian civilians were killed in retaliation for a partisan attack that killed 33 men of the German SS Police Regiment Bozen. Priebke was one of the men held responsible for this mass execution. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, he fled to Argentina where he lived for almost 50 years.

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