List of Famous people named Josef

Josef Kohout was an Austrian Nazi concentration camp survivor, imprisoned for his homosexuality. He is best known for the 1972 book Die Männer mit dem rosa Winkel, which was written by his acquaintance Hans Neumann using the pen name Heinz Heger, which is often falsely attributed to Kohout. The book is one of very few first-hand accounts of the treatment of homosexuals in Nazi imprisonment. It has been translated into several languages, and a second edition published in 1994. It was the first testimony from a homosexual survivor of the concentration camps to be translated into English, and is regarded as the best known. Its publication helped to illuminate not just the suffering gay prisoners of the Nazi regime experienced, but the lack of recognition and compensation they received after the war's end.

Josef Blösche was a member of the Nazi Party who served in the SS and SD during World War II. Blösche shot and killed many Jews, and helped send many more Jews to their deaths in extermination camps.

Josef Wirmer was a German jurist and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.

Josef Rusnak is a German screenwriter and director.

Josef von Sternberg was an Austrian-American filmmaker whose career successfully spanned the transition from the silent to the sound era, during which he worked with most of the major Hollywood studios. He is best known for his film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich in the 1930s, including the highly regarded Paramount/UFA production, The Blue Angel (1930).

Josef Kramer was the Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau and of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Dubbed the Beast of Belsen by camp inmates, he was a German Nazi war criminal, directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. He was detained by the British Army after the Second World War, convicted of war crimes and hanged on the gallows in the prison at Hamelin by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint.

Josef Joffe is publisher-editor of Die Zeit, a weekly German newspaper. His second career has been in academia. Appointed Senior Fellow of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in 2007, he is also the Marc and Anita Abramowitz Fellow in International Relations at the Hoover Institution and a courtesy professor of political science at Stanford University. Since 1999, he has been an associate of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University.

Josef Naus (1793–1871) was an officer and surveying technician, known for leading the first ascent of Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze. Variations of his name are Karl Naus or Joseph Naus.

Josef Mašín was an army officer of Czechoslovakia and member of the underground resistance against the Nazis. He was the father of Josef and Ctirad Mašín.

Josef Straßberger was a German weightlifter who competed in two Olympic games in 1928 and 1932. He won the gold medal in the heavyweight division in Amsterdam and the bronze medal in the same division in Los Angeles. He was born in Kolbermoor, Bavaria and died in Munich.