List of Famous people named Karl

Karl Johann Freudenberg was a German chemist who did early seminal work on the absolute configurations to carbohydrates, terpenes, and steroids, and on the structure of cellulose and other polysaccharides, and on the nature, structure, and biosynthesis of lignin. The Research Institute for the Chemistry of Wood and Polysaccharides at the University of Heidelberg was created for him in the mid to late 1930s, and he led this until 1969.

Karl Taylor Compton was a prominent American physicist and president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1930 to 1948.

Karl Maria Prosper Laurenz Brandi was a German historian.

Karl Paryla (1905–1996) was an Austrian theater actor and director, and later a film maker as well. A lifelong, dedicated communist, his career in the Austrian theater was first interrupted by the Second World War, and then strained by Cold War politics. In the 1950s he began working in East Germany, where he performed as an actor and directed plays and films. An actor trained in the school of Constantin Stanislavski, he is praised for the realism he brought to his performances especially in Johann Nestroy's plays and for his ability to organize large ensembles dynamically on the stage. He is remembered also for his work ethic and his fervent belief in the emancipatory power of the theater.

Karl Diller is a German politician. Born in Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate, he represents the SPD. Karl Diller has served as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Rhineland-Palatinate from 1987 till 2009.