Famous People Born In Karlsruhe

Karl Benz was a German engine designer, automotive engineer, and entrepreneur.  He designed the Benz Patent Motorcar, for which he received a patent in 1886. He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe before venturing into developing motorcars. His Benz Patent Motorcar is widely regarded as the world's first production automobile. 

Hitler’s legal advisor Hans Frank was made the governor-general of Poland after World War II broke out. Known as the Butcher of Poland for his atrocities against the Jews, he was hanged at the end of the Nuremberg Trials. He penned his autobiography while awaiting his execution.

Friedrich Ratzel was a German ethnographer and geographer. He was the first person to use the term Lebensraum, which would later become an important and popular word among the National Socialists. Also an influential writer, Friedrich Ratzel's works served as a justification for imperial expansion. 

Ole Scheeren is a German urbanist and architect. Best known as the chief of the Büro Ole Scheeren Group, Scheeren has received several awards including the Global Urban Habitat Award, International Highrise Award, and Scheffel Medal. Scheeren is also known for his association with the University of Hong Kong, where he has been serving as a visiting professor since 2010.

Nazi leader Eugen Fischer co-wrote Human Hereditary Teaching and Racial Hygiene, which became one of the definitive texts of the Nazi policies. Hitler also made him the rector of the University of Berlin. His memoir diluted his role in the mass extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust.

German chemist Richard Willstätter is best remembered for his Nobel Prize-winning research on chlorophyll and the structures of other plant pigments. He taught at ETH Zürich and the universities of Berlin and Munich but later resigned from his post at Munich as a protest against anti-Jew attacks.

Marie Luise Kaschnitz was a German writer of short stories, essays, and novels. She is counted among the leading post-war German poets. Most of her short stories were inspired by her life experiences. Her stories often dealt with particular stages in a woman's life. She was the recipient of many prizes, including the Georg Büchner Prize. 

Peter Blos is considered a pioneer of child and adolescent psychology. The German-born psychoanalyst earned a degree in education and then a PhD in biology from Vienna. He later moved to the U.S. during the rise of the Nazis. He is also known for his work with psychoanalyst Erik Erikson.

Ellen Auerbach was a photographer best remembered for her work with the ringl+pit studio in Berlin, which she co-founded with Argentine photographer Grete Stern. The studio, which specialized in fashion, advertising, and portrait photography, was one of the first female-run photographic businesses in the world.