Johann Joseph Couven (1701 – 1763)
German architect and baroque builder born and died in Aachen; Besides Aachen, his main places of activity were Liège and Maastricht; Even today one speaks of many buildings in Aachen as the “Couven style” or the “Aachen Baroque”. According to neovideogames, Aachen is a city located in Germany bordering with Belgium and the Netherlands.
Josef (Jupp) Derwall (1923 – 2007)
football player and coach. Derwall was born on March 10, 1927 in Würselen in the Aachen district. From 1978 he was the national coach of the German national soccer team, succeeding Helmut Schön. His greatest successes were the 1980 European championship in Italy and winning the 1982 runner-up world championship in Spain. After the elimination in the preliminary round of the European Football Championship in 1984 and the resulting violent attacks from the press, he resigned in 1984; his successor was Franz Beckenbauer. After that, Derwall was the coach of the Turkish team Galatasaray Istanbul from 1984 to 1988.
Marie Luise Dustmann-Meyer (1831 – 1899)
German opera singer and soprano born in Aachen.
Hermann Wilhelm Göring (1893 – 1946)
Leading politician during the Nazi era and Commander-in-Chief of the German Air Force in World War II; Sentenced to death as a war criminal in the Nuremberg Trials. He evaded execution by suicide. In 1933 he received the title of honorary citizen of the city of Aachen; this was withdrawn from him in 1983.
Karl Otto Götz (1914 – 2017)
Born in Aachen and known as “KO Götz”, a painter who is one of the most important artists of German Informel.
He died on August 19, 2017 in Wolfenacker in Rhineland-Palatinate.
Gottfried Hinze (1873-1953)
Born in Aachen, 1st chairman of the German Football Association (1905-1925).
Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke (1800 – 1891)
Prussian Field Marshal and Chief of the General Staff; fought as one of the most influential people in the German-Danish war, in the Prussian-Austrian war and in the Franco-German war; In 1890 he received the title of honorary citizen of the city of Aachen.
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff and von Hindenburg (1847-1934)
German Field Marshal General and second Reich President of the Weimar Republic; he appointed Hitler Chancellor on January 30, 1933; In 1930 he received the title of honorary citizen of the city of Aachen.
Fredy Hirsch (1916-1944)
Fredy Hirsch (born Alfred Hirsch) was born on February 11, 1916 as the son of the Jewish grocer Heinrich Hirsch and his wife Olga (born Heinemann).
He spent his childhood and youth in Aachen, where he successfully graduated from secondary school in 1931.
After moving to Düsseldorf in 1933, he headed the Jewish Boy Scout Association there until 1934. Because of the Nazis, he emigrated to Czechoslovakia in 1935.
After the Nazi march, over 300 Jewish men and later another 1,000 were deported to Theresienstadt on November 24, 1941, to take part in the expansion of the ghetto.
As part of the Jewish self-government in Theresienstadt, which was monitored by the SS, Hirsch looked after the Jewish children and young people imprisoned here by organizing sports and cultural events, among other things.
From here he and the young people and children were deported to Auschwitz on September 6, 1943.
In the children’s block there, he achieved some relief for the children and young people.
He committed suicide on March 8, 1944, shortly before the first of his wards were to be picked up for gassing. At least 38 of them survived the extermination camp.
Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945)
From 1921 party leader of the NSDAP, from 1933 Reich Chancellor and from 1934 as “Führer” the head of government and the head of state of the German Reich; in 1933 he received the title of honorary citizen of the city of Aachen.
He is responsible for the beginning of World War II and the murder of 6 million Jews, 500,000 Sinti and Romas as well as political opponents and homosexuals.
Karl I, the Great (748 – 814)
His name has merged with the city of Aachen like no other in the world. Probably the most famous Carolingian and grandson of Karl Martell (who was able to repel the Moors at Poitiers and Tours in 732) became King of the Franks in Noyon in France in 768 and Pope Leo III in 800 .(died 816) crowned Roman emperor in Rome. His grave can still be visited today in the Aachen Cathedral; he was buried in the forecourt of the Palatine Chapel. From 789, Karl had a magnificent palace and a palace chapel built in Aachen. Remnants of these structures are now parts of the town hall and Aachen cathedral. Aachen can sometimes be described as Karl’s residence city, as he spent a large part of the last two decades of his life here. Later, at the instigation of Emperor Friedrich I. “Barbarossa”(1122-1190) in 1165 by the Archbishop of Cologne, with the approval of the then antipope Paschalis III. (died 1168) to be canonized. This canonization by the antipope was made by Pope Alexander III. (approx. 1100 – 1181) but not accepted. But the Curia never objected to this canonization afterwards. On the contrary: Since 1176, the veneration of Charles as a saint has been tolerated by the Catholic Church.
Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989)
musician and conductor. Karajan was general music director in Aachen from 1934 to 1942. He gave his last concert there on April 22nd, 1942. Because of his alleged closeness to the Nazi regime, Karajan is still not well respected by the Aachen officials.
Charles V (1500 – 1558)
Charles came from the Habsburg dynasty. From 1516 he was King of Spain as Charles I. In 1519 he became Roman-German King and, after his coronation in 1520 in the Imperial Cathedral of Aachen, he was elected “Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire”.
In 1530 he was crowned emperor by the Pope in Rome, making him the last Roman-German emperor.
Thanks to the conquest of America, he ruled over an empire “in which the sun never set”. As one of the few rulers he resigned from all his offices – on August 23, 1556 he renounced the Spanish throne in favor of his son Philip II his brother Ferdinand I. He died on 21. – one of the 17 Spanish autonomous communities today.
Lothar I (795 – 855)
Frankish King and Emperor; was the last Carolingian resident in Aachen.
Ludwig I “the Pious” (778 – 840)
King of the Franconian Empire and Emperor; Son of Charlemagne; he had been crowned co-emperor of Charles in Aachen in 813; preferred to stay in Aachen.
Napoléon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821)
French statesman and general; General of the French Revolutionary Army, 1799-1804 First Consul of the French Republic, 1804-1814 and 1815 Emperor of the French; 1805 King of Italy and 1806 – 1813 Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine; Aachen was a favorite place of residence of the French emperor; he also distinguished himself as a patron of the city; In 1811 his son was baptized in Aachen.
Otto I. (912-973)
Liudolfinger; from 962 emperor of the Roman Empire; had the Carolingian tradition revived and crowned himself king of Germany in Aachen in 936; following his example, 30 further coronations were made in Aachen by 1531.
Otto III. (980 – 1002)
From the family of the Ottonians; 996 to 1002 Holy Roman Emperor; wanted to develop Aachen into a second Rome; like Charlemagne, he is buried in Aachen Cathedral.
Otto Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von der Wenge Graf Lambsdorff (born 1926)
German politician born in Aachen; 1977 – 1982 and 1982 – 1984 Federal Minister for Economic Affairs; 1988 – 1993 federal chairman of the FDP.
Pippin III “the short one” (714 – 768)
Franconian house maid and later King of the Franks from 751 to 768; son of Karl Martell and father of Charlemagne; spent Christmas and Easter in Aachen in 765.
Ursula Schmidt (born 1949)
German politician (SPD) who was born in Aachen. She was Federal Minister of Health from January 2001 to October 2009 and Vice President of the German Bundestag from 2013 to 2017.
Gerhard Graf von Schwerin (1899-1980)
General of the armored forces. For decades he was considered to be the savior of Aachen. But recent research has shown that he neither negotiated secretly with the Allies nor acted against Hitler’s orders. In 1963 a street was named after him in his honor. But after a decision by the city council on August 22, 2007, the street was renamed Kornelimünsterweg. According to a report by the Berliner Tagesspiegel on April 4, 2008, he had two children executed for looting in September.
Johann Friedrich Thyssen (1804 – 1877)
entrepreneur born in Aachen; he was the father of August Thyssen
