Who Was Alive
Ernst Thälmann
Agence de presse Meurisse, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Ernst Thälmann

German politician and party leader

Born 16 April 1886 · died 18 August 1944, aged 58

Who was alive at the same time as Ernst Thälmann?

  1. Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910
  2. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910
  3. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844 – 1900
  4. Thomas Edison, 1847 – 1931
  5. Vincent van Gogh, 1853 – 1890
  6. Sigmund Freud, 1856 – 1939
  7. Marie Curie, 1867 – 1934
  8. Mahatma Gandhi, 1869 – 1948
  9. Vladimir Lenin, 1870 – 1924
  10. Winston Churchill, 1874 – 1965
  11. Joseph Stalin, 1878 – 1953
  12. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, c. 1880 – 1938
  13. Albert Einstein, 1879 – 1955
  14. Pablo Picasso, 1881 – 1973
  15. Ernst Thälmann, 1886 – 1944
  16. Charlie Chaplin, 1889 – 1977
  17. Adolf Hitler, 1889 – 1945
  18. Salvador Dalí, 1904 – 1989
  19. Ronald Reagan, 1911 – 2004
  20. John F. Kennedy, 1917 – 1963
  21. Nelson Mandela, 1918 – 2013
  22. Elizabeth II, 1926 – 2022
  23. Martin Luther King Jr., 1929 – 1968
  24. Joe Biden, born 1942

Drag across the timeline, or use the arrow keys, to see who was alive in any year and the age each person reached that year. Dashed lines mark world events. Faded ends mark uncertain dates.

When Ernst Thälmann was born, Albert Einstein was 7, Vladimir Lenin was 15, Mahatma Gandhi was 16, Leo Tolstoy was 57 and Joseph Stalin was 7.

When Ernst Thälmann died, Adolf Hitler was 55, Albert Einstein was 65, Ronald Reagan was 33, Nelson Mandela was 26 and Mahatma Gandhi was 74.

Born during Ernst Thälmann’s lifetime: Adolf Hitler, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela, Joe Biden, Charlie Chaplin, Elizabeth II, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr..

Not quite contemporaries: Donald Trump was born about 2 years after Ernst Thälmann died, Michael Jackson was born about 14 years after Ernst Thälmann died, Vladimir Putin was born about 8 years after Ernst Thälmann died and Karl Marx died about 3 years before Ernst Thälmann was born.

What happened in Ernst Thälmann’s lifetime

Where Ernst Thälmann’s contemporaries were born

Ernst Thälmann is labelled; the others are the best-known people we track who lived at the same time. Each dot is a birthplace from Wikidata (80 of 81 placed); tap one to open that person.
Birthplaces as a list

Compare Ernst Thälmann

The 150 best-known contemporaries

2,562 of the people we track were surely alive at the same time as Ernst Thälmann. The 150 best known are listed here. See also everyone alive in 1915.

  1. Adolf Hitler 1889 – 1945
  2. Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
  3. Ronald Reagan 1911 – 2004
  4. Vladimir Lenin 1870 – 1924
  5. Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013
  6. Mahatma Gandhi 1869 – 1948
  7. Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910
  8. Joseph Stalin 1878 – 1953
  9. Joe Biden born 1942
  10. Vincent van Gogh 1853 – 1890
  11. Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973
  12. Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965
  13. Charlie Chaplin 1889 – 1977
  14. Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 – 1900
  15. Elizabeth II 1926 – 2022
  16. Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
  17. Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
  18. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk c. 1880 – 1938
  19. Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
  20. John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
  21. Marie Curie 1867 – 1934
  22. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 – 1968
  23. Salvador Dalí 1904 – 1989
  24. Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
  25. Franklin D. Roosevelt 1882 – 1945
  26. Franz Kafka 1883 – 1924
  27. Anton Chekhov 1860 – 1904
  28. Marilyn Monroe 1926 – 1962
  29. Pope Francis 1936 – 2025
  30. Mao Zedong 1893 – 1976
  31. Che Guevara 1928 – 1967
  32. Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900
  33. Charles de Gaulle 1890 – 1970
  34. Otto von Bismarck 1815 – 1898
  35. Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
  36. Neil Armstrong 1930 – 2012
  37. Walt Disney 1901 – 1966
  38. Elvis Presley 1935 – 1977
  39. Louis Pasteur 1822 – 1895
  40. George Orwell 1903 – 1950
  41. Pope John Paul II 1920 – 2005
  42. Ernest Hemingway 1899 – 1961
  43. Margaret Thatcher 1925 – 2013
  44. James Joyce 1882 – 1941
  45. Gabriel García Márquez 1927 – 2014
  46. Fidel Castro 1926 – 2016
  47. Yuri Gagarin 1934 – 1968
  48. J. R. R. Tolkien 1892 – 1973
  49. Albert Camus 1913 – 1960
  50. Marlene Dietrich 1901 – 1992
  51. Henry Ford 1863 – 1947
  52. Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 – 2022
  53. Benito Mussolini 1883 – 1945
  54. Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980
  55. Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018
  56. Friedrich Engels 1820 – 1895
  57. Le Corbusier 1887 – 1965
  58. Frida Kahlo 1907 – 1954
  59. Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
  60. Jimmy Carter 1924 – 2024
  61. Pope Benedict XVI 1927 – 2022
  62. Harry S. Truman 1884 – 1972
  63. Agatha Christie 1890 – 1976
  64. George H. W. Bush 1924 – 2018
  65. Sarah Bernhardt 1844 – 1923
  66. Jorge Luis Borges 1899 – 1986
  67. Alfred Nobel 1833 – 1896
  68. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840 – 1893
  69. Theodore Roosevelt 1858 – 1919
  70. Jawaharlal Nehru 1889 – 1964
  71. Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922
  72. Roald Amundsen 1872 – c. 1928
  73. Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890 – 1969
  74. Jules Verne 1828 – 1905
  75. Woodrow Wilson 1856 – 1924
  76. Rosa Luxemburg 1871 – 1919
  77. Alan Turing 1912 – 1954
  78. Richard Nixon 1913 – 1994
  79. Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
  80. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980
  81. Noam Chomsky born 1928
  82. John Maynard Keynes 1883 – 1946
  83. Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986
  84. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950
  85. Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970
  86. Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962
  87. Leon Trotsky 1879 – 1940
  88. John Lennon 1940 – 1980
  89. Bob Dylan born 1941
  90. Muammar Gaddafi 1942 – 2011
  91. Max Planck 1858 – 1947
  92. Arthur Conan Doyle 1859 – 1930
  93. Pelé 1940 – 2022
  94. Muhammad Ali 1942 – 2016
  95. Maxim Gorky 1868 – 1936
  96. Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954
  97. Giuseppe Verdi 1813 – 1901
  98. Dmitri Mendeleev 1834 – 1907
  99. Frank Lloyd Wright 1867 – 1959
  100. Louis Armstrong 1901 – 1971
  101. Andy Warhol 1928 – 1987
  102. Kofi Annan 1938 – 2018
  103. Queen Victoria 1819 – 1901
  104. Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
  105. Akira Kurosawa 1910 – 1998
  106. Lech Wałęsa born 1943
  107. Lyndon B. Johnson 1908 – 1973
  108. Gerald Ford 1913 – 2006
  109. Ernest Rutherford 1871 – 1937
  110. Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951
  111. Indira Gandhi 1917 – 1984
  112. Max Weber 1864 – 1920
  113. Huang Xianfan 1899 – 1982
  114. Henrik Ibsen 1828 – 1906
  115. Enrico Fermi 1901 – 1954
  116. Naguib Mahfouz 1911 – 2006
  117. Saddam Hussein 1937 – 2006
  118. Nikita Khrushchev 1894 – 1971
  119. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944
  120. Anne Frank 1929 – 1945
  121. H. G. Wells 1866 – 1946
  122. Helen Keller 1880 – 1968
  123. 14th Dalai Lama born 1935
  124. Pablo Neruda 1904 – 1973
  125. Émile Zola 1840 – 1902
  126. Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955
  127. Igor Stravinsky 1882 – 1971
  128. Bruce Lee 1940 – 1973
  129. David Hilbert 1862 – 1943
  130. Erwin Schrödinger 1887 – 1961
  131. Silvio Berlusconi 1936 – 2023
  132. Herbert Hoover 1874 – 1964
  133. Hermann Hesse 1877 – 1962
  134. Isaac Asimov c. 1920 – 1992
  135. Ingmar Bergman 1918 – 2007
  136. Federico Fellini 1920 – 1993
  137. Mahathir Mohamad born 1925
  138. Johannes Brahms 1833 – 1897
  139. Anatole France 1844 – 1924
  140. Alexander Graham Bell 1847 – 1922
  141. Octave Mirbeau 1848 – 1917
  142. Calvin Coolidge 1872 – 1933
  143. Boris Yeltsin 1931 – 2007
  144. Ali Khamenei 1939 – 2026
  145. Kim Il Sung 1912 – 1994
  146. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1918 – 2008
  147. Jacques Chirac 1932 – 2019
  148. T. S. Eliot 1888 – 1965
  149. Kwame Nkrumah 1909 – 1972
  150. Stanley Kubrick 1928 – 1999