Johann Sebastian Bach was a German musician and one of the greatest composers in the history of art and music. Sebastian came from a family of musicians, so he became fond of music from a very young age. He studied works of the Baroque period and those of prior generations, which he used as inspiration in his own works. He was a genius at counterpoint, which means lines of melodies that wind together, creating melody and harmony at the same time. Some of his most famous works are the “Brandenburg Concertos”, “The Well-Tempered Clavier” and “The Mass in B Minor”. Throughout his career, he created more than 1,100 works, including 300 sacred cantatas. Sebastian Bach is considered the father of classical music.

Wilhelm Richard Wagner is one of the most popular German composers and a revolutionary figure in the history of music. His career began as a choral director and his biggest inspiration and idol was Beethoven. He was the one, who changed the orientation of the opera, through encouraging new types of singers and expanding the orchestral resources. Wagner was different from most opera composers, as he would write both the text and the music for each of his works. One of the things that makes his music so unique is the use of leitmotifs, the recurrent musical melodies, associated with a particular object, character, or idea. Some of his most famous works are “The Flying Dutchman” and “The Ring of the Nibelung”.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential poet in the German language. He was a mastermind and a polymath; a writer, playwright, novelist, critic, theatre director and statesman. Goethe is perhaps best known for “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, the first novel of the Sturm und Drang movement and for “Faust”, a play that depicts the struggle between good and evil, and questions what brings ultimate human fulfilment. “Faust” is considered as Germany’s greatest contribution to the world of literature. Goethe had a massive impact on Romanticism and Expressionism, while making important contributions to philosophical and naturalist schools of thought. He remains one of the most influential figures in modern era literature.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a famous German philosopher. He studied theology and classical philology at the University of Bonn. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. Nietzsche became well-known for his writing about cultural criticism, fiction, poetry, irony, philosophical polemics and aphorism. He claimed that “the human must create his own identity through self-realization and do so without relying on anything transcending-such as God or a soul”. One of his most famous pieces of work is “Thus Spake Zarathustra”, a treatise, in which he made his famous statement that “God is dead” and shared some of the most influential ideas of his philosophy. One of his most famous quotes is “What does not kill me, makes me stronger”. Don’t you agree?

Immanuel Kant was a German Philosopher and one of the major figures of the Enlightenment. Deeply religious, he lived a very routine-oriented life and, according to the myths, his neighbors would set their clocks by his daily walks. His works in epistemology, ethics, metaphysics and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential individuals in modern Western philosophy. One of Kant's greatest contributions to philosophy was his moral theory, which judges actions according to whether they adhere to a valid rule rather than the outcome of the action. His most famous work is the “Critique of Pure Reason”, a book in which he seeks to determine the limits and scope of metaphysics. According to Kant, the rules for happiness are: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for!

Karl Heinrich Marx was the first theorist of global capitalism. Born in Trier, Germany, he studied humanities, law and philosophy at the Universities of Bonn & Berlin. Part economist, sociologist, and philosopher, he created a set of political and economic ideas (collectively understood as “Marxism”), describing the development of human societies through class conflict. Marx wanted to encourage a system, which promoted a classless society, and his theories have been mainly analyzed in his two best-known titles: in the “Communist Manifesto”, which was co-written by Marx and his lifelong collaborator, Friedrich Engels, and in “Das Kapital”, a four-volume theoretical text. Until today, Marx’s writings remain relevant and his thoughts have had massive influence on worldwide socioeconomics.

Born in Germany, Beethoven’s musical talent was obvious at an early age. He eventually earned a reputation both as a musician and a composer. At the age of 28, he noticed difficulties with his hearing and by the time he was 45, he became totally deaf. In his career, he produced 722 works, including 9 symphonies, 35 piano sonatas and 16 string quartets. Beethoven is one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire and span the transition from the Classical period to the Romantic era. His greatest achievement was that he managed to raise instrumental music to the highest level of art, similarly to literature and painting.

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany. At a very young age, he excelled at math & physics, reaching mathematical levels years ahead of his peers. His passion for geometry and algebra convinced him that nature could be understood as a "mathematical structure". Einstein is best known for developing the theory of relativity which revolutionized our understanding of space, time, gravity, and the universe, but he also made valuable contributions to the development of the theory of quantum mechanics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 and honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many universities. Today, he is considered one of the greatest and most influential scientists of all time.