Unsere Besten - The Greatest Germans

The Greatest Germans

The intention initially was to find out "Who are the greatest Germans?" (Wer sind die größten Deutschen?), with more rankings to follow later. The German public was allowed to vote (via postcard, SMS or Internet) for the most important Germans—historical or contemporary—from a list of more than 300 people, plus additional suggestions.

This pre-determined list of candidates was created for two reasons:

• to exclude controversial figures from certain eras of German history, like Adolf Hitler and Erich Honecker.
• to decide beforehand who was to be considered as "German" in the first place, due to the complications of German history and its changing frontiers, which could have excluded such people as Mozart and Romy Schneider (Austria) or Albert Schweitzer (France).

However, the inclusion of Nikolaus Kopernikus, who spoke and wrote German, in the list of scientists caused controversy in Poland where he is revered as a national hero — the Polish Senate declared him an "exceptional Pole" on 12 June 2003. Similarly the inclusion of Mozart and Freud was criticized in Austria.

For the final Top Ten, an additional round was held, in which each candidate was promoted by an "ambassador" (most of them journalists) that would explain the work and importance of his/her favourite.

• Guido Knopp for Konrad Adenauer
• Margot Käßmann for Martin Luther
• Gregor Gysi for Karl Marx
• Alice Schwarzer for die Geschwister Scholl, Sophie and Hans Scholl
• Friedrich Nowottny for Willy Brandt
• Götz Alsmann for Johann Sebastian Bach
• Peter Sodann for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Wolf von Lojewski for Johannes Gutenberg
• Helmut Markwort for Otto von Bismarck
• Nina Ruge for Albert Einstein

There was controversy over the televoting because of the high call charges associated with the programme.

The final list appeared as shown below (in descending order). Several rather unknown figures ranked relatively high, no doubt because of temporary popularity and organized votes from fan groups (15.), or in case of 125., just an entry by organized Internet forum members to honour one of their members.