Margarethe Arndt-Ober (b. Berlin, April 15, 1885–d. Bad Sachsa, March 17, 1971) was a German opera singer who had an active international career during the first half of the twentieth century. A highly skilled contralto, Ober enjoyed a particularly long and fruitful association with the Berlin State Opera from 1907 to 1944. She also was notably a principal singer at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City between 1913 and 1917.
Erwin Finlay-Freundlich (German: [ˈfʀɔɪntlɪç]; 29 May 1885 – 24 July 1964) was a German astronomer, a pupil of Felix Klein. Freundlich was a working associate of Albert Einstein and introduced experiments for which the general theory of relativity could be tested by astronomical observations based on the gravitational redshift.
Ludwig Karl Hilberseimer (September 14, 1885 – May 6, 1967) was a German architect and urban planner best known for his ties to the Bauhaus and to Mies van der Rohe, as well as for his work in urban planning at Armour Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of Technology), in Chicago, Illinois.
Harry Benjamin (January 12, 1885 – August 24, 1986) was a German-American endocrinologist and sexologist, widely known for his clinical work with transgender people.
Martin Wagner (1885–1957) was a German architect, city planner, and author, best known as the driving force behind the construction of modernist housing projects in interwar Berlin.
Rudolf Olden (January 14, 1885 in Stettin – September 18, 1940) was a German lawyer and journalist. In the Weimar period he was a well-known voice in the political debate, a vocal opponent of the Nazis, a fierce advocate of human rights and one of the first to alert the world to the treatment of Jews by the Nazis in 1934. He is the author of Hitler der Eroberer. Entlarvung einer Legende ("Hitler the Conqueror, Debunking of a Myth") which is considered part of the German exile literature. The book was promptly banned by the Nazis. Shortly after its publication by Querido in Amsterdam, Olden's citizenship was revoked and he emigrated, together with his wife, first to the United Kingdom and then, in 1940, to the United States. On September 18 both died in the U-boat attack on the SS City of Benares in the Atlantic.
He was a German Liberal of the best sort, rather more pugnacious than the average British Liberal, because he had more to fight against.
Kurt Hiller (17 August 1885, Berlin – 1 October 1972, Hamburg) was a German essayist, lawyer, and expressionist poet. He was also a political (namely pacifist) journalist.
Jorge Cuevas Bartholín, known as George de Cuevas (1885 – 22 February 1961), was a Chilean-born ballet impresario and choreographer who was best known for the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas that he formed in 1944.
Mario Sironi (May 12, 1885 – August 13, 1961) was an Italian Modernist artist who was active as a painter, sculptor, illustrator, and designer. His typically somber paintings are characterized by massive, immobile forms.
Clemente Rebora (6 January 1885 – 1 November 1957) was a poet from Milan, Italy. He received a degree in Italian literature in Milan. In the early 1900s he worked for the magazines La Voce, Rivista d’Italia and La Riviera Ligure.His book Frammenti Lirici (Italian: Lyrical Fragments) was published in 1913. From 1913 to 1922, he wrote anonymous "Songs" and lyrics. After World War I Rebora began to work as a teacher.Previously an atheist, he had a spiritual crisis in 1928 and became a devout Catholic. In 1930, he entered a seminary; in 1936, he became a Rosminian priest. After this, his work became religious in orientation, but his work is popular beyond Catholic circles for its treatment of metaphysics and physics. He is somewhat controversial for his friendship with Julius Evola, but the friendship seems to have been largely based on his hope Julius would convert to Christianity. When this hope grew dim the friendship declined.