1961 deaths

Moshe Smoira (Hebrew: משה זמורה, 25 October 1888 – 8 October 1961) was an Israeli jurist and the first President of the Supreme Court of Israel.

Hans-Friedrich Blunck (3 September 1888 – 24 April 1961) was a German jurist and a writer. In the time of the Third Reich, he occupied various positions in Nazi cultural institutions.

Erich Kamke (18 August 1890 – 28 September 1961) was a German mathematician, who specialized in the theory of differential equations. Also, his book on set theory became a standard introduction to the field.

Friedrich Wilhelm Eckhardt (25 February 1892 – 9 April 1961) was a German engineer and head of the design office for the Berliner Maschinenbau Aktien Gesellschaft vormals L. Schwartzkopff.

Werner Gilles (29 August 1894 – 23 June 1961) was a German artist.
Gilles was born in Rheydt/Rheinland (today Mönchengladbach) He found his artistic calling while at the academies of Kassel and Weimar, studying under Lyonel Feininger of the Bauhaus school. He later moved after 1921 to Ischia, Italy. He moved to Düsseldorf in 1923, but between 1925 and 1930 he also worked in Berlin and Paris and lived in both during the period.
The Nazi regime named him as a degenerate artist from the 1930s, and he had to stop working until after the war. From 1951 he moved to München in the winter, and Ischia in the summer. He died in Essen in 1961.

George Walther Sr. (August 13, 1876 – April 10, 1961) was an American inventor, engineer, businessman, civic leader and the holder of over 100 patents for truck wheels, brake drums, fifth wheels, and landing gear/legs for the trucking industry. He was the founder of the Dayton Steel Foundry.
Walther developed the first practical cast steel wheel for solid rubber tires. This was a basic but critical contribution to the evolution of the early trucking industry and the U.S. Army trucks in World War I.
Walther followed the design of the cast steel wheel for solid rubber tires with the design of a cast steel wheel for pneumatic tires and then the design of an improved brake drum. When semi-trailer trucks were developed, he designed improved versions of the fifth wheel and landing legs for semi-trailer trucks. Walther's engineering skills resulted in patents for many developments of truck wheels, brake drums, fifth wheels, and landing legs that have helped to expand the role of trucks in the transportation industry.

Max Hansen (22 December 1897 – 12 November 1961), also known as 'The Little Caruso', was a Danish singer, cabaret artist, actor, and comedian.

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.

Jacoba Johanna (Coba) Ritsema (26 June 1876, Haarlem – 13 December 1961, Amsterdam), was a portrait painter from the Netherlands.

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.