Johann Adam Weishaupt was a German philosopher, professor of civil law and later canon law, and founder of the Illuminati.
Adolph Franz Friedrich Ludwig Freiherr Knigge was a German writer, Freemason, and a leading member of the Order of the Illuminati.
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi was a German philosopher, writer and socialite. He is best known for popularizing nihilism and promoting it as the prime fault of Enlightenment thought in the philosophical systems of Baruch Spinoza, Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling.
Leonard Nelson, sometimes spelt Leonhard, was a German mathematician, critical philosopher, and socialist. He was part of the neo-Friesian school of neo-Kantianism and a friend of the mathematician David Hilbert. He devised the Grelling–Nelson paradox in 1908 and the related idea of autological words with Kurt Grelling.
Georg August Goldfuß was a German palaeontologist, zoologist and botanist. He became a professor of zoology at the University of Erlangen and later at the University of Bonn. He coined the terms "protozoa" and "pelecypoda".
Karl Ludwig von Haller was a Swiss jurist, statesman and political philosopher. He was the author of Restauration der Staatswissenschaft, a book which gave its namesake to the Restoration period after the Congress of Vienna, and which Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel strongly criticized in §258 of Elements of the Philosophy of Right.
Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Erdmannsdorff was a German architect and architectural theoretician, and one of the most significant representatives of early German Neoclassicism during the Age of Enlightenment. His work included Wörlitz Palace in the present-day Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm, one of the earliest Palladian buildings on the European continent. His most well-known student was Friedrich Gilly, the teacher of Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
Markus Herz was a German Jewish physician and lecturer on philosophy.
Joseph Freiherr von Sonnenfels was an Austrian and German jurist and novelist. He was among the leaders of the Illuminati movement in Austria, and a close friend and patron of Mozart. He is also the dedicatee of Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 15, Op. 28, which was published in 1801.
Christian Garve was one of the best-known philosophers of the late Enlightenment along with Immanuel Kant and Moses Mendelssohn.
August Friedrich Wilhelm Crome was a German economist and statistician, and Professor of Cameralism at the University of Giessen. He is known particularly for his 1782 product map of Europe, which is considered by some as the earliest known printed economic map and thematic map.
Lorenz von Westenrieder was a well-known author and historian in Bavaria and a critic of the Elector Karl Theordor and supporter of Maximilian IV Joseph. There are several memorials to him in Munich.
Dietrich Heinrich Ludwig Freiherr von Ompteda was a Hanoverian jurist and government minister.
Johann Stephan Pütter was a German law lecturer and publicist. He was professor of law at the university of Göttingen from 1746 until his death. He exerted great influence on the law institutions of his time. His principal work is Historische Entwicklung der heutigen Staatsverfassung des Deutschen Reichs.
Frederick V Louis William Christian, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg was from 1751 to his death landgrave of Hesse-Homburg.
Friedrich Gedike was a German theologian, teacher and educational reformer of the late Age of Enlightenment. He was the recipient of the letters that made up the book by C. P. Moritz entitled Journeys of a German in England in 1782.
Friedrich Karl Kasimir von Creutz was a German poet, philosopher, writer and politician. He was born in Bad Homburg, where he also died, and was a councillor and ally of Frederick V, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg.
Christian Friedrich Baz was a German legal scholar, a representative at the Duchy of Württemberg's state convention or 'Landtag' and from 1796 to 1805 mayor of Ludwigsburg. Born in Stuttgart, he supported the Age of Enlightenment and was open to French Revolutionary ideals, backing the individual freedom and rights of Württemberg's citizens. He was one of the landtag's reformers and soon became a radical and an opponent of Grand Duke Frederick. He was arrested twice and spent almost two years imprisoned in the Hohenasperg, Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart and another fortress in Bohemia. He died in 1808 in Waiblingen.
Joachim Perinet was an Austrian actor and dramatist. He is regarded as one of the founders of Alt-Wiener Volkstheater.
Burkhard Wilhelm Pfeiffer was a German jurist and liberal politician. He is best remembered to students of German legal history as the author of Praktische Ausführungen aus allen Teilen der Rechtswissenschaften, Mit Erkenntnissen des Oberappellationsgerichts zu Kassel or "Practical Explanations from all Parts of Jurisprudence, with Findings of the High Court of Appeal in Kassel," and for his years-long rivalry with the Hessian prime minister Ludwig Hassenpflug.
