German inventions and discoveries are ideas, objects, processes or techniques invented, innovated or discovered, partially or entirely, by Germans. Often, things discovered for the first time are also called inventions and in many cases, there is no clear line between the two.

Germany has been the home of many famous inventors, discoverers and engineers. Ottomar Anschütz and the Skladanowsky brothers were early pioneers of film technology, while Paul Nipkow and Karl Ferdinand Braun laid the foundation of television with their Nipkow disk and cathode ray tube respectively. Hans Geiger was the creator of the Geiger counter, while Carl von Linde developed the modern refrigerator. Konrad Zuse built the first fully automatic digital computer (Z3) and the first commercial computer (Z4). German inventors, engineers and industrialists as Ferdinand von Zeppelin, Otto Lilienthal, Karl Drais, Werner von Siemens, Hans von Ohain, Henrich Focke, Gottlieb Daimler, Rudolf Diesel, Hugo Junkers and Karl Benz helped shape transportation technology; Drais invented the bicycle, Benz created the first practical car, and Lilienthal has been hailed as the "father of aviation". Aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun developed the first space rocket and later became a prominent member of NASA, developing the Saturn V Moon rocket. Heinrich Hertz's work in the domain of electromagnetic radiation was pivotal to the development of modern telecommunication. Karl Ferdinand Braun invented the phased array antenna in 1905, which led to the development of radar, smart antennas and MIMO, sharing the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Guglielmo Marconi "for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy". Philipp Reis constructed the first device to transmit a voice via electronic signals and for that the first modern telephone, while also coining the term.

Georgius Agricola gave chemistry its modern name. He is generally referred to as the father of mineralogy and as the founder of geology as a scientific discipline, while Justus von Liebig is considered one of the principal founders of organic chemistry. Otto Hahn is the father of radiochemistry and discovered nuclear fission, the scientific and technological basis for the utilization of atomic energy. Emil Behring, Ferdinand Cohn, Paul Ehrlich, Robert Koch, Friedrich Loeffler and Rudolph Virchow were among the key figures in the creation of modern medicine, while Koch and Cohn were also founders of microbiology.

Johannes Kepler was one of the founders and fathers of modern astronomy, the scientific method, natural and modern science. Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays. Albert Einstein introduced the special relativity and general relativity theories for light and gravity in 1905 and 1915 respectively. Along with Max Planck, he was instrumental in the creation of modern physics with the introduction of quantum mechanics, in which Werner Heisenberg and Max Born later made major contributions. Einstein, Planck, Heisenberg and Born all received a Nobel Prize for their scientific contributions; from the award's inauguration in 1901 until 1956, Germany led the total Nobel Prize count. Today the country is ranked third with 115 winners.

The movable-type printing press was invented by German blacksmith Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. In 1997, Time Life magazine picked Gutenberg's invention as the most important of the second millennium. In 1998, the A&E Network ranked Gutenberg as the most influential person of the second millennium on their "Biographies of the Millennium" countdown.

The following is a list of inventions, innovations or discoveries known or generally recognised to be German.

Anatomy

17th century: First description of duct of Wirsung by Johann Georg Wirsung 1720: Discovery of the ampulla of Vater by Abraham Vater 1745: First description of crypts of Lieberkühn by Johann Nathanael Lieberkühn 19th century: First description of Auerbach's plexus by Leopold Auerbach 19th century: First description of Meissner's plexus by Georg Meissner 19th century: Discovery of Schwann cells in the peripheral nervous system by Theodor Schwann 1836: Discovery and study of pepsin by Theodor Schwann 1840: First medical report on poliomyelitis (Heine-Medin disease), and the first to recognize the illness as a clinical entity, by Jakob Heine 1852: First description of tactile corpuscle by Georg Meissner and Rudolf Wagner 1868: Discovery of Langerhans cell by Paul Langerhans 1869: Discovery of islets of Langerhans by Paul Langerhans 1875: First description of Merkel cell by Friedrich Sigmund Merkel 1882: First successful cholecystectomy by Carl Langenbuch in Berlin 1906: Discovery of the Alzheimer's disease by Alois Alzheimer 1909: First description of Brodmann area by Korbinian Brodmann 1977: Plastination by Gunther von Hagens

Animals

1907: Modern zoo (Tierpark Hagenbeck) by Carl Hagenbeck in Hamburg 1916: Guide dog; the world's first training school, established by Dr. Gerhard Stalling in Oldenburg

Archaeology and paleontology

Early 18th century: Founding of modern archaeology by Johann Joachim Winckelmann 1825: Rhamphorhynchus by Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring 1834: Plateosaurus by Johann Friedrich Engelhardt near Nuremberg, described in 1837 by Hermann von Meyer 1856: Neanderthal 1 near Düsseldorf 1856–1857: First description of the Neanderthal by Johann Carl Fuhlrott and Hermann Schaaffhausen 1860: Teratosaurus by Sixt Friedrich Jakob von Kapff near Stuttgart, described in 1861 by Hermann von Meyer 1861: Archaeopteryx by Hermann von Meyer near Solnhofen "Aus dem lithographischen Schiefer der Brüche von Solenhofen in Bayern ist mir in den beiden Gegenplatten eine auf der Ablösungs- oder Spaltungs-Fläche des Gesteins liegende Versteinerung mitgetheilt worden, die mit grosser Deutlichkeit eine Feder erkennen lässt, welche von den Vogel-Federn nicht zu unterscheiden ist." (From the lithographic slates of the faults of Solenhofen in Bavaria, there has been reported to me a fossil lying on the stone's surface of detachment or cleavage, in both opposing slabs, which can be recognized with great clarity [to be] a feather, which is indistinguishable from a bird's feather.) 1868–1879: Troy by Heinrich Schliemann 1878–1886: Pergamon Altar, excavated by Carl Humann 1899–1917: Babylon excavations, including the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way, led by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey c. 1900: Gordium by Alfred and Gustav Körte 1906–1913: Hattusa by Hugo Winckler 1908: Homo heidelbergensis by Daniel Hartmann and Otto Schoetensack near Heidelberg 1909–1913: Tendaguru dinosaur fossils, excavated by the German Tendaguru Expedition led by Werner Janensch 1912: The Nefertiti Bust by Ludwig Borchardt 1913: Procompsognathus described by Eberhard Fraas. 1914: Giraffatitan brancai described by Werner Janensch 1914: Dicraeosaurus described by Werner Janensch 1915: Kentrosaurus described by Edwin Hennig 1915: Description of Spinosaurus, the largest known theropod, by Ernst Stromer 1920: Elaphrosaurus bambergi described by Werner Janensch 1925: Stomatosuchus by Ernst Stromer 1931: Description of Carcharodontosaurus by Ernst Stromer 1932: Aegyptosaurus by Ernst Stromer 1934: Liliensternus, originally described by Friedrich von Huene as Halticosaurus liliensterni 1934: Bahariasaurus by Ernst Stromer 1991: Ötzi by Helmut and Erika Simon from Nuremberg 1995: Göbekli Tepe, excavated by a German-Turkish team led by Klaus Schmidt

Arts

40.000 BC: The oldest confirmed sculptures in the world, the 41,000 to 39,000-year-old Lion-man and the 42,000 to 41,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels 15th century: Drypoint by the Housebook Master, a south German artist 1525: Ray tracing by Albrecht Dürer 1642: Mezzotint by Ludwig von Siegen 1708: Meissen porcelain, the first European hard-paste porcelain, by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus in MeissenThe Discovery of European Porcelain Technology by C.M. Queiroz & S. Agathopoulos, 2005. 1810: Theory of Colours by Johann Wolfgang Goethe 1864: Wothlytype uranium-based photographic printing process Early 1900s: The modernist movement Expressionism 1919: Bauhaus by Walter Gropius

Astronomy

1450–1550: Copernican heliocentrism, developed by Regiomontanus and Nicolaus Copernicus 1609–1619: Kepler's laws of planetary motion by Johannes Kepler 1781: Discovery of Uranus, with two of its major moons (Titania and Oberon), by William Herschel 1846: Discovery of Neptune by Johann Galle 1902: Discovery of the stratosphere by Richard Assmann 1909: Discovery of cosmic ray by Theodor Wulf 1916: Schwarzschild metric and Schwarzschild radius by Karl Schwarzschild

Biology and genetics

1759: Description of mesonephros by Caspar Friedrich Wolff 1790s: Recapitulation theory by Johann Friedrich Meckel and Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer Late 1790s/early 1800s: Humboldtian science by Alexander von Humboldt 1834: Humboldt penguin by Franz Meyen, after its initial discovery by Alexander von Humboldt 1835: Cell division by Hugo von Mohl 1835: Discovery and description of mitosis by Hugo von Mohl 1839: Cell theory by Theodor Schwann and Matthias Jakob Schleiden (with contributions from Rudolf Virchow) 1840: Discovery of hemoglobin by Friedrich Ludwig HünefeldHünefeld F.L. (1840). "Die Chemismus in der thierischen Organization". Leipzig. 1845: Odic force by Carl Reichenbach 1851: Discovery of alternation of generations as a general principle in plant life by Wilhelm Hofmeister 1876: Discovery and description of meiosis by Oscar Hertwig 1877: Description of dyslexia by Adolf Kussmaul 1880s: Bacteriology by Robert Koch Late 19th century: Isolated the non-protein component of "nuclein", determining the chemical composition of nucleic acids, and later isolated its five primary nucleobases (adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine and uracil) by Albrecht Kossel 1885: Forgetting curve and learning curve by Hermann Ebbinghaus 1888: Description and naming of the centrosome by Theodor Boveri 1890: Description of mitochondrion by Richard Altmann 1892: Weismann barrier and germ plasm by August Weismann 1908: Hardy–Weinberg principle by Wilhelm Weinberg 1928: First reliable pregnancy test by Selmar Aschheim and Bernhard Zondek 1928: Artificial cloning of organisms by Hans Spemann and Hilde Mangold 1932: Urea cycle by Kurt Henseleit and Hans Adolf Krebs 1937: Citric acid cycle by Hans Adolf Krebs 1974: First genetically modified animal (a mouse) by Rudolf Jaenisch 2014: CityTree, a large-scale urban air purifier intended to filter smog in cities, by Green City Solutions

Chemistry

1625: Glauber's salt by Johann Rudolf Glauber 1669: Discovery of phosphorus by Hennig Brand in Hamburg 1706: Prussian blue by Heinrich Diesbach in Berlin 1717: Johann Heinrich Schulze used a light-sensitive slurry to capture images of cut-out letters on a bottle, sometimes seen as the start of photographyLitchfield, Richard Buckley (1903). Tom Wedgwood, the First Photographer, etc., London, Duckworth and Co. Out of copyright and available free at archive.org. In Appendix A (pp. 217–227), Litchfield evaluates assertions that Schulze's experiments should be called photography and includes a complete English translation (from the original Latin) of Schulze's 1719 account of them as reprinted in 1727. 1724: Temperature scale Fahrenheit by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit 1746: Basic theory of isolating zinc by Andreas Sigismund Marggraf c. 1770 – c. 1785: Identification of molybdenum, tungsten, barium and chlorine by Carl Wilhelm Scheele 1773 or earlier: discovery of oxygen (although Joseph Priestley published his findings first) by Carl Wilhelm Scheele 1789: Discovery of the elements uranium and zirconium by Martin Heinrich Klaproth 1798: Isolation of tellurium by Martin Heinrich Klaproth 1799: Production of sugar from sugar beets, the beginning of the modern sugar industry, by Franz Karl Achard, after foundations were laid by Andreas Sigismund Marggraf