List of German people of Kurdish descent

This is a list of notable individuals who are of full or partial Kurdish origin who grew up and/or live in Germany.

Academia and Medicine

• Jamal Nebez, linguist, mathematician, politician, author, translator and writer
• Bachtyar Ali, novelist, intellectual, literary critic, essayist, and poet
• Rauf Ceylan, German-Turkish sociologist and author
• Khalil Rashow, academic, writer, and researcher
• Nadia Murad – human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate
• Khanna Omarkhali - academic and researcher
• Gülşen Aktaş, educator

Artists

• Bahzad Sulaiman – performance maker and visual artist

Athletes

Deniz Naki (2012)

Mahmoud Dahoud (2018)

• Agit Kabayel, boxer
• Deniz Naki, football player
• Mahmoud Dahoud, football player
• Baker Barakat, boxer and kickboxer
• Deniz Undav, football player
• Mirkan Aydın, football player
• Aias Aosman, football player
• Youssef Amyn, football player
• Joan Oumari, football player^[1]
• Hassan Oumari, football player^[1]
• Dilan Ağgül, football player

Musicians

Rappers

Xatar

• Haftbefehl (Kurdish father and Turkish mother)
• KC Rebell
• Eko Fresh (Kurdish mother and Turkish father)
• Azad
• Xatar
• Mudi (Kurdish father and Lebanese mother)
• Kurdo
• Eno
• Capo (Kurdish father and Turkish mother)
• AK Ausserkontrolle
• Fero47
• Bero Bass

Singers

Engin Nursani

Ferhat Tunç

• Namosh
• Ferhat Tunç
• Engin Nurşani
• Nizamettin Ariç
• Ali Baran
• Hozan Canê
• Serhat Baran

DJs

• Kurd Maverick

Politicians

in German parties

Cansu Özdemir

• Sevim Dağdelen, German politician and a member of the Left Party (die Linke)
• Evrim Sommer, German politician
• Gökay Akbulut, German politician and social scientist. She is currently serving in the Bundestag (federal parliament) as a member of The Left Party from the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg
• Kassem Taher Saleh, German civil engineer and politician of the Alliance 90/The Greens
• Kenan Engin, German-Kurdish political scientist
• Leyla Güven, Kurdish Politician
• Lamiya Haji Bashar, human rights activist. She was awarded the Sakharov Prize jointly with Nadia Murad in 2016
• Ali Atalan, Kurdish-German politician of Yazidi faith. He is a former member of the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia with Die Linke in Germany, and the Turkish Parliament with the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP)
• Cansu Özdemir, German politician of The Left from Hamburg. She is a member of the Hamburg Parliament
• Muhterem Aras,  German politician of the Alliance 90/The Greens party. She has been a Member of the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg for the constituency Stuttgart I since May 2011, and Landtagspräsidentin (speaker) since May 2016
• Hamide Akbayir German politician
• Hüseyin Kenan Aydın, German politician and member of Die Linke.

in foreign parties or organisations

• Haji Ahmadi (Iran; grew up in Iran and lives in exile in Germany)
• Leyla İmret (grew up in Germany and lived in Turkey)
• Feleknas Uca (grew up in Germany and lives in Turkey)

Cinema

• Züli Aladağ, film director, film producer, and screenwriter (Kurdish and Turkish origin)^[2]
• Ayşe Polat, script writer and film director^[3]
• Yasemin Şamdereli, German film director, screen writer and actress
• Düzen Tekkal, German author, television journalist, filmmaker, war correspondent, political scientist, and social entrepreneur of Kurdish–Yazidi descent
• Nizamettin Ariç, film director

Writers and Literature

The Kurdish writer Rohat Alakom, 2010

Seyran Ateş

• Seyran Ateş (Kurdish father and Turkish mother)^[4]
• Rohat Alakom
• Düzen Tekkal
• Lamiya Haji Bashar
• Eskerê Boyîk
• Nadia Murad
• Bachtyar Ali
• Eskerê Boyîk, writer
• Khalil Rashow
• Fatma Aydemir, author and journalist
• Meşale Tolu, German journalist and translator

Miscellaneous

• Hatun Sürücü, victim of a so-called "honor killing" by her youngest brother in 2005

See also

• Kurds in Germany
• List of Kurds
• Kurdish diaspora

References

1. "الحارس حسن يلتحق بالتمرين والعمري جديد المحترفين". الأخبار (in Arabic). Retrieved 30 June 2020.
2. "Züli Aladag, film director". Deutsche Welle. 2015. Retrieved 2 January 2021. Whenever I'm asked about my nationality, I say, "I'm a German of Kurdish and Turkish descent."
3. Cox, Ayça Tunç (2012), "Hyphenated Identities: The Reception of Turkish German Cinema in the Turkish Daily Press", in Hake, Sabine; Mennel, Barbara (eds.), Turkish German Cinema in the New Millennium: Sites, Sounds, and Screens, Berghahn Books, p. 169, ISBN 978-0857457691, The second-generation filmmaker Ayşe Polat's response to a question about how she describes her identity underscores the complexity of the issue, for she states that she is simultaneously German, Turkish and Kurdish.
4. Eddy, Melissa (2018), "By Taking a Bullet, a Muslim Woman Finds Her Calling", The New York Times, retrieved 29 March 2021, Born in Istanbul to a Turkish mother and a Kurdish father, she emigrated with her parents to what was then West Berlin in the late 1960s, part of the first large wave of Muslim immigrants who came to fill the blue-collar jobs needed to rebuild the German economy after World War II. Ms. Ates was 6 when she and her four siblings moved into a one-room apartment with their parents.