Dr. Gregor Gysi (German pronunciation: [ˈɡiːzi]; born 16 January 1948) is a German attorney and key politician of the socialist left-wing political party The Left (Die Linke). He played an important role in the end of communist rule in East Germany in 1989^{[citation needed]}, and was a main figure in the post-reunification Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). He is well known for his rhetoric talent and is considered one of the best German public speakers.

Gysi was born in East Berlin, Soviet Zone of Germany. His father, Klaus Gysi, was a high-ranking official in East Germany, and had been Minister of Culture from 1966 to 1973. His mother, Irene, was the sister of political activist Gottfried Lessing, who was married to the British writer Doris Lessing during his exile in Southern Rhodesia. The surname "Gysi" is of Swiss-German origin. Both of his parents were of part Jewish ancestry; his paternal grandmother was Jewish, as was one of his maternal great-grandfathers. One of his maternal great-grandmothers was Russian.

Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author. His key scientific works to date have included providing, with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding gravitational singularities in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation (or sometimes as Bekenstein–Hawking radiation).

He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and in 2009 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009. Subsequently, he became research director at the university's Centre for Theoretical Cosmology.

Hawking has a motor neurone disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a condition that has progressed over the years. He is now almost completely paralysed and communicates through a speech generating device. He has been married twice and has three children. Hawking has achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; these include A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

Sarah Kuttner (born 29 January 1979) is a German presenter and author from East Berlin.

Her father is famed radio host Jürgen Kuttner. She has regularly appeared on the music television channel VIVA since November 2001 after being selected out of 1500 other participants in a casting held in summer of that year. Her popularity increased rapidly and in August 2004 she started to host her own show called Sarah Kuttner – Die Show, a variation on the popular late show concept with comedy, a sidekick (Sven Schuhmacher), talk guests and musical guests. After Viacom bought VIVA in 2005, her show was moved to MTV Germany and renamed to "Kuttner." with no dramatic changes in concept or crew. Production was relocated from Cologne to Berlin. Kuttner announced the show's cancellation due to high production costs and low ratings in May 2006.

She also co-hosted (with Jörg Pilawa) the show "Germany 12 Points", the German pre-selection for the Eurovision Song Contest on publicly owned channel ARD on 19 March 2004.