There was a public contest like that done for Brazil in 2012, considering hundreds of people. Top 12 ended up being:
- Ayrton Senna, Race driver
- Chico Xavier, Medium and Writer
- Fernando Henrique Cardoso, President and professor
- Getúlio Vargas, President
- Irmã Dulce, Catholic nun
- Juscelino Kubitschek, President and physician
- Lula da Silva, President
- Oscar Niemeyer, Architect
- Edson Pelé, Football (soccer) player
- Princesa Isabel, Imperial Princess and regent
- Santos Dumont, Aeronaut and inventor
- Joaquim Tiradentes, Dentist and Trooper
Chico Xavier won, because I guess that’s the campaign power of religious people in these types of voting contests. But for me he would be #11 or #12 between these twelve.
My top 3:
#1: Getúlio Vargas
#2: Joaquim Tiradentes
#3: Santos Dumont
The results of a similar TV contest in Germany back in 2003 were:
1. Konrad Adenauer
2. Martin Luther
3. Karl Marx
4. Sophie and Hans Scholl
5. Willy Brandt
6. Johann Sebastian Bach
7. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
8. Johannes Gutenberg
9. Otto von Bismarck
10. Albert Einstein
Subsequent contests determined the greatest Germans in specific fields of popular culture. The winners of these contests were:
Greatest sportsperson - Michael Schumacher
Greatest soccer player - Franz Beckenbauer (also #4 in the sportsperson contest)
Greatest actor - Heinz Rühmann
Greatest comedian - Loriot
Greatest musician - Herbert Grönemeyer
Since that was again pretty male-dominated, the highest-ranked women in these contests were Birgit Fischer (sportsperson, #2), Romy Schneider (actor, #3), Anke Engelke (comedian, #9), and Nena (musician, #5).
In 2014, they did sort of a rerun of the greatest German contest, this time separated by genders and only including
living people and not historical figures. This contest led to a scandal, subsequent resignations of production personnel, and a cancellation of further shows after it had been discovered that TV network ZDF had fixed the results, in some cases in favour of invited studio guests.
The Top 5 *unfixed* male/female results of this contest, released by ZDF in wake of the scandal, were:
1. Helmut Schmidt
2. Hans-Dietrich Genscher
3. Richard von Weizsäcker
4. Günther Jauch
5. Joachim Gauck
1. Angela Merkel
2. Steffi Graf
3. Magdalena Neuner
4. Ursula von der Leyen (replaced by Hannelore Kraft in the fixed results)
5. Hannelore Kraft (replaced by Helene Fischer in the fixed results)
