Events from the year 1857 in Germany.

Incumbents

• King of Bavaria – Maximilian II
• King of Hanover – George V
• King of Prussia – Frederick William IV
• King of Saxony – John of Saxony

Births

• January 18 – Otto von Below, German general (d. 1944)
• February 22 - Heinrich Hertz , German physicist (d. 1894 )
• April 30 – Walter Simon, German philanthropist (d. 1920)
• May 27 – Theodor Curtius, German chemist (d. 1928)
• June 30 – Friedrich von Ingenohl, German admiral (d. 1933)
• July 5 – Clara Zetkin, German-born Marxist theorist, activist and women's rights advocate (d. 1933)
• July 19 – Eugen Bamberger, German chemist (d. 1932)
• July 23 – Carl Meinhof, German linguist (d. 1944)
• August 14 – Max Wagenknecht, German composer (d. 1922)
• August 15 – Albert Ballin, German shipping magnate, owner of the Hamburg America Line (d. 1918)
• August 27 – Oskar von Hutier, German general (d. 1934)
• September 8 – Georg Michaelis, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1936)
• November 29 – Theodor Escherich, German pediatrician (d. 1911)
• December 3 – Franz Bunke, German painter (d. 1939 )

Deaths

• January 27 – Dorothea Lieven, Baltic-German diplomat in Russian services (b. 1785)

• November 26 – Joseph von Eichendorff, German poet (b. 1788)
• December 3 – Christian Daniel Rauch, German sculptor (b. 1777)