Hermann Dörnemann

Hermann Dörnemann (27 May 1893 – 2 March 2005) of Germany was hailed in the press as the oldest living man in the world upon the death of 113-year-old American Fred Hale on 19 November 2004. Not until Hale's death, however, did Dörnemann's family offer documentation to the Guinness World Records or to a supercentenarian researcher, and at that point the claim of Puerto Rican Emiliano Mercado del Toro was put forward too with documentation that he was born in 1891, almost two years earlier, which was subsequently accepted as well. Dörnemann was born in Essen.

Dörnemann was recognized by the German government as Germany's oldest person for half a year, following the death of fellow Lina Zimmer (born 20 November 1892) on 28 August 2004, until his death in Düsseldorf. He was the oldest German-born man ever, until surpassed by Gustav Gerneth on 22 July 2017, but Gerneth was born in Stettin, today located in Poland.

Dörnemann credited his longevity to drinking "a beer a day."