Events from the year 1868 in Germany.

• King of Bavaria – Ludwig II
• King of Prussia – William I
• King of Saxony – John
• King of Württemberg – Charles of Württemberg
• Grand Duke of Baden – Frederick I

• 28 January – The Leipzig Opera House is inaugurated. It was destroyed during the 1943 Bombing of Leipzig.
• 8 March – 1868 Zollparlament election

• The Herrenhäuser Brewery is founded in Hanover
• The liberal German People's Party is founded

• January 3 - Heinrich Brauns, German politician (died 1933)
• January 15 – Otto von Lossow, German general (died 1938)
• January 21 – Felix Hoffmann, German chemist (died 1946)
• March 1 - Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg (Died 1914)
• March 1 - Alfred Henke, German politician (died 1946)
• March 4 -Friedrich Wilhelm Kopsch, German anatomist (died 1955)
• April 19 - Max von Schillings, German conductor (died 1933)
• May 13 - Otto Ritter von Dandl, German politician (died 1942)
• July 7 - Karl Bauer, German artist (died 1942)
• July 9 - Gustav Noske, German politician (died 1946)
• July 12 - Stefan George, German poet (died 1933)
• August 2 - Theodor Wolff, German writer and journalist (died 1943)
• August 10 - Paul Warburg, German/American banker (died 1932)
• September 23 - Johannes Bell, German politician (died 1949)
• October 8 - Max Slevogt, German painter (died 1932)
• November 2 - Wilhelm Kolle, German bacteriologist (died 1935)
• November 8 - Felix Hausdorff, German mathematician (died 1942)
• November 17 - Korbinian Brodmann, German neurologist and psychiatrist (died 1918)
• November 17 - Paul Hirsch, German politician (died 1940)
• November 25 - Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, German nobleman (died 1937)
• November 25 - Ernst Däumig, German politician (died 1922)
• December 5 - Arnold Sommerfeld, German physicist (died 1951)
• December 9 - Fritz Haber, German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (died 1934)
• December 24 - Richard Teichmann, German chess master (died 1925)
• December 24 - Emanuel Lasker, German mathematician (died 1941)

• 8 January - Adolf Heinrich von Arnim-Boitzenburg, German statesman and politician (born 1803)
• 16 January - Theodor Schönemann, German mathematician (born 1812)
• 23 January - Heinrich von Brandt, German general (born 1789)
• 3 February - Karl Mathy, German politician (born 1807)
• 29 February - Ludwig I of Bavaria, German king of Bavaria from 1825 to 1848 (born 1786)
• 2 March - Carl Eberwein, German composer (born 1786)
• 22 May - Julius Plücker, German mathematician and physicist (born 1801)
• 29 May - Julius Friedrich Heinrich Abegg, German criminalist (born 1796)
• 18 July - Emanuel Leutze, German painter (born 1816), died in the United States
• 21 July - Friedrich Wilhelm Schubert, German historian (born 1799)
• 25 August – Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer, German actress (born 1799)
• 29 August - Christian Friedrich Schönbein, German chemist (born 1799)
• 26 September - August Ferdinand Möbius, German mathematician (born 1790)
• 6 December - August Schleicher, German linguist (born 1821)
• 13 December - Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, German botanist and explorer (born 1794)