Menzel, Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von, 1815-1905, German painter and illustrator. Self-taught, Menzel made lithographic illustrations for Goethe's Künstlers Erdenwallen, which attracted attention. His 400 designs for woodblocks illustrating Kugler's History of Frederick the Great (1840-42) established his reputation and gave a stimulus to German wood engraving. While best known for historical paintings, he sketched scenes from nature related to impressionism in style. His work is best represented in museums in Berlin, London, and Cambridge, Mass.

Menzel, Donald Howard, 1901-76, American astrophysicist, b. Florence, Colo. From 1926 to 1932 he was with the Lick Observatory in Calif. In 1932 he joined the faculty at Harvard, where he became professor (1938) of astrophysics and director (1954) of the observatory. An authority on the sun's chromosphere, he discovered with J. C. Boyce (1933) that the sun's corona contains oxygen. With W. W. Salisbury he made (1941) the first of the calculations that led to radio contact with the moon in 1946.

Menzel is a surname and may refer to:

• Adolph von Menzel (1815-1905), German artist
• Donald Howard Menzel (1901-1976), American astronomer
• Menzel (crater), a lunar crater
• Menzel 3, a young bipolar planetary nebula
• Idina Menzel (born 1971), American actress
• Jiří Menzel (born 1938), Czech director
• Wolfgang Menzel (1798-1873), German poet

See also

• Menzel Bourguiba, Tunisia