They alone have voting rights and are obliged to attend sessions and take part in the work of the Academy. In each Class the number of Ordinary Fellows is limited to 45, that of Corresponding Fellows to 80. When an Ordinary Fellow moves into another German Land or out of the country, he or she automatically acquires the status of Corresponding Fellow. The election of new Fellows takes place once a year. Candidates are proposed by an Ordinary Fellow, first in the appropriate Class and then in the Plenum, the joint session of the two Classes.
Voting is by coloured balls, and a three-quarters majority is required for admission.
Goethe, the Grimm brothers, Theodor Mommsen, Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, Max Planck, Otto Hahn, Albert Einstein, Max Weber, Werner Heisenberg and Adolf Butenandt. The list of Presidents of the Academy has included, among many others, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling, Justus von Liebig, Ignaz von D llinger and Max von Pettenkofer. Certificate dated 26th March 1808 confirming the admission of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as an external Ordinary Fellow of the Academy. It is signed by the then President, Goethe's friend Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. The head of the Academy is the President , elected for a term of three years.