At least you can be sure that Germans won't "adopt" them, e.g. you can often read "the german architect Hundertwasser" or "the german author Kafka" :-/

On the other side: most classic composers are from times when there was no Germany. E.g. J. S. Bach is from Sachsen-Eisenach :-)

In a similar vein, who gets to claim Nicola Tesla?

Europe used to be much more of a mess than today's neatly drawn nation states, retroactively assigning origin is a silly endeavour.