- Jan 1 Jakob Wassermann, German writer, dies at 60
- Jan 6 Herbert Chapman, Legendary Manager of Arsenal and Huddersfield Town (b. 1878)
- Jan 8 Alexandre Stavisky, French swindler, dies
- Jan 8 Andrei Bely [Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev], Russian writer (Petersburg), dies at 53
- Jan 10 Marinus van der Lubbe, Dutch communist, beheaded in Berlin at 24
- Jan 12 Pawel Kochanski, Polish violinist, composer and arranger (b. 1887)
- Jan 12 Surya Sen "Master Da", Indian activist for independence (Chittagong armoury raid), hanged at 39
- Jan 13 Jean-Baptiste Marchand, soldier/explorer (Sudan), dies at 70
- Jan 13 Paul Ulrich Villard, French chemist and physicist who discovered gamma rays, dies at 73
- Jan 15 Hermann Bahr, Austrian writer (Concert), dies at 70
- Jan 15 Patrick O'Malley, US policeman, killed by John Dillinger
- Jan 16 Annie Patterson, Irish organist, composer, and musicologist, dies at 65
- Jan 19 Armand Parent, composer, dies at 70
- Jan 29 Fritz Haber, German physicist and chemist (Nobel 1918), dies at 65
- Jan 30 Frank Nelson Doubleday, American publisher (b. 1862)