Gottfried Kohl (April 3, 1921 in Freiberg – January 20, 2012 in Freiberg) was a German sculptor. Kohl was the son of a Freiberg master wood sculptor. From 1928 he attended the Rochlitzer School and then the grammar school in his hometown. He then took up an apprenticeship as a wood sculptor in Dresden and at the same time continued his education through evening studies at the art academy. In 1939 Kohl was Reichssieger in a wood carving competition and received a scholarship for 1939/1940 for training with Cirillo Dell'Antonio at the woodcarving school in Bad Warmbrunn in preparation for studying at the Art Academy in Munich. After training in Bad Warmbrunn, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a communications engineer in 1940. Initially he was stationed in front of Rome, where he took the opportunity for practical studies at the Villa Massimo. In 1946 he returned home from being a French prisoner of war and found out that his mother had died in 1944 and that his father had died in an accident in 1945. In 1947 he passed the master's examination: he designed the tomb for his parents as a masterpiece and took over his father's workshop, although he focused on artistic work in stone and bronze and had his craft business as a wood sculptor continued by an employee. Until 1956 Kohl worked in Berlin with Hermann Henselmann as head of the sculptor's workshop on the reconstruction and the transformation in the style of socialist realism. He lived and worked in Freiberg again since 1956 and was a member of the "Kaue" artists' association.
Kohl was a member of the LDPD and a member of the Karl-Marx-Stadt district council. In March 1977, at the 12th LDPD party congress in Weimar, he was elected a member of the central board of the LDPD. In 1987 he was awarded the National Prize of the GDR. Kohl has been an honorary citizen of the city of Freiberg since 2008.