Erich Auerbach (November 9, 1892 – October 13, 1957) was a German philologist and comparative scholar and critic of literature. His best-known work is Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, a history of representation in Western literature from ancient to modern times frequently cited as a classic in the study of realism in literature. Along with Leo Spitzer, Auerbach is widely recognized as one of the foundational figures of comparative literature.
Hans Jantzen (26 April 1881 in Hamburg – 15 February 1967 in Freiburg im Breisgau) was a German art historian who specialized in Medieval art.
Kurt Badt (3 March 1890 in Berlin − 22 November 1973 in Überlingen) was a German art historian.
Richard Tüngel (1893 – 1970) was a German journalist and publisher, originally an architect and a longtime Director of Construction (Baudirektor) in Hamburg.
Paul Otto Gustav Schmidt (23 June 1899 – 21 April 1970) was an interpreter in the German foreign ministry from 1923 to 1945. During his career, he served as the translator for Neville Chamberlain's negotiations with Adolf Hitler over the Munich Agreement, the British Declaration of War and the surrender of France.
Johann Wilhelm Kinau (22 August 1880 – 31 May 1916), better known by his pseudonym Gorch Fock (German pronunciation: [ɡɔʀx fɔk]), was a German author. Other pseudonyms he used were Jakob Holst and Giorgio Focco.
Karl M. Baer (20 May 1885 – 26 June 1956) was a German-Israeli author, social worker, reformer, suffragist and Zionist.
Born intersex and assigned female at birth, he came out as a trans man in 1904 at the age of 21. In December 1906, he became the first transgender person to undergo sex reassignment surgery, and he became one of the first transgender people to gain full legal recognition of his gender identity by having a male birth certificate issued in January 1907. However, some researchers have disputed his label as a trans man, theorizing that he was intersex, and not transgender.Baer wrote notes for sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld on his experiences growing up female while feeling inside that he was male. Together they developed these notes into the semi-fictional, semi-autobiographical Aus eines Mannes Mädchenjahren (Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years) (1907) which was published under the pseudonym N.O. Body. The book "was immensely popular," being "adapted twice to film, in 1912 and 1919." Baer also gained the right to marry and did so in October 1907.
Despite him having undergone gender reaffirming surgery in 1906, exact records of the medical procedures he went through are unknown, as his medical records were burned in the 1930s Nazi book burning, that targeted Hirschfield studies specifically.
Richard Müller (9 December 1880 – 11 May 1943) was a German socialist, metal worker, union shop steward, and later historian. Trained as a lathe-operator, Müller later became an industrial unionist and organizer of mass-strikes against World War I. In 1918 he was a leading figure of the council movement in the German Revolution. In the 1920s he wrote a three-volume history of the German Revolution.
Hans Philipp Ehrenberg (German: [hans ˈeː.ʁənbɛʁk] ; 4 June 1883 – 21 March 1958) was a German Jewish philosopher and theologian. One of the co-founders of the Confessing Church, he was forced to emigrate to England because of his Jewish ancestry and his opposition to Nazism.
Wilhelm Biltz (8 March 1877 – 13 November 1943) was a German chemist and scientific editor.
In addition to his scholarly work, Biltz is noted for commanding the principal German tank involved in the first ever tank-on-tank battle in history at the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux.