Wolfgang Schadewaldt (15 March 1900 in Berlin – 10 November 1974 in Tübingen) was a German classical philologist working mostly in the field of Greek philology and a translator. He also was a professor of University of Tübingen and University of Freiburg.
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.
Franz Hessel (November 21, 1880 – January 6, 1941) was a German writer and translator. With Walter Benjamin, he produced a German translation of three volumes of Marcel Proust's 1913-1927 work À la recherche du temps perdu in the late 1920s.
Hessel's parents, Fanny and Heinrich Hessel, came to Berlin in 1880, and joined the Lutheran church (having been born Jewish). In 1900, when Franz Hessel's father dies, he left a large fortune, enabling Franz Hessel to live a carefree life in Munich and Paris. In 1901, he attends the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where he publishes twelve poems in Avalun. Ein Jahrbuch neuer deutscher lyrischer Wortkunst. In 1908, he publishes his first prose prose collection, Laura Wunderl. Müncher Novellen. In 1913, he marries Helen Grund, and publishes Der Kramladen des Glücks. On 27 July 1914, their first son Ulrich is born, and in 1917, their second son Stefan is born. In 1920, he publishes Pariser Romanze. In 1922, he publishes Von den Irrtümern der Liebenden. Eine Nachtwache.Hessel became one of the first German exponents of the French idea of flânerie, and in 1929 published a collection of essays on the subject related to his native Berlin, Walking in Berlin (German: Spazieren in Berlin). Reviewing the book in 1929, Benjamin described it as "an echo of the stories the city has told [Hessel] ever since he was a child—an epic book through and through, a process of memorizing while strolling around, a book for which memory has acted not as the source but as the Muse." Concluding, Benjamin wrote: "if a Berliner is willing to explore his city for any treasures other than neon advertisements, he will grow to love this book."In October 1938, the Hessels flee Germany for exile in Paris. In April 1940, the family flees Paris for Sanary-sur-Mer. In May, Franz and Ulrich are interned in Camp des Milles. On 27 July 1940, both are released and are able to return to Helen in Sanary-sur-Mer. However, Franz has dysentery, and has suffered a stroke, from which he does not recover.: 167–180 Hessel inspired the character of Jules in Henri-Pierre Roche's novel Jules et Jim.
Norbert Jacques (6 June 1880 – 15 May 1954) was a Luxembourgish novelist, journalist, screenwriter, and translator who wrote in German. He was born in Luxembourg-Eich, Luxembourg and died in Koblenz, West Germany. He created the character Dr. Mabuse, who was a feature of some of his novels. Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, the first novel to feature Mabuse, was one of the bestsellers of its time; it sold over 500,000 copies in Germany. Today, Jacques is known best for Dr. Mabuse. In 1922, he received German citizenship.
Christian Otto Josef Wolfgang Morgenstern (6 May 1871 – 31 March 1914) was a German writer and poet from Munich. Morgenstern married Margareta Gosebruch von Liechtenstern on 7 March 1910. He worked for a while as a journalist in Berlin, but spent much of his life traveling through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, primarily in a vain attempt to recover his health. His travels, though they failed to restore him to health, allowed him to meet many of the foremost literary and philosophical figures of his time in central Europe.
Morgenstern's poetry, much of which was inspired by English literary nonsense, is immensely popular, even though he enjoyed very little success during his lifetime. He made fun of scholasticism, e.g. literary criticism in "Drei Hasen", grammar in "Der Werwolf", narrow-mindedness in "Der Gaul", and symbolism in "Der Wasseresel". In "Scholastikerprobleme" he discussed how many angels could sit on a needle. Still many Germans know some of his poems and quotations by heart, e.g. the following line from "The Impossible Fact" ("Die unmögliche Tatsache", 1910):
Weil, so schließt er messerscharf / Nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf.
"For, he reasons pointedly / That which must not, can not be."Embedded in his humorous poetry is a subtle metaphysical streak, as e.g. in "Vice Versa", (1905):
Gerolf Steiner's mock-scientific book about the fictitious animal order Rhinogradentia (1961), inspired by Morgenstern's nonsense poem Das Nasobēm, is testament to his enduring popularity.
Morgenstern was a member of the General Anthroposophical Society. Dr. Rudolf Steiner called him 'a true representative of Anthroposophy'.
Morgenstern died in 1914 of tuberculosis, which he had contracted from his mother, who died in 1881.