William S. Heckscher
From 1918 to 1921, the family lived in the Netherlands while Heckscher's father served as the Weimar Republic's ambassador to The Hague; there, Heckscher enrolled at the Nederlandsch Lyceum. Heckscher pursued his interests in history and Flemish art by spending his off hours studying at the Dutch Royal Library, the Mauritshuis and the Kröller-Müller Museum, but was dismissed from the Lyceum in 1920 for "lack of scholarly potential". After the family returned to Hamburg, Heckscher attended the city's Kunstgewerbeschule, now the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg, but failed a class in ceramics.
Eike Christian Hirsch
Eike Christian Hirsch (born 1937) is a German journalist and author. He studied theology and philosophy in Goettingen, Heidelberg and Basel. Up to 1996 he was an editor in sound broadcasting at the NDR and is now a freelance journalist. He wrote books on questions of faith and the German language. He is also the wrote a series of humorous word definitions, "Deutsch für Besserwisser", which were first published in the Stern and later collected into book form.