William S. Heckscher
In 1932–1933, Heckscher lived in New York where he worked as Panofsky's assistant. During this time, he enrolled in the Graduate Department of Art History at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University to study American art history. Heckscher returned to Germany to continue his studies in 1934. He and his mother were detained by the Gestapo and interrogated for ten days after being accused of having pacifist connections.
Gustav Heckmann
War ended in 1918 and Heckmann moved on to study Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy at Marburg, Berlin and Göttingen. It was at Göttingen that he received his doctorate in 1924. This work was supervised by Max Born. In 1925 he passed the state exam necessary for a teaching position. While still a student one of his teachers was the philosopher Leonard Nelson, and he now applied for a teaching post at the with which Nelson was closely involved. At this stage, however, Nelson rejected his application, recommending that he instead obtain teaching experience in the public schools sector. Two years later, after complying with Nelson's non-negotiable condition that he cut all ties with the church, which had led to protracted wrangling with his parents, Heckmann was accepted as a teacher at the in 1927. Nelson himself died unexpectedly at the end of October, and Heckmann served a rigorous apprenticeship under the supervision of Minna Specht who had worked closely with Nelson, and who headed up the academy between 1927 and its closure.