He was born in Marggrabowa in 1856. He was the editor of the magazines "Mazur" (Masur) and "Mazur Wschodniopruski" (East Prussian Masur) and the publisher of calendars.

Fritz Skowronnek was born in the forester's house of Schuiken near Goldap in 1858. He grew up in Sybba, which is a part of the town of Lyck today. He was a teacher at a secondary school and supervisor of a school authority, worked as a journalist in Berlin as from 1888 and later on he was a freelance writer. He wrote several novels. He died in Oranienburg near Berlin in 1939.

Fritz Skowronnek's brother Richard Skowronnek was born on 12 March 1862. He grew up in Sybba, too. He was a journalist and from 1887 to 1892 the feuilleton editor of the "Frankfurter Zeitung" (Frankfort Times), then he worked as a dramatic adviser at the Royal Theatre, a parliamentary reporter in Berlin and a writer. He wrote novels, stories, comedies and dramatic works, partially in a popular style. Richard Skowronnek lived from 1922 on the estate of Höckenberg near Stettin (in Polish: Szczecin) and died on 17 October 1932.

Nadolny was born in Groß Stürlack on 12 July 1873. He studied law in Königsberg. In 1902 he joined the foreign service where he was promoted to the rank of a legation councillor in 1907, a reporting councillor in 1914 and, finally, a privy legation councillor in 1917. During World War I captain Nadolny, being the leader of the Political Department IIIb of the general staff from September 1914 to July 1916, was in charge of carrying out a programme of microbiological warfare which was intended to infect the army horse stores of the USA, Romania, Spain, Portugal, France and Italy. On behalf of the German Empire, he later took part in drafting the Genevan Protocol which forbids the deployment of biological weapons. He led the representations of the German Empire in Persia, Sweden, Turkey and, from 1933 to 1934, in the Soviet Union. From 1919 to 1920 he was head of the office of the imperial president. Nadolny had determining influence on the planning for the German embassy built from 1927 to 1928 in Ankara and ordered the type of a Prussian country house to be built. From 1932 to 1933 Nadolny was the head of the German delegation in the disarmament conference in Geneva. In 1945 he became chairman of the German Red Cross. During the early postwar years Nadolny tended to go back to the former tradition of the German-Russian cooperation. He died in Düsseldorf on 18 May 1953.

The drawer, illustrator, writer and teacher Robert Budzinski was born in Klein Schläfken in the district of Neidenburg on 5 April 1874 . He lived in Konitz (in Polish: Chojnice), Königsberg and Marburg on the River Lahn. He was an active member of the "Wandervogel" movement. Budzinski illustrated his books richly with wood engravings. He died in Marburg on 27 February 1955.

Walter Kollo was born in Neidenburg on 28 January 1878. His real name is Elimar Walter Kollodzieyski. His father was a merchant and his mother a concert pianist. He studied music in Sondershausen and at the Peace College in Königsberg. Kollo became an apprentice in a music shop and a repetiteur and trainee with a conductor. In 1906 he went to Berlin where he became a conductor. After World War I he wrote music for silent films. In 1923 he started his career as a composer at the Admiral Palace and composed numerous operettas, comic operas and musical shows.
Among many other works is:
Phobe of Quality Street (New York 1921)
Kollo died in Berlin on 30 September 1940. His tomb of honour is situated in the Evangelical churchyard of Sophie's Parish II in Berlin-Mitte.

The literary critic and portrait photographer Franz Pfemfert was born in Lötzen on 20 November 1879. In 1911 Franz Pfemfert founded, together with Anselm Ruest (Ernst Samuel) and Kurt Hiller, the publishing company and magazine "Die Aktion" as the most important mouthpiece of the radical left-wing and expressionist intelligentsia of the first two decades of the past century. This weekly periodical of politics, literature and art was published until 1932. In 1933 he fled to Paris via Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary) and in 1940 he escaped from the French internment camp Gurs and fled to Mexico via Spain, Portugal and New York. From 1941 until his death he was living in Mexico in growing political isolation and in dire poverty because he developed a critical relationship to the Soviet Union. Absolute striving for truth was a main characteristic of his. Pfemfert died in Mexico-City on 26 May 1954.

The painter Theo von Brockhusen was born in Marggrabowa on 16 July 1882. He was a student at the academy in Königsberg and joined Rösler, Degner, Partikel and Domscheit to form a loose artistic circle in Klein-Kuhren (in Russian: Filino). In 1904 he moved to Berlin and one year later he became a member of the Berlin secession of the German artistic union. In 1913 he became an inaugural member of the Free Secession and later its president. He was awarded the Villa Romana prize in the same year. Brockhusen created about 200 paintings and about 50 drawings, lithographies and etchings. His works stood between impressionism und expressionism. His pictures can be seen in many German museums, among them the National Gallery and the Town Museum in Berlin. He died in Berlin on 20 April 1919.

He was born in Marggrabowa in 1884. Having taken his A-levels at the grammar school in Insterburg he studied law in Königsberg. He was a member of a club of Jewish students. In 1909 he became chief of propaganda of the German zionists. From 1910 to 1914 he was the secretary-general of the Zionist World Organization and from 1924 to 1933 chairman of the Zionist Society of Germany. Under his influence the aim of the Zionist movement in Germany changed: at the beginning they attempted to bring Germanness and Jewishness into harmony, but from 1912 they placed every member of the Zionist Society of Germany under the obligation to declare the emigration to Palestinia to their personal goal. Kurt Blumenfeld was the vice-chairman of the Jewish relief fund Keren Hayessod of Germany. In 1933 Blumenfeld emigrated to Palestinia. There he was the secretary of Keren Hayessod. He died in 1963.

The writer Ernst Wiechert was born into a forester's family in Kleinort near Sensburg on 18 May 1887. He was familiar with the Masurian language. While still a child his literary talent attracted attention already. In 1905 he took his A-levels at the supreme secondary school at the castle in Königsberg. Then he enrolled for the subjects of natural science, German and English studies, geography and philosophy at Albertus University in Königsberg. Having finished his studies (he passed his state examination for the higher teaching post in 1911) Wiechert became a teacher at the "Friedrichskollegium" and at the supreme secondary school at the castle in Königsberg. During World War I he was a soldier at the Western and Eastern front. From 1920 he was a teacher with civil servant status in Königsberg. Wiechert taught the German language and literature as well as natural sciences. In the literary works he wrote in the years to follow he came out against war, based on his own experiences. His novellas and novels of great linguistic pulchritude and strong, often melancholic atmosphere allowed him to rise into the leading group of German writers in the first half of the 20th century. The growth of nationalist tendencies during the world depression worried him. In 1930 Wiechert became a counsellor at the administrative college in Berlin. In 1932 he became a freelance writer and moved to Lake Starnberg. In speech and writing he opposed the curtailing of the freedom of opinion, the persecution of Jews and chauvinism. He cooperated with Pastor Martin Niemöller. In 1935 reprisals of the Nazi state began, and in 1938 Wiechert was imprisoned in the concentration camp of Buchenwald as prisoner no. 7188. Under the pressure of worldwide protests he had to be released after 2 months. However, he was under supervision of the gestapo and not allowed to publish his works and to appear in public, and his passport was confiscated. He was forced to inner emigration. At the time he stayed with a friend of his, the pianist Wilhelm Kempf, in Ambach and later in Isarhöhe. The post-war reality in Germany disappointed Wiechert's hopes: there was no prompt moral renaissance of the German people and neo-fascist forces grew strong again. So he got into the role of the akward warner and finally he moved to Switzerland in 1948. His works were translated into over 20 languages. Wiechert died in Uerikon near Lake Zurich on 24 August 1950.

The painter Partikel was born in Goldap in 1888. Starting in 1929, he worked as a professor of landscape painting at the academy of arts in Königsberg. He died in Ahrenshoop on 20 October 1945.
Works:
Etchings based on "Michael Kohlhaas", a narrative by Kleist (1919)
Themes connected with the peninsula of Darß and East Prussia (e. g. Lighthouse of Brüsterort, oils by 1931)

The painter Ernst Rimmek was born in Johannisburg on 14 December 1890. He died in 1963.

Captain Max Pruss was born in Sgonn on 29 September 1891. At the beginning he drove keel airships of the type of Parseval. Pruss was a member of the "Frankfurt Club of Aviation of 1908". When the airship LZ 127 went on a circumnavigation of the earth in 1929 and with that went down in aviation history, he was the navigator of this venture. Pruss was the pilot of the airship LZ 129, which exploded and burnt on its landing in Lakehurst on 6 May 1937. He was able to save his life by a bailout, though he had suffered hard burns. Pruss was listed into the Golden Book of the Airmen, which was shown in the hall of honour of the ministry of aviatian of the German Reich.

The teacher and psychologist Dr Max Simoneit was born in Arys on 17 October 1896. In 1918 he took the first state examination for the teaching profession and than he read psychology in Königsberg. In 1927 he became a collaborator of the army section of psychologists. In 1930 Simoneit became head of the central examination office for officer candidates at the German Armed Forces (psychological laboratory at the ministry of war = Armed Forces psychology). He contributed to the implementation of the first regulations for diploma examinations for psychologists in 1941. That was the starting point to train diploma psychologists in Germany. But when the sons of many public Nazi figures and high ranking army officers failed the tests to qualify for an officers's career the Nazi regime abolished the Armed Forces psychology in 1942. After the war he founded a private research institute and wrote psychodiagnostic reports. In 1947 Simoneit was a co-founder of the professional board of German psychologists in Hamburg and became a member of the board of directors. He died in Cologne in 1962. He wrote essays on the ethics of defence and on the psychological examination of officer candidates.

The writer Hansgeorg Buchholtz was born in 1899 and spent many years of his life in Lötzen. He collected the material for his books in the lives of farmers and fishermen of the German Eastern areas.

The poet Galczynski was born on 23 January 1905. He lived in the forest warden's lodge of Pranie by Lake Nieden for some years where he wrote many of his poetic works. He died in December 1953. Following Galczynsky, the composer Henryk Czyz wrote the lyrical "Inge Bartsch".

The author Wolfgang Koeppen was born in Greifswald on 23 June 1906. From 1908 to 1919 he lived in Thorn and Ortelsburg where he attended the real grammar school. When he returned to Greifswald he continued learning at a secondary school (because of financial reasons), which he didn't finish, however. After that he worked in a bookshop and was an unpaid trainee at the local theatre. He attended lectures of Germanics, philosophy and history of art as a guest student at the university of Greifswald. In 1921 he went to sea and worked as an assistant cook. Then he earned his living with casual labour in Hamburg and Berlin. From 1926 to 1927 he had an engagement as a dramatist and assistant stage manager with the town theatre in Würzburg. From 1927 to 1933 he lived in Berlin. At first he worked as a freelance journalist for several tabloids, and in 1931 he became a permanent member of the editorial staff of a renowned Berlin newspaper, with its feuilleton being his area of responsibility. In 1933 he became a member of the German writers' union "Reichsschrifttumskammer". In 1934 Koeppen resettled to the Netherlands and returned to Berlin in 1938. From 1943 to 1945 he stayed in Munich and Feldafing, and he eventually moved to Munich in 1945. From 1955 to 1961 he went on numerous trips abroad on behalf of the radio station "Südfunk". In 1972 he became a member of the PEN-club of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Koeppen was awarded many prizes and honours:
1962: Georg-Büchner-Prize by the Academy of Language and Literature of Darmstadt
1965: Literary Prize by the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts
1967: Immermann Prize
1971: Andreas-Gryphius-Prize by the guild of artists
1977: Scholarship of the European forum of literature
1982: Cultural Honorary Prize by the city of Munich
1983: Arno-Schmidt-Prize
1984: Prize of the Pommeranian association of refugees and expellees from the same region
1990: He was given an honorary doctorate by the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald.
1993: Federal Service Cross, First Class
1994: He was given the freedom of the town of Greifswald.

Koeppen died in Munich on 15 March 1996.

He wrote novels, scripts, travel reports, essays and an autobiography. The International Koeppen Society attends to his works.

Heinrich Count of Lehndorff-Steinort, lieutenant of the reserves, was born in Hanover on 22 June 1909. He studied economics and business management in Frankfurt-on-Main. As from 1936 he managed the family's estate. Lehndorff-Steinort took part in the military campaign against Poland and became a staff member of the army group "Mitte". He belonged to the anti-Hitler resistance group of Henning of Tresckow. Lieutenant Claus Schenk of Stauffenberg, the organizer of a coup d'etat against the nazi-regime, wanted him to be a liaison officer to the military office in Königsberg. When the assassination attempt on Hitler's life failed on 20 July 1944 he was sentenced to death by the NS People's Court and executed in Berlin-Plötzensee on 4 September 1944.

The graphic artist Lieselotte Plangger-Popp was born on the estate of Karlsfeld near Czychen on 31 May 1913. She lived in Königsberg from 1922 to 1938. During this time she attended the girls' grammar school in the suburb of Hufen and passed her A-levels. From 1933 to 1936 she attended designer classes at the training school for master craftsmen. After that she worked at the studio of the publishers Gräfe and Unzner until 1938. Then she got a job with a graphics firm in Hanover. There she attended evening classes and was trained in the technique of wood carving by Professor Karl Dröge. She made the acquaintance of the artist Ernst Barlach. During World War II she was head of a workshop at a publishing house in Innsbruck. After World War II she attended classes in Haimhausen with Professor Adolf Schinner and Professor Willy Geiger from the Munich academy. In 1954 Lieselotte Popp married the sculptor Hans Plangger in Bozen.
Works: Pen-and-ink drawings, etchings, woodcuts and wood engravings with motifs from East Prussia and South Tyrol, on the subjects of flight and expulsion and about trips to Italy (Ischia) and Greece (Ägina)
In 1982 Planger-Popp received the East Prussian cultural award for visual art of the association of refugees and expellees from East Prussia. In the same year she was given the freedom of the town of Haimhausen.
She died in Meran in South Tyrol on 19 December 2002.

The arranger Jo Plée was born in Ortelsburg on 28 April 1923. He passed his A-levels in 1941. Having been released from captivity in 1946 he studied harmony, instrumentation, conducting and the piano at the Stern conservatory in Berlin. When he was a student he arranged music for dancing bands. Beginning in 1948 arrangements for small ensembles and for entertainment orchestras in sinfonic instrumentation and big bands of all shades followed. In 1950 he was a co-founder of the association of German arrangers. In the decades to follow he arranged numerous recordings for very famous pop singers. He was the musical manager of several TV shows. In 1989 he became president of the association of German arrangers and in 1992 chairman of the assessment commission of arrangers in the GEMA . He is a member of the association of German composers. In 2003 he became an "Honorary Singer" of the "Schöneberger Sängerknaben".

The writer Siegfried Lenz was born in Lyck on 17 March 1925. In 1943 he was recruited to the navy. In early 1945 he deserted the navy in Denmark. He studied philosophy, history of literature and English language and literature in Hamburg. In 1950 he got the post of the editor of feature pages of the newspaper "Die Welt" and he also worked for the radio. He started writing as a freelance writer in Hamburg in 1951, and he has written many novels, stories, essays and features since then.Temporarily he belonged to the Group 47 (an afterwar group of writers). Besides the portrayal of present-day people he has also preserved a loving memory of the people in old Masuria. In 1984 he got the Thomas-Mann-Prize and in 1988 the Peace Prize of the German book trade. In 1999 he was awarded the Goethe-Prize of the city of Frankfurt-on-Main. On 9 November 2002 Siegfried Lenz received the special prize of the Bavarian prime minister for his life's work on the occasion of the awarding of the international book prize "Corine" 2002 in Munich. In the years 2002 and 2003 he held lectures on Heine as a guest professor at the university of Düsseldorf. On 2 December 2004 Lenz was given the freedom of the Federal State of Schleswig-Holstein. In 2009 he received the Lew Kopelew prize for peace and human rights.

His works have been translated into 22 languages and reached a total circulation of over 20 million copies.

Opinions about Lenz:
Marcel Reich-Ranitzki: ... a serene observer of life
Günter Grass: His literary reliability is of great quality. He has always surprised me with unique works.

The journalist and film producer Dietrich Wawzyn was born in Willudden on 7 February 1928. From 1937 to 1944 he visited the Hindenburg School in Angerburg, which he left with the war high school diploma. Wawzyn studied philology and sport at the university of Hamburg. At first he was active as a journalist and after that he produced films. He belongs to the pioneers, who documented the origins of jazz in picture and sound. In the early sixties he therefore travelled to the USA and to Africa. He has made films about the lives of musicians. Wawzyn now lives in Switzerland.
Selection:
DVD His Story of Jazz

Richard Anders was born on 25 April 1928 in Ortelsburg. He finished his studies in 1959. Then he taught German in Athens and at the university of Zagreb. In 1965 he became an archives editor in Hamburg. He has been a freelance writer in Berlin since 1970. He has written poems, a story and a novel.

The writer, essayist and publisher Herbert Reinoss was born in Rydzewen in 1935.

The historian Lothar Gall was born in Lötzen on 3 December 1936. Starting in 1968 he taught at the university of the town of Giessen for some years. From 1975 to 2005 he held the chair of middle and newer history at the Goethe University of the town of Frankfort-on-Main. Since 1975 he has been publishing the magazine "Historische Zeitschrift" (Historical Magazine). His work focuses on research into the liberal bourgeoisie of the 19th and 20th century. Since 1977 Gall has been a member of the historical commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Since 1989 he has been a corresponding member of the philosophical-historical class of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. From 1992 to 1996 Gall was chairman of the German association of historians. In 1997 he became the president of the historical commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the commission for the history of parlamentarianism and political parties. Gall has been awarded the Leibniz and the Balzan prizes. He assumed the scientific counsel for the exhibition "Strike - Reality and Myth" which was opened in the German Historical Museum in December 2002.

The scriptwriter, dramaturge, producer and painter Werner Kließ was born in Stoosznen on 24 December 1939. He studied German and drama in Hamburg. At first he worked as a film critic for the magazine "film". In 1968 he was a member of the selection commission at the XIVth West German Festival of Short Films in Oberhausen. From 1969 to 1980 Kließ was a literary manager and producer at the film company Bavaria in Munich. After that he became an editor responsible for crime film serials with the television channel ZDF. In the mid-eighties of the past century he became an independent producer and partner of the production companies Odeon, Monaco, Nostro Film and Borussia Media. Kließ has talked in lectures, e.g. at the media days of the Protestant Academy Tutzing, about the experience he gained on his jobs. For a film produced by the German Picture and Television Academy Berlin, which ran on the rbb-television channel in 2005, he gave the dramatic advice. Presently, Kließ lives as a freelance painter in Berlin.