Frank Hadesbeck was born in Austro-Hungary on May 17, 1906 the son of John Hadesbeck and Margaret Kleisinger. He came to Regina with his parents in October 1906. He attended Graton, St. Mary's and St. Joseph's Schools in Regina. Hadesbeck worked as a labourer and lived for a time on a farm near Aylesbury before moving to Clinton, Iowa. He returned to Saskatchewan in the 1920s. He also participated in the Spanish Civil War.

Kuonrad Georg Josef Haderlein was born in 1932 in Berlin. He studied at the Universities of Erlangen, Göttingen, and the Free University of Berlin, prior to emigrating to Canada in 1959. Haderlein earned an MA from the University of Alberta in 1961, and joined the faculty at the University of Saskatchewan in 1964, as an Instructor in Germanic Languages. He earned his PhD, also from the University of Alberta, in 1971 and by 1993 had achieved the rank of Full Professor at the University of Saskatchewan. His areas of specialization are remarkable for their diversity: late 20th century German theatre, the Medieval heroic epic, and 13th century narratives. Additionally, he edited and wrote for the Canada-Mongolia Review. Haderlein is also the only significant German-born poet in Canada writing in the German language. He passed away in 2012.