Auguste Kerckhoffs

Auguste Kerckhoffs (19 January 1835 – 9 August 1903) was a Dutch linguist and cryptographer who was professor of languages at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales in Paris in the late 19th century.

Kerckhoffs was born in Nuth, the Netherlands, as Jean Guillaume Auguste Victor François Hubert Kerckhoffs, son of Jean Guillaume Kerckhoffs, mayor of the village of Nuth, and Jeanette Elisabeth Lintjens. Kerckhoffs studied at the University of Liège. After a period of teaching in schools in the Netherlands and France, he became a professor of German at the Parisian École des Hautes Études Commerciales and the École Arago.