Alright, so I solved it the way I would call ugly, i.e. manipulating the book-class. Here is my minimum example which meets all the requirements demanded in the thread-opening. Just in case, someone else wants something similar:
\documentclass{book}
\newcommand\contributionauthor{}
\newcommand\contributiontitle{}
\newcommand\ctitle{}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%% chapter and section %%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% to supress "chapter n" before each chapter we use \chapter*
% the solution with titlesec
% \usepackage{titlesec}
% \titleformat{\chapter}[display]
% {\normalfont\bfseries}{}{0\Large\centering\scshapet}{\huge}
% does not work, since it seems to interfer with \usepackage{sectsty}
% which we want to use lateron to center the chapter- and section headings
% since we want the section numbering to start from 1 in each contribution
% we have to tell \chapter* to reset the section counter
% for the same reason we have to reset the footnote counter
\newcommand*\contribution{\setcounter{section}{0} \setcounter{footnote}{0}\chapter}
%center chapter, section, subsection and subsubsection headings
\usepackage{sectsty}
\allsectionsfont{\centering}
%let section numbering start at "1." (instead of "0.1")
\renewcommand\thesection{\arabic{section}}
% show \contributionauthor after title oft chapter
\usepackage{suffix}
\newcommand\chapterauthor{\printchapterauthor{\contributionauthor}\authortoc
{\contributionauthor}}\WithSuffix\newcommand\chapterauthor*[1]
{\printchapterauthor{#1}}
\makeatletter
\newcommand{\printchapterauthor}[1]{%
{\parindent0pt\vspace*{-35pt}%
\linespread{1.1}\Large\centering\scshape#1%
\par\nobreak\vspace*{40pt}}
\@afterheading%
}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%% headers %%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
% clear header
\fancyhead{}
% show author of the contribution in the header of even pages
\fancyhead[CE]{\textsc{\contributionauthor}}
% show title of the contribution in the header of odd pages
\fancyhead[CO]{\contributiontitle}
% activate the headerstyle
\pagestyle{fancy}
% suppress header on those empty pages standardly produced by \cleardoublepage
% (in twosided documents \cleardoublepage lets every new chapter start on an odd page)
\makeatletter
\renewcommand*{\cleardoublepage}{\clearpage\if@twoside \ifodd\c@page\else
\hbox{}%
\thispagestyle{empty}%
\newpage%
\if@twocolumn\hbox{}\newpage\fi\fi\fi}
\makeatother
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%% table of contents %%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% show \contributionauthor in toc
\newcommand{\authortoc}[1]{%
\addtocontents{toc}{\vskip -35pt}%
\addtocontents{toc}{%
\protect\contentsline{chapter}%
{\mdseries\scshape\protect\normalsize#1}{}{}}
\addtocontents{toc}{\vskip 35pt}%
}
% set depth of toc 0, so only chaptertitles appear, no section or subsections
\setcounter{tocdepth}{0}
\makeatother
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%% document itself %%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\renewcommand\ctitle{First Contribution}
\contribution*{\ctitle}\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\ctitle}
\renewcommand\contributiontitle{First Contribution}
\renewcommand\contributionauthor{Jane Doe}
\chapterauthor{}
\section{Section}
\subsection{Subsection}
\subsubsection{Subsubsection}
This is to show you that headings of sections and subsections and subsubsections are centered.\footnote{This is the first footnote.}
\newpage
\section{Another Section}
This page only exists to show you that header-behaviour is working on verso and recto pages.\footnote{This is the second footnote}
\newpage
This page only exists to show you that header-behaviour is working on verso and recto pages. Also have a look on the next (completely) blank page, which is automatically added by \textbackslash cleardoublepage to ensure that next chapter starts on an odd page. It does not have a header nor a footer.
\renewcommand\ctitle{Second Contribution}
\contribution*{\ctitle}\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\ctitle}
\renewcommand\contributiontitle{Second Contribution}
\renewcommand\contributionauthor{John Doe}
\chapterauthor{}
\section{Again, a new section}
But since it is part of new contribution, it is numbered by "1."\footnote{This is the third footnote in the document, but the first in the current contribution, so it is numbered by "1"}
\section{One remark on the definition of a new contribution title}
We want the same title to appear in toc and in the heading of the contribution. That's why the title of the contribution is given to \{\}ctitle to print it in the chapter-title and in the toc. But the contribution title must not be given to the fancyheader before the \textbackslash chapter*, since else the header would change even one page before.
\end{document}
dtk.cls. But you will be much faster and much safer simply implementing everything you need yourself usingbook,memoirorscrbook. Right now, there might be a class that fullfills your nedds, but doing every requirement in an answer would be too much. – Johannes_B Mar 01 '15 at 20:32