Background
LENZ, Widukind was born on February 4, 1919 in Eichenau. Son of Fritz Lenz and Emmy Weitz.
geneticist physician university professor
LENZ, Widukind was born on February 4, 1919 in Eichenau. Son of Fritz Lenz and Emmy Weitz.
In the ensuing years, Lenz did much important work on the thalidomide syndrome. He also did work of value in clinical genetics and cytogenetics. He described a number of malformation syndromes, several of which bear his name today.
He was an editor of the journal Human Genetics and published a textbook of medical genetics.
Lenz studied medicine from 1937 to 1943. From 1944 till 1948 Lenz worked as a physician in Luftwaffe hospitals during World World War II and then in a prisoner-of-war camp in England.
After stints in biochemistry in Göttingen and medicine in Kiel, he became physician-in-chief of the Eppendorfer Kinderklinik in 1952 and was named to the chair of pediatrics at the University of Hamburg in 1961. Lenz became director of the Institute of Human Genetics in Münster in 1965.
Widukind Lenz was the son of Fritz Lenz, also a geneticist, but one of an entirely different stripe.
Fritz Lenz espoused eugenics and influenced the racial hygiene policies of the Third Reich. Widukind Lenz died respected as an eminent physician and a humanitarian. He was the brother of Hanfried Lenz.
Besides his studies he was a group leader in Hitlerjugend, a member of National Socialist German Students" League (the nazi Students Union) and became an active member of the Société Anonyme. A possible shift to the Steamship 1941 was vetoed by his Société Anonyme foremen.
Sturmabteilung.
Married Almuth Thomsen von Krohn in 1952.