Widukind Lenz (4 February 1919,

Eichenau Eichenau is a municipality in the district of Fürstenfeldbruck, in Bavaria, Germany. It is 20 km west of Munich (centre). Eichenau was officially named in 1907 as a separate settlement to the community of Alling. Its location is due to ...

– 25 February 1995) was a distinguished

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

pediatrician,

medical geneticist Medical genetics is the branch tics in that human genetics is a field of scientific research that may or may not apply to medicine, while medical genetics refers to the application of genetics to medical care. For example, research on the caus ...

and dysmorphologist who was among the first to recognize the thalidomide syndrome in 1961 and alert the world to the dangers of limb and other malformations due to the mother's exposure to this drug during pregnancy. In the ensuing years, Lenz did much important work on the thalidomide syndrome. He also did work of value in clinical genetics and

cytogenetics Cytogenetics is essentially a branch of genetics, but is also a part of cell biology/cytology (a subdivision of human anatomy), that is concerned with how the chromosomes relate to cell behaviour, particularly to their behaviour during mitosis an ...

. 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. Besides his studies he was a group leader in

Hitlerjugend The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926 ...

, a member of

National Socialist German Students' League The National Socialist German Students' Union (German: ''Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund'', abbreviated NSDStB) was founded in 1926 as a division of the Nazi Party with the mission of integrating University-level education and aca ...

(the Nazi students' union) and became an active member of the SA.

Ernst Klee Ernst Klee (15 March 1942, Frankfurt – 18 May 2013, Frankfurt) was a German journalist and author. As a writer on Germany's history, he was best known for his exposure and documentation of medical crimes in Nazi Germany, much of which was concer ...

: ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945''. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, , p. 367. A possible shift to the SS 1941 was vetoed by his SA foremen. From 1944 till 1948 Lenz worked as a physician in

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

hospitals during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

and then in a prisoner-of-war camp in England. After stints in

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The ori ...

and medicine in

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...

, he became physician-in-chief of the Eppendorfer Kinderklinik in 1952 and was named to the chair of pediatrics at the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (german: link=no, Universität Hamburg, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vo ...

in 1961. Lenz became director of the Institute of Human Genetics in

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state di ...

in 1965. Widukind Lenz was the son of

Fritz Lenz Fritz Gottlieb Karl Lenz (9 March 1887 in Pflugrade, Pomerania – 6 July 1976 in Göttingen, Lower Saxony) was a German geneticist, member of the Nazi Party,eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior o ...

and influenced the

racial hygiene The term racial hygiene was used to describe an approach to eugenics in the early 20th century, which found its most extensive implementation in Nazi Germany (Nazi eugenics). It was marked by efforts to avoid miscegenation, analogous to an animal ...

policies of the

Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. Widukind Lenz died respected as an eminent physician and a humanitarian. He was the younger brother of mathematician

Hanfried Lenz Hanfried Lenz (22 April 1916 in Munich1 June 2013 in Berlin) was a German mathematician, who is mainly known for his work in geometry and combinatorics. Hanfried Lenz was the eldest son of Fritz Lenz an influential German geneticist, who is ass ...

References

External links

Dr. Widukind Lenz: History of Contergan (Thalidomide)
Extract from a lecture by Widukind Lenz on the history of Contergan (Thalidomide) given at the 1992 UNITH Congress—with a photograph of Widukind Lenz

by Ole Daniel Enersen on th
Whonamedit site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lenz, Widukind 1919 births 1995 deaths People from Fürstenfeldbruck (district) German pediatricians German geneticists Medical geneticists University of Greifswald alumni Academic staff of the University of Münster Hitler Youth members Nazi Party members Sturmabteilung personnel Luftwaffe personnel of World War II German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United Kingdom