Ferdinand Mainzer (16 January 1871 – 3 January 1943) was a German-Jewish gynaecologist and historical author.
Born 16 January 1871,[1] Mainzer wrote his doctoral dissertation on wandering spleen. In the 1890s he worked at the Berlin clinic of the gynecologist Leopold Landau.[2][3]
Mainzer had artistic connections and historical interests. He married Gertrud Sabersky, a student of the artist Walter Leistikow, and his own portrait was painted by Lovis Corinth in 1899.[4] After a hand injury meant that he could no longer perform surgery, he turned to writing about antiquity.[5] He was interested in numismatics, and a friend of the numismatist Edward Gans.[6] His biography of Julius Caesar was translated into French and English, and widely reviewed. The book inspired Thornton Wilder to write his own novel about Caesar, The Ides of March.[7]
Mainzer was a close friend of the Catholic priest Friedrich von Erxleben, who was a member of the Solf Circle of intellectuals involved in the resistance against Nazism.[5] Mainzer and his family were helped to escape to England by the daughter of Wilhelm and Hanna Solf, the Countess So'oa'emalelagi "Lagi" von Ballestrem-Solf, who escorted them with their jewellery hidden in the lining of her clothes.[8]
Mainzer died 3 January 1943[1][9] in Los Angeles.[10] His daughter Lucie Manén married Otto John in 1949.[11] He also had a son Max Mainzer (1902–1987) who married Eva Perlis (1908–2006). In May 2021, a portrait of Ferdinand Mainzer by Lovis Corinth was accepted for the nation in lieu of a UK inheritance tax bill.[12] Corinth also painted a portrait of Max entitled Max Mainzer with a Siberian Greyhound (1912).
Works
edit- Wandermilz und Splenektomie, München: J. F. Lehmann, 1892
- 'Das Dekadrachmon von Athen', Zeitschrift für Numismatik, vol. 36 (1926), pp. 37–54
- Siciliana aus griechisch-römischer Zeit, Berlin: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1930.
- Clodia: Politik und Liebe auf dem Palatin, Berlin: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1931.
- Der Kampf um Caesars Erbe, Leipzig: E.P. Tal, 1934. Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul as Caesar's mantle; the end of the Roman republic, New York: Viking, 1936.
References
edit- ^ a b Thomas Corinth, ed., Lovis Corinth: eine Dokumentation, Wasmuth, 1979, p.377
- ^ British Gynaecological Journal, Vol. 12 (1896), p.546
- ^ The American journal of obstetrics and diseases of women and children, Vol. 36 (1897), p.170
- ^ Horst Uhr, Lovis Corinth, p.117
- ^ a b Konrad Weber, Prof. Dr. Dr. Friedrich Erxleben, October 2008.
- ^ Eduard Gans Family Collection 1796-1982
- ^ Richard Henry Goldstone, Thornton Wilder: an intimate portrait, Saturday Review Press, 1975, p.126
- ^ Peter J. Hempenstall & Paula Tanaka Mochida, The lost man: Wilhelm Solf in German history, p.233
- ^ Another source suggests his year of death as 1944. Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, Vol. 14 (1973), p.276
- ^ Marcus, Jadob Rader; Daniels, Judith M., eds. (1994). The concise dictionary of American Jewish biography. Vol. 2. L–Z. Brooklyn, New York: Carlson. ISBN 0-926019-74-0.
- ^ Otto John, Twice through the lines: the autobiography of Otto John, Macmillan, 1972, p.194.
- ^ "Two UK galleries to share portrait of German doctor who resisted Nazis", The Guardian