Titus of Lanz

Titus Lanz , since 1918 Ritter von Lanz (born January 4, 1897 in Passau , † February 4, 1967 ) was a German anatomist .

Life

family

He was the son of the Bavarian lieutenant colonel of the same name a. D. and his wife Luise, née Leuze. Lanz married Hertha, née Marcus, on December 27, 1923. He had five children with her. His eldest son died as a soldier in Italy on May 7, 1945, shortly before the end of World War II, and his youngest son Ulrich Lanz (born November 15, 1940 in Munich) also became a doctor and a renowned hand surgeon . After Titus von Lanz's wife died in 1948, he married again.

Military career

Growing up in Ingolstadt and Munich , he left the Maximilians-Gymnasium there and joined the 10th Infantry Regiment "King Ludwig" of the Bavarian Army on February 7, 1916 during the First World War as a volunteer and flag junior . From November 4, 1916, Lanz was an ensign in the 7th Company on the Western Front . There he was promoted to lieutenant on March 6, 1917 and was also used as an orderly officer at the regimental staff until May 7, 1917 . Lanz took part in the trench warfare in Flanders , the spring battle at Arras and the battles for Poelkapelle during the Second Battle of Flanders. At the beginning of 1918 he was engaged in trench warfare in the Artois , where he became leader of the 5th Company. He also led this during the spring offensive at the end of March and then went back to trench warfare. On August 20, 1918, succeeded his lance with only thirty-strong company fend off a French violation and move on to surprise the enemy to counterattack. This measure enabled the positions at Crapeaumesnil to be held. According to the commanding General Theodor von Watter , who was responsible for this section , it also contributed to "raising the moral factor of the entire division to a great extent". For this achievement Lanz was by King Ludwig III. entrusted with the Knight's Cross of the Military Max Joseph Order . Associated with this was the ennoblement in the personal nobility and he was allowed to call himself Ritter von Lanz after being entered in the nobility register .

After the last fighting in the Antwerp-Maas position, after the armistice of Compiègne , Lanz cleared the occupied territory with the remnants of his regiment and began the march back home. Here he was initially on leave after demobilization and then retired from active military service in 1919.

Mediciners

After his departure, Lanz began studying medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich to become a doctor. He completed this in 1922 with a state examination and doctorate . Two years as an assistant to Hermann Stieve in Halle followed . In 1926 he completed his habilitation with a paper on the structure and function of the epididymis , again in Munich; In 1931 he was appointed an extraordinary professor there. Due to his marriage to a Jewish woman , he was temporarily released from university service by the National Socialist rulers in October 1938, but received a research assignment from the Reich Research Office through Ferdinand Sauerbruch . From 1939 to 1945 he headed the research institute "Practical Anatomy".

After the end of the Second World War, Lanz was again appointed professor at Munich University in December 1945, and in June 1947 full professor and director of the anatomical institute there, which he headed beyond the age limit until his death in early 1967.

meaning

Titus von Lanz made contributions to the structure and function of the male gonads and the shape of the membranes of the spinal cord . However, his work “Practical Anatomy, Textbook and Auxiliary Book of the Anatomical Basics of Medical Action”, begun with Werner Wachsmuth , gained special significance . What was new about the presentation of anatomy by von Lanz and Wachsmuth was the consistent orientation towards practical application by the doctor; especially the third volume, published in 1935, dealing with the human arm, also attracted international attention. Even in 1967, when von Lanz died, the work was not completed and was continued by other editors; it was published for the last time in 2004.

literature

• Dieter Buck-Gramcko : A life for hand surgery: 100 life pictures . Steinkopff, Darmstadt 2007, ISBN 978-3-7985-1776-9 . Text on the net
• Herbert Lippert: Titus W.-H. Ritter von Lanz, 1897–1967 . In: Acta Anatomica . tape 84 , 1973, pp. 465-474 . PDF document
• Rudolf von Kramer, Otto Freiherr von Waldenfels: VIRTUTI PRO PATRIA. The Royal Bavarian Military Max Joseph Order. Acts of War and Book of Honor 1914–1918. Self-published by the Royal Bavarian Military Max Joseph Order. Munich 1966. pp. 230, 348.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dieter Buck-Gramcko: Ulrich Lanz for his 70th birthday. In: hand surgery, microsurgery, plastic surgery. Volume 43, No. 3, 2011, p. 194. doi : 10.1055 / s-0031-1275305 .
2. ↑ Ernst Kern : Seeing - Thinking - Acting of a surgeon in the 20th century. ecomed, Landsberg am Lech 2000. ISBN 3-609-20149-5 , p. 34.