Ferdinand Mainzer (16 January 1871 – 3 January 1943) was a German-Jewish gynaecologist and historical author.
Born 16 January 1871,Thomas Corinth, ed., Lovis Corinth: eine Dokumentation, Wasmuth, 1979, p.377 Mainzer wrote his doctoral dissertation on wandering spleen. In the 1890s he worked at the Berlin clinic of the gynecologist Leopold Landau.British Gynaecological Journal, Vol. 12 (1896), p.546The American journal of obstetrics and diseases of women and children, Vol. 36 (1897), p.170
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.Horst Uhr, Lovis Corinth, p.117 After a hand injury meant that he could no longer perform surgery, he turned to writing about antiquity.Konrad Weber, Prof. Dr. Dr. Friedrich Erxleben, October 2008. He was interested in numismatics, and a friend of the numismatist Edward Gans.Eduard Gans Family Collection 1796-1982 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.Richard Henry Goldstone, Thornton Wilder: an intimate portrait, Saturday Review Press, 1975, p.126
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. 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.Peter J. Hempenstall & Paula Tanaka Mochida, The lost man: Wilhelm Solf in German history, p.233
Mainzer died 3 January 1943Another source suggests his year of death as 1944. Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, Vol. 14 (1973), p.276 in Los Angeles. His daughter Lucie Manén married Otto John in 1949.Otto John, Twice through the lines: the autobiography of Otto John, Macmillan, 1972, p.194. 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."Two UK galleries to share portrait of German doctor who resisted Nazis", The Guardian Corinth also painted a portrait of Max entitled Max Mainzer with a Siberian Greyhound (1912).
Works 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.
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