Ludwig Levy-Lenz (1892-1966)

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Ludwig Levy-Lenz was born in Poznan in 1892 and studied medicine in Heidelberg, Munich and Breslau. At the beginning of the First World War, he set up a special hospital for reconstructive surgery and orthopedics as a soldier in Poznan. Due to the tragic disfigurement caused by the War, plastic surgery and orthopedics experienced their breakthrough , and Levy-Lenz also gained important surgical and technical experience that was to shape his work.

After the war, he opened a practice in Berlin in 1918 at Rosenthaler Straße 2 on the 2nd floor.

As early as 1919, he produced the brochure “How can I protect myself from sexually transmitted diseases?”, which was advertised and distributed in public toilets. He regularly published his medical findings and demanded the legalization of abortion. In 1930, he compiled what was probably the world’s first medical book on the subject of abortion.

Ludwig Levy-Lenz simply saw sexual life as “the most important chapter of our short lives”, and it became his defining topic during his time in Berlin. He was a companion of Magnus Hirschfeld and worked from 1926 at his Institute for Sexual Science, the first of its kind in the world. He headed the women’s department and set up a sexual counseling center together with Magnus Hirschfeld. He quickly became the surgeon responsible for surgical gender reassignment and developed advanced surgical techniques for gender reassignment, which included facial features as well as more complex procedures such as uterine or breast removals.

In 1926, he moved his practice and place of residence to Ahornallee 51 in Berlin Charlottenburg. There, in 1930, he was involved in the first complete gender reassignment surgery including vaginoplasty for the patient Dora Richter where he performed the penis amputation. Other patients included Charlotte Charlaque, Toni Ebel and Lili Elbe. The last of these is known to a wider audience through the film “The Danish Girl”, a painter from Denmark who underwent gender reassignment surgery in Berlin and Dresden. Unfortunately, she died of complications after the 4th operation in Dresden.

Much of what happened at the time was experimental medicine on humans, but many of the suffering trans* people insisted on this from the doctors. In his memoirs, Levy-Lenz writes “I have never operated on more grateful patients”, which underlines the profound significance of these procedures for those affected. He mentions a 16-year-old patient who injured herself in order to force a breast removal. The doctors may have been motivated by the urge to help, but certainly also by scientific prestige. As far as we know, Dora Richter was able to live her life as a woman thanks to the successful operations.

Levy-Lenz emigrated to Paris in 1933. When he suspected an easing of anti-Semitism in the run-up to the Olympic Games, he returned to Berlin in 1936. He opened a cosmetic surgery practice on Kurfürstendamm, only to emigrate again in the same year. This time to Egypt, where he practiced successfully as a cosmetic surgeon. After the war, he lived and worked in Baden-Baden and Cairo, returning to Berlin in 1965.

In addition to all his achievements and the courage to break new ground, he also chose critical paths. In 1921, he tried rejuvenation operations by means of ligature of the spermatic cords and published on the subject in 1921. However, he soon distanced himself from this medical field.

In his memoirs in 1951, Levy-Lenz remembers the trans* people who worked at the institute, such as Dora Richter: “The question of finding work was also difficult for the transvestites.(…) Since we knew this and only a few companies employed transvestite staff, we employed such people in our own institute as far as we could. For example, we had five maids – all transvestite men, and I’ll never forget the sight that presented itself to me when I was once walked into the kitchen of the house after work: the five girls were sitting peacefully next to each other knitting and sewing and singing old folk songs together. In any case, they were the best, most diligent and conscientious house staff we have ever had. No stranger who visited us ever noticed any of this…”

Ludwig Levy Lenz died in Munich in 1966. His grave was rediscovered in 2022 and can be found in the New Jewish Cemetery in Munich.