Wynder, Ernest Ludwig (32926486)

Ernest Ludwig Wynder
Personal details
Birth name	Ernst Ludwig Wynder
Born	30 April 1922 Herford, Westphalia
Died	14 July 1999 Manhattan, New York
Nativity	Germany
Religion	Jewish
Known for	Linking smoking with lung cancer
Awards	Robert Koch Prize (gold, 1990)
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Army
ASN	32926486
Rank	Private
Camp Ritchie	Class 17 (11 March – 8 May 1944)
Enlisted	Newark, New Jersey

Awards and honors

• Robert Koch Prize (Gold, 1990)

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Ernest Ludwig Wynder (30 April 1922 – 14 July 1999), born Ernst Ludwig Wynder in Herford, Germany, was a Jewish Ritchie Boy and later an American epidemiologist and public-health researcher. With Evarts A. Graham he published the landmark 1950 Journal of the American Medical Association study that helped identify smoking as a contributory cause of lung cancer—work that shaped decades of cancer prevention research.

Biography

Ernst Ludwig Wynder was born on 30 April 1922 in Herford, Westphalia, to Jewish parents; he was a cousin of Robert Weinberg. In 1938 his family escaped Nazi Germany for the United States, where he enrolled at New York University.

Roster and enlistment records list him as Ernest L Wynder (ASN 32926486), a German-born Jewish trainee; he enlisted as a private at Newark, New Jersey, on 7 June 1943, with four years of college noted on his service record. He was at Camp Ritchie with Class 17 but did not graduate, being dropped and assigned to the 5th Mobile Radio Broadcasting Company. He became a U.S. citizen during the war, and as a German speaker served in psychological warfare, monitoring German newscasts. He appears in a wartime group photograph of Ritchie Boys with Hans Habe, Konrad Kellen, Stefan Heym, Louis Atlas, Peter Weidenreich (later Wyden), and Joseph Eaton.

After the war Wynder studied medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, receiving both a Bachelor of Science and an M.D. in 1950. In the summer of 1946 he had studied the smoking habits of 146 lung cancer patients in New York City, and from 1947, as a medical student, he worked with the thoracic surgeon Evarts A. Graham, collecting data on 604 lung cancer patients in hospitals across the country and comparing them with a cancer-free control group. Their paper, "Tobacco Smoking as a Possible Etiologic Factor in Bronchiogenic Carcinoma: A Study of 684 Proved Cases", published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on 27 May 1950, was one of the first major scientific studies to identify smoking as a contributory cause of lung cancer. Follow-up laboratory work begun with Graham in 1950 showed that cigarette tar produced cancers in 44 percent of exposed mice, and Wynder identified carcinogens such as benzopyrenes and arsenic in tobacco tar.

Through the 1950s and 1960s Wynder worked at the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. A physician, researcher, educator, and activist devoted to the prevention of cancer and chronic disease, he published nearly 800 papers, chiefly on lung and breast cancer but also on cancers of the bladder, larynx, colon, stomach, ovary, prostate, pancreas, and kidney, including a major 1960 study of the epidemiology of breast cancer. He founded the American Health Foundation in 1969 and in 1972 founded the journal Preventive Medicine, serving as its founding editor. He received the Robert Koch Prize (Gold) in 1990. Wynder died of thyroid cancer on 14 July 1999.

Gallery

• 
  All the men identified in the pix are "Ritchie Boys." Seated - Hans Habe. Standing L-R - Unknown, Ernest Wynder, Konrad Kellen, unknown, Stefan Heym, Louis Atlas, Peter Weidenreich (last name later changed to Wyden), unknown, Joseph Eaton

Technical record

Field	Imported value
Approx Age at Death	77
Nara ASN	32926486
Nara Name	WYNDER ERNEST
Nara State	22
Nara County	13
Nara POE	2252
Nara DOE	70643
Nara Grade Alpha	PVT
Nara Grade Code	8
Nara Branch Alpha	NO
Nara Branch Code	2
Branch	No branch assignment
Nara Term or Enlistment	5
Term of enlistment	Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law
Defer. Date	0
Nara Source	0
Nara Nativity	N1
Nara Year of Birth	22
Nara Race	J
Nara Race Description	White not yet a citizen
Nara Education	8
Nara Civilian Occupation	992
Nara Marital Status	6
Nara Height (inches)	43
Nara Weight (lbs)	444
row_source	demographics

Timeline

• 7 June 1943 — Enlisted in Army at Newark, NJ as Pvt (ASN: 32926486).
• Summer 1946 — Studied smoking habits of lung cancer patients in New York City.
• 1950 — B.S. and M.D., Washington University in St. Louis.
• 27 May 1950 — Wynder–Graham smoking and lung cancer study published in JAMA.
• 1969 — Founded the American Health Foundation.
• 1972 — Founded the journal Preventive Medicine.
• 14 July 1999 — Died.
• Non-graduate of Class 17 (‘dropped’ and assigned to MRBC5).

Sources

• Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data
• Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records
• NARA World War II Army enlistment records (where a NARA ASN is present)
• 1940 U.S. Census (where a census match is present)
• Ritchie Boys of WWII Facebook page, post dated 2021-08-11 (1 post)
• Wikipedia: Ernst Wynder
• Dan Gross, Timeline of Ernest L Wynder for Camp Ritchie (private research document; 1 source documents reviewed)
• Dan Gross, Timeline of Wynder, Ernest L for Camp Ritchie (private research files; selected non-private narrative findings; 1 source files: ERNEST WYNDER.docx)