Wynder, Ernest L (32926486)

Ernest L Wynder
Personal details
Birth name	Ernst Ludwig Wynder
Born	30 April 1922 Herford, Westphalia
Died	14 July 1999 Manhattan, New York, US
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)

Research notes on this page are compiled from the source file and later edits. They may be unverified, incomplete, or incorrect, and should not be treated as established fact. Please correct the article or add sources on the talk page. For class-roster terms, see About the data.

Sources & confidence: Treat Research notes as leads, not settled fact. Prefer NARA, the class roster, newspapers, Find a Grave, or published histories for contested claims. Mark unsourced claims with {{Needs source}}, or explain disagreements on talk. Baseline import notes: About the data.

Ernest L. 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 (30 April 1922 – 14 July 1999), known as Ernest L. Wynder, was born in Herford, Westphalia, to Jewish parents. In 1938 his family fled Nazi Germany for the United States, where he enrolled at New York University. He trained at Camp Ritchie and served in the Army as a German speaker, including psychological warfare work monitoring German newscasts. He appears in a wartime group photograph of Ritchie Boys at Camp Ritchie with Konrad Kellen, Stefan Heym, Louis Atlas, Peter Weidenreich, and Joseph Eaton (see gallery caption).

After the war Wynder studied medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, receiving both a Bachelor of Science and an M.D. in 1950. With thoracic surgeon Evarts A. Graham he published the landmark 1950 Journal of the American Medical Association study "Tobacco Smoking as a Possible Etiologic Factor in Bronchiogenic Carcinoma," one of the first major papers linking smoking to lung cancer. Follow-up laboratory work showed that cigarette tar could produce cancers in mice.

Wynder spent the 1950s and 1960s at the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, published hundreds of papers on cancer epidemiology, founded the American Health Foundation in 1969, and in 1972 founded the journal Preventive Medicine. He received the Robert Koch Prize (Gold) in 1990.

Research notes

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Wynder

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

• 4/30/1922 Born as Ernst Ludwig Wynder in Herford, Germany. Jewish parents.
• 6/7/1943 Enlisted in Army at Newark, NJ as Pvt (ASN: 32926486).
• 3/11/1944 Started Class 17.
• 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)