Martin Gumpert

Born in Berlin on November 12, 1897, Martin Gumpert was a German-born physician and writer who became known for blending medicine, biography, and literature. He trained as a doctor and built a career in Berlin before the rise of Nazism pushed him to leave Germany.

He emigrated to the United States in 1936 and later became an American citizen. Alongside his medical work, he wrote biographies, novels, and nonfiction, often drawing on his knowledge of illness and the lives of notable historical figures. His work is also remembered for its connection to the wider literary world: he shared medical information with Thomas Mann while Mann was working on Doctor Faustus.

Gumpert died on April 18, 1955. Today he is remembered as a physician-author whose life reflected both the intellectual energy of prewar Berlin and the upheaval faced by Jewish émigré writers in the twentieth century.