In 1906, Lenz graduated from the Klinger-Oberralschule, a non-classical secondary school in Frankfurt, and went to study mathematics and physics at the
University of Göttingen. From 1908 to 1911, Lenz studied under
Arnold Sommerfeld, at the
University of Munich, and he was granted his doctorate on March 2, 1911. Upon graduation, he stayed on at the university, became Sommerfeld’s assistant on April 1, 1911, and he completed his
Habilitation on February 20, 1914, becoming a
Privatdozent on April 4, 1914. During
World War I, he served as a radio operator in
France and was awarded the
Iron Cross Second Class in 1916. From September 30, 1920, he was again an assistant to Sommerfeld at the University of Munich’s Institute of Theoretical Physics, and he was appointed to the title and rank of extraordinarius professor at the university, on November 11, 1920. On December 1, 1920 he became an extraordinarius professor at the
University of Rostock. From 1921, until his retirement in 1956, he was at the
University of Hamburg, as ordinarius professor of theoretical physics and director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics. The formation of the new chair and institute for theoretical physics at Hamburg was a result of advances being made in Germany on
atomic physics and
quantum mechanics and the personal intervention of Sommerfeld, who helped many of his students get such professorships. At Hamburg, Lenz trained
Ernst Ising and
J. Hans D. Jensen; his assistants there included
Wolfgang Pauli,
Pascual Jordan, and
Albrecht Unsöld. Together with Pauli and
Otto Stern, Lenz built up the institute into an international center for nuclear physics. They maintained close scientific and personal exchanges with the institutes for theoretical physics at the Universities in Munich (Sommerfeld), Göttingen (
Max Born), and
Copenhagen (
Niels Bohr). When Lenz retired in 1956 he was succeeded by
Harry Lehmann. ==Books==