When Ludwig Guttmann was knighted by Queen Elisabeth II in 1966, his life's work was already world famous: the Paralympic Games.
After fleeing the Nazis into exile in England, the Jewish neurologist provided a completely new perspective on paraplegia in the post-war period - and enabled disabled athletes to compete.
The neuroscientists Hartmut Collmann and Daniel Dubinski have researched the fate of brain surgeons persecuted after 1933 and traced Guttmann's life in the specialist book "Verrats - Vertrieb - Vergessen".
He was born on July 3, 1899 in the small Silesian town of Tost (Toszek) as the first child of the spirits manufacturer Bernhard Guttmann and his wife Dorothea, shortly afterwards the family moved to Königshütte (Chorzów).
In 1917, shortly before the end of the First World War, Ludwig graduated from high school and became an auxiliary nurse in the accident hospital.
Many war invalids were treated there.
The encounter with a young soldier who was paralyzed and died in agony never let go of him.
A year later the young Guttmann began his medical studies in Breslau (Wrozław), after stays in Freiburg and Würzburg he received his doctorate in 1923. His parents were now financially in need: Because of the German-Polish conflict over Upper Silesia they had to move to Breslau and sell the spirits factory - when inflation set in, your money was soon worthless.
He believed the Nazi ghost would soon end
Guttmann, meanwhile married, worked in the neurological department of the Wenzel-Hancke-Hospital in Breslau.
Although his boss Otfried Foerster was a luminary, Guttmann preferred to become a pediatrician, but couldn't find a suitable position.
So he studied with Foerster for three years.
He then became senior physician at the Friedrichsberg State Hospital in Hamburg.
His outstanding work opened up great career opportunities for him.
But a tragedy occurred in his home town of Breslau: Foerster's senior physician lost his wife in childbirth, killed the newborn and himself. At Foerster's request, Guttmann returned and took this position out of loyalty to his teacher.
On April 1, 1933, Guttmann was dismissed: he was banned from working because he was Jewish.
Foerster protested immediately, but only managed to keep Guttmann in employment "until a suitable Aryan successor" was found.
When Foerster asked him to accept this humiliation, Guttmann reacted with angry refusal and now lodged a protest himself - thereupon the Nazis brought informers into position against him.
In the "Third Reich" the nationwide book burnings followed on May 10th.
And in Breslau, University Director Karl Bornhausen gave a hate speech, which Guttmann was horrified to attend.
On the way home, tears came to him.
Nevertheless, he turned down job offers from abroad - still convinced that the spook would soon be over.
From Wroclaw to Oxford
Guttmann took over the management of a polyclinic set up especially for him in the city's Israelite hospital.
As a Jew, he was allowed to continue to work there.
And the rush of patients who were no longer allowed to see "Aryan" doctors made for a lot of work.
Guttmann did not want to give in, founded an association of Jewish doctors in 1934 and became medical director of the hospital three years later.
When the Breslau synagogue was set on fire on November 9, 1938 and people seeking protection filled the hospital, the Gestapo surrounded the building.
63 newly admitted "patients" received incorrect diagnoses and simulated symptoms.
Almost all of them were saved in this way - two of them, as well as two of Guttmann's doctors, were taken by the Gestapo with them.
They came to the concentration camp.
Guttmann himself feared being deported to the concentration camp.
With his protest he actually achieved the release of the two doctors who returned seriously ill and mentally broken.
Now Guttmann knew: he could not wait any longer for the end of the Nazis.
He was promised a job by Oxford University, albeit initially unpaid.
He left Breslau on March 4, 1939, together with his wife, daughter Eva and son Dieter.
At Harwich Harbor, a police officer saw the six-year-old and nine-year-old in the long check-in line and invited the family in.
The children shouldn't be cold, he said.
Else Guttmann burst into tears - they had made it.
The treatment of paralyzed people was considered hopeless
Financially they were tough times;
Else Guttmann sewed so that the family could make ends meet.
But the children went to school and soon spoke very good English.
And Ludwig Guttmann took up his university position in an excellent team.
Else also founded the Women's International Zionist Organization and was to lead it for many years.
Guttmann was offered the management of a new neurological clinic in Stoke Mandeville.
This southern English location was to achieve world fame: as the venue for the Paralympic Games.
In preparation for the Allied landings in Normandy, a large number of patients were expected in 1944.
Guttmann assumed - to the incomprehension of his friends and colleagues in Oxford: The treatment of paralyzed patients was considered hopeless, most died early and in agony.
Guttmann immediately implemented a series of fundamental changes.
So, against the resistance of his surgeons, he got rid of plaster beds, as well as metal bedpans, because both lead to pressure sores.
From now on, patients were to be turned every two hours, and the bedpans were now made of rubber.
The use of alcohol for disinfection has been restricted.
The staff often felt snubbed at first.
Guttmann followed a strict regime and checked day and night whether his orders were being followed.
The young soldiers who came out of the war seriously injured, however, adored him.
In his clinic, Guttmanns relied on physical activity from the start.
Competitions should grab the soldiers by their fighting spirit and motivate them to advance their recovery.
It started with getting dressed and taking a seat in the wheelchair.
Guttmann wrote:
“The paraplegic patients understand more and more that the many aspects of physical training (...), in combination with occupational therapy, workshops, correspondence courses and, last but not least, leisure activities are by no means just distractions that kill time, but that they represent ways to rediscover faith in oneself, to control their handicap and to prepare for a new life in the big, wide world. "
When Guttmann watched clinic employees throw themselves a ball during the break and involve patients in their game, he decided to include ball games as part of the compulsory program.
But it was the patients themselves who were dying for the sporty aspect of their treatments: walking sticks were turned into clubs and they fought for a wooden puck.
Wheelchair polo was invented - a game that excited many and that could get very rough.
Due to a number of injuries, it was banned again, to the disappointment of the patients.
Archery, netball and basketball took its place.
More sports, more athletes
In 1948, Guttmann's patients were able to compete with soldiers from another facility in archery for the first time.
The competitions ran parallel to the first post-war Olympic Games in London.
The future Paralympics were still far from their later size: There were only 15 participants, Guttmann's daughter Eva took over the organization.
But it was immediately decided to repeat it the following year.
In 1949, 60 athletes from five hospitals took part, including basketball.
The following year, netball was played in front of 10,000 spectators at the British Festival of Sport in London;
In addition, paraplegic archers competed against the best marksmen in the country.
The great response caused an increasing rush, civilians now also wanted to take part.
And the number of disciplines grew: the athletes from then on competed in fencing, weightlifting, billiards - and swimming after Guttmann succeeded in convincing the government to build a covered swimming pool in Stoke Mandeville.
In 1952, former soldiers from the Netherlands also took part in the "International Stoke Mandeville Games".
This resulted in the Paralympic Games, which took place in Italy for the first time at the Olympic venue in 1960.
Today it is a global sporting event with 22 sports in summer and six in winter.
Around 4,500 athletes from 160 countries will now start in Tokyo.
Ludwig Guttmann, the multiple award-winning pioneer in the treatment of paraplegics, was able to see for a long time how his idea became a great success.
The father of the Paralympic Games was 80 years old and died on March 18, 1980.