Fritz Albert Lipmann was born on June 12, 1899, in Königsberg, the capital of East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). The son of Leopold, a lawyer, and Gertrud Lachmanski, Lipmann grew up in happy and cultured surroundings and fondly remembered the peaceful years at the turn of the century. He counted his only brother Heinz, who would pursue the arts as opposed to science, as one of the two people who most influenced him in his formative years. The other was Siegfried (Friedel) Sebba, a painter who would remain his friend for life. From these two, he first learned to appreciate the arts, an avenue of interest that he used to escape the confines and pressures of his laboratory investigations.
Early on, Lipmann demonstrated a diffidence in academic pursuit that would belie his future success. He admitted that he was never very good at school, even when he reached the university. After graduating from the gymnasium, Lipmann decided to pursue a career in medicine, largely due to the influence of an uncle who was a pediatrician and one of his boyhood heroes. In 1917 he enrolled in the University of Königsberg but had his medical studies interrupted in 1918 as he was called to the medical service during World War I.
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