Oskar Kleinsasser, MD, Professor Emeritus of Otorhinolaryngology at the University of Marburg, Germany, died at the age of 71 on March 10, 2001, in Marburg after a severe short-term illness, which he bore bravely.

Oskar KIeinsasser was born in Austria on March 10, 1929. He graduated from the University of Innsbruck in 1954. After graduation, he worked at the Department of Pathology of the University of Innsbruck, where he acquired the fundamental principles for his later histomorphological work on carcinoma of the vocal folds. After that, he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Cologne. As a result of this work, he published in 1960 the chapter "Pathology of the Tumors of the Skull" in the Handbook of Neurosurgery (editors, Olivecrona and Tonnis).

In 1958, Oskar Kleinsasser started his residency training in otorhinolaryngology at the University of Cologne. In 1962, he published his important histomorphological contribution on precancerous lesions of the vocal cords. In the 1960s, he constructed his special closed laryngoscopes and instruments for microsurgery and introduced the Zeiss operating microscope into laryngology. He developed his method of microlaryngoscopy and microsurgery of the larynx. In these years, the University of Cologne, and then later, the University of Marburg were the meccas for microlaryngology. He was visited by many important laryngologists in the world, who came to learn this new pioneering technique. He also traveled all over the world to instruct otorhinolaryngologists on microlaryngoscopy. In 1973, he became chairman of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology in the University of Marburg.

Oskar Kleinsasser was a great teacher and an outstanding scientist and clinician who did a great deal to promote laryngology. Together with Wullstein and Messerklinger, he founded the great tradition of microsurgery in Germanspeaking otorhinolaryngology. His books Microlaryngoscopy and Endolaryngeal Microsurgery and Tumors of the Larynx and Hypopharynx have been translated into several languages and are up to the present day principle works on laryngology. Not so well known, but of high scientific standing, are his first descriptions of basal cell adenomas of the salivary glands and of the terminal tubulus adenocarcinoma of the nasal seromucous glands. He was honored by many corresponding and honorary memberships and awards. In 1978, Oskar Kleinsasser was elected by the American Laryngological Association as a Corresponding Fellow. He was President of the German Society of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery in 1990-1991. In 1996, he founded, together with Luboinski, Olofsson, and Serafini, the European Laryngological Society, and he was the first president of this society. In 1997, he retired.

A beloved hobby of his, besides otorhinolaryngology, was hunting. Those who knew him were aware of this passion. When he was on lecture tours around the world, he always took the opportunity to pursue his great passion whenever he could and so, apart from the rhino, he was able to succeed in bagging the "big five.

The world of otorhinolaryngology has lost a great representative, and those who knew him well, a very good friend.

H.R.