...was born in Cologne on April 28, 1901. He took his first photographs with an Ernemann camera when he was 14. He studied at the Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt für Photographie, Chemie, Lichtdruck und Gravüre (Institute for Teaching and Experimental Photography, Chemistry, Collotype Printing, and Engraving) in Munich from 1920 to 1921. He had his first studio in his parents' flat in Cologne in 1921, and in 1932 set up a second photo studio in Maastricht, Netherlands, in collaboration with Karl Mergenbaum. In 1939 he married his wife Grete with whom he had five children. The Cologne studio was closed. In 1940 he was drafted into the German Armed Forces for three weeks, before being discharged again due to his Jewish ancestry. After moving to Eijsden (NL) in 1968, he finally closed his Maastricht studio in 1971. In the 1970s he was rediscovered as a German modernist architectural photographer. Mantz died in Maastricht on May 12, 1983.
