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Fraulein: Struggle for Identity
BRILLIANT, YOUNG AND AMBITIOUS, Annika Tritzchler defies the norms of 1930s Berlin by pursuing medical training in a venue traditionally dominated by men. Facing contempt from her counterparts is minor compared to the massive upheaval in a city transitioning to dictatorship while brutally persecuting its enemies.
Annika's career takes a decisive turn when, early in her psychiatric residency, she is expected to participate in applied eugenics- the roguish trend within Nazi medicine. Sterilizing patients deemed racially inferior and euthanizing the handicapped (including patients that she, herself, has been treating) works against everything she holds sacred. Acquiescence means choosing survival over morality, the antithesis to the spirituality nurtured by her Lutheran mother and Jewish stepfather.
Brimming with historical detail, Fräulein is less a story of Nazism than a woman's attempt to rediscover meaning after her sense of self was shattered by unimaginable trauma. Recapturing identity is central, but only if she comes to terms with guilt.
★★★★★"There's so much to love about this novel. It's a fantastic historical fiction piece that explores a full life heading into the Holocaust and even a bit afterwards, and I love the texture and established setting within the timeline most of all. Leonards' knowledge of the war accents the plot and allows the gritty realism to feel that much more sound. Annika's character is quite accessible and well rounded. Her growth from beginning to end is remarkable to witness." -Writer's Digest
“Leonards successfully blends the horrific events of early 20th century Germany with the life story of Annika, whose search for meaning in life leads her into a career in medicine and beyond that into psychiatry and treatment of mental illness. The novel breathes life into many of the key issues of the era, including anti-Semitism, the mass hysteria of Fascism, and the totalitarian regime’s iconic institutions, the concentration camps and the euthanasia programs. Experiencing all of this, Annika tries valiantly to maintain her sanity as well as her sense of morality, and in describing her struggles Leonards has created one of the most unforgettable characters in modern literature.” -Jack Morrison, Ph.D. Author of Ravensbrü Everyday Life in a Women’s Concentration Camp 1939-45 “Amazing really what you have done… Ambitious and panoramic!” -Charles Rotmil one of Maine's few living survivors of the Holocaust “Fraulein is a masterfully written, psychologically astute portrayal of a young woman living and practicing psychiatry in a country descending into political and moral insanity, a chaos that consumes its intelligentsia and decent people, and that threatens to consume her own integrity. Filled with lyrical, almost transcendental beauty, and etched depictions of evil, Fraulein is both a gripping story and an unforgettable lesson from history that the gift of a civilized society cannot be taken for granted, but must be nurtured at every turn – it is the only thing saving humanity from the abyss.” -Jonathan Borkum, Ph.D. Psychologist and Author of Chronic Biology, Psychology, and Behavioral Treatment “Your fictional character, Annika, sounds like my kind of person…” -Tony Campolo, Ph.D. Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Eastern University; public speaker; author of over 35 books; and former spiritual advisor to US President Bill Clinton.
Annika's career takes a decisive turn when, early in her psychiatric residency, she is expected to participate in applied eugenics- the roguish trend within Nazi medicine. Sterilizing patients deemed racially inferior and euthanizing the handicapped (including patients that she, herself, has been treating) works against everything she holds sacred. Acquiescence means choosing survival over morality, the antithesis to the spirituality nurtured by her Lutheran mother and Jewish stepfather.
Brimming with historical detail, Fräulein is less a story of Nazism than a woman's attempt to rediscover meaning after her sense of self was shattered by unimaginable trauma. Recapturing identity is central, but only if she comes to terms with guilt.
★★★★★"There's so much to love about this novel. It's a fantastic historical fiction piece that explores a full life heading into the Holocaust and even a bit afterwards, and I love the texture and established setting within the timeline most of all. Leonards' knowledge of the war accents the plot and allows the gritty realism to feel that much more sound. Annika's character is quite accessible and well rounded. Her growth from beginning to end is remarkable to witness." -Writer's Digest
“Leonards successfully blends the horrific events of early 20th century Germany with the life story of Annika, whose search for meaning in life leads her into a career in medicine and beyond that into psychiatry and treatment of mental illness. The novel breathes life into many of the key issues of the era, including anti-Semitism, the mass hysteria of Fascism, and the totalitarian regime’s iconic institutions, the concentration camps and the euthanasia programs. Experiencing all of this, Annika tries valiantly to maintain her sanity as well as her sense of morality, and in describing her struggles Leonards has created one of the most unforgettable characters in modern literature.” -Jack Morrison, Ph.D. Author of Ravensbrü Everyday Life in a Women’s Concentration Camp 1939-45 “Amazing really what you have done… Ambitious and panoramic!” -Charles Rotmil one of Maine's few living survivors of the Holocaust “Fraulein is a masterfully written, psychologically astute portrayal of a young woman living and practicing psychiatry in a country descending into political and moral insanity, a chaos that consumes its intelligentsia and decent people, and that threatens to consume her own integrity. Filled with lyrical, almost transcendental beauty, and etched depictions of evil, Fraulein is both a gripping story and an unforgettable lesson from history that the gift of a civilized society cannot be taken for granted, but must be nurtured at every turn – it is the only thing saving humanity from the abyss.” -Jonathan Borkum, Ph.D. Psychologist and Author of Chronic Biology, Psychology, and Behavioral Treatment “Your fictional character, Annika, sounds like my kind of person…” -Tony Campolo, Ph.D. Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Eastern University; public speaker; author of over 35 books; and former spiritual advisor to US President Bill Clinton.
417 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 19, 2021
92 people are currently reading
97 people want to read
About the author
Jeffrey T. Leonards
2 books10 followersJeffrey T. Leonards, Ph.D. is a retired psychologist boasting a lifelong appreciation of creative literature. His own journey into writing for public consumption began in late adolescence with a published letter to the local newspaper. That led to his becoming a regular guest columnist to his undergraduate newspaper. As a young graduate student, Dr. Leonards had two monographs accepted for publication in peer-reviewed professional journals. Since then, he has remained active submitting guest commentaries to local and national news outlets, has published several journal articles, and was the former editor of The Maine Psychologist, a monthly guild issue.
A relative newcomer to fiction, Leonards published a debut novel, Fräulein: Struggle for Identity on March 23, 2021. His second novel, Sigmund Fraud, Licensed Imposter, was published in March, 2023, while a third, tentatively entitled Privileged Communications, is currently in the works.
Dr. Leonards has found fiction to be an ideal medium for combining 37 years of clinical experience with decades of study in psychology, history, and existential philosophy. This is reflected in characters whose personal values often come in sharp conflict with unforeseen, bewildering challenges. The clashes that ensue always demand choices, and the more profound the choice, the greater the risk of it altering one’s direction in life and reshaping identity in unpredictable and sometimes disturbing ways.
When not writing, Dr. Leonards is a dedicated endurance athlete with over 160,000 miles of cycling—the equivalent of 6.5 trips around the earth over the course of 48 years. He is equally passionate about Nordic skiing, holds a first-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and was a volunteer ski-patroller at Sunday River Ski Resort. For the past 25 years, he has been a year-round player and coordinator of men’s ice hockey. In 2001, he spearheaded Franklin County Maine’s first indoor youth ice-hockey program, during which he successfully raised promotional grants from the NHL Philadelphia Flyers along with special words of encouragement from the late owner, Ed Snider, and hall-of-famer superstar, Bobby Clarke.
Dr. Leonards resides with his wife and German Shepherd on the Saco River in Southern Maine.
A relative newcomer to fiction, Leonards published a debut novel, Fräulein: Struggle for Identity on March 23, 2021. His second novel, Sigmund Fraud, Licensed Imposter, was published in March, 2023, while a third, tentatively entitled Privileged Communications, is currently in the works.
Dr. Leonards has found fiction to be an ideal medium for combining 37 years of clinical experience with decades of study in psychology, history, and existential philosophy. This is reflected in characters whose personal values often come in sharp conflict with unforeseen, bewildering challenges. The clashes that ensue always demand choices, and the more profound the choice, the greater the risk of it altering one’s direction in life and reshaping identity in unpredictable and sometimes disturbing ways.
When not writing, Dr. Leonards is a dedicated endurance athlete with over 160,000 miles of cycling—the equivalent of 6.5 trips around the earth over the course of 48 years. He is equally passionate about Nordic skiing, holds a first-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and was a volunteer ski-patroller at Sunday River Ski Resort. For the past 25 years, he has been a year-round player and coordinator of men’s ice hockey. In 2001, he spearheaded Franklin County Maine’s first indoor youth ice-hockey program, during which he successfully raised promotional grants from the NHL Philadelphia Flyers along with special words of encouragement from the late owner, Ed Snider, and hall-of-famer superstar, Bobby Clarke.
Dr. Leonards resides with his wife and German Shepherd on the Saco River in Southern Maine.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 28, 2024
This is definitely a 5+ stars book! Highly recommended
Read
December 11, 2021Fräulein: Struggle for Identity begins in Weimar Berlin as a coming-of-age story during the lead-up to the Second World War. The chief protagonist, Annika Tritzchler, enters medical school in 1936 at a time when few women were permitted access, even fewer allowed to practice. Nevertheless, Annika graduates and goes on to a residency at the Bernburg Psychiatric Hospital. There, unbeknown to her, Hitler’s eugenics policies have begun in strict secrecy. Under the Reich’s T4 Aktion, patients with intractable illness are considered “lives unworthy of living.” Only a few months into her residency, Annika learns to her horror that some of her own patients- individuals she has taken pride in treating- have been summarily euthanized. Even worse is her shocking discovery that some of their deaths were unwittingly triggered by diagnoses she herself made.
Raised with strong religious principles (her mother a devout Christian, her beloved stepfather Jewish), she refuses to collaborate with the Nazi doctors. That affrontery leads to her becoming falsely scapegoated as a Mischling (the irreverent term for someone of partial Jewish ancestry) and results in harrowing odysseys through both Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück concentration camps. Rather than resolving with the war’s end, Annika’s post-traumatic stress involves unresolved guilt, which eats away at her life and ultimately leads her to question both faith and existence itself.
In the end, Fräulein is the story of a woman attempting to survive the brutality of misogynistic and genocidal fascism. Written by a career psychologist, the novel illuminates in rich detail the psychic struggles of a woman marginalized by gender roles that thoroughly blur her sense of self. Reintegrating her identity following the war is an existential challenge, one that pervades her entire life, and doing so entails running the gauntlet of profound PTSD.
Raised with strong religious principles (her mother a devout Christian, her beloved stepfather Jewish), she refuses to collaborate with the Nazi doctors. That affrontery leads to her becoming falsely scapegoated as a Mischling (the irreverent term for someone of partial Jewish ancestry) and results in harrowing odysseys through both Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück concentration camps. Rather than resolving with the war’s end, Annika’s post-traumatic stress involves unresolved guilt, which eats away at her life and ultimately leads her to question both faith and existence itself.
In the end, Fräulein is the story of a woman attempting to survive the brutality of misogynistic and genocidal fascism. Written by a career psychologist, the novel illuminates in rich detail the psychic struggles of a woman marginalized by gender roles that thoroughly blur her sense of self. Reintegrating her identity following the war is an existential challenge, one that pervades her entire life, and doing so entails running the gauntlet of profound PTSD.
September 25, 2022
A Study. in Resilience
Thanks to Author Leonard for his scrupulously researched and written novel. As a precocious reader growing up in Canada, I read articles in my father's military journals - reporting the horrendous details of the conditions and tortures of the Jewish concentration camp prisoners - which defied my young imagination and strained my credulity. Yet throughout my life I have subsequently read eyewitness reports and on television seen and heard the same from those who survived those camps. I was smitten with a sense of overwhelming doom when in 2015 and 2016 changes in the political landscape and American society ominously reflected the possibility of this great nation being duped with the same poison introduced by Nazism in Germany in the 30's. But like the main character in Leonard's novel and the resilience of those upon whom the story is modeled, I have to believe in the resilience of my fellow citizens to resist the false promises and premises so as not to repeat the experience of WW II.
Thanks to Author Leonard for his scrupulously researched and written novel. As a precocious reader growing up in Canada, I read articles in my father's military journals - reporting the horrendous details of the conditions and tortures of the Jewish concentration camp prisoners - which defied my young imagination and strained my credulity. Yet throughout my life I have subsequently read eyewitness reports and on television seen and heard the same from those who survived those camps. I was smitten with a sense of overwhelming doom when in 2015 and 2016 changes in the political landscape and American society ominously reflected the possibility of this great nation being duped with the same poison introduced by Nazism in Germany in the 30's. But like the main character in Leonard's novel and the resilience of those upon whom the story is modeled, I have to believe in the resilience of my fellow citizens to resist the false promises and premises so as not to repeat the experience of WW II.
July 4, 2023
I like holocaust memoirs and thought that was one. It's not. It is a historical fiction novel. It is an obvious warning against Trump and Trump-like right-wing nationalist demagogues. I am fine with that. I had a problem with the Zelig-like story with a string of unlikely connections to Viktor E. Frankl, Himmler, etc. as it has a tall tale feel that I feel off-putting.
Here's a kinda interesting quote in light of current events:
Here's a kinda interesting quote in light of current events:
Kiev had never been a particularly stable place to reside. Throughout history, it was constantly changing hands, so people could never be totally sure of their future . . .” He sighed. “. . . or, for that matter, their safety.
March 22, 2023
“Fraulein” is set during the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Third Reich. However it is also a book for the times we are now living through: our country beset by division, corruption, violence and denial.
I especially appreciated the quotes that marked each chapter— they are as applicable to our current situation as well as to the world of “Fraulein” Annika Tritzchler. One in particular has stayed with me:
“The majority of men…are not capable of thinking, but only of believing…not accessible to reason, but only to authority.” (Arthur Schopenhauer)
A moving, thought-provoking novel that will stay with me for a long time.
I especially appreciated the quotes that marked each chapter— they are as applicable to our current situation as well as to the world of “Fraulein” Annika Tritzchler. One in particular has stayed with me:
“The majority of men…are not capable of thinking, but only of believing…not accessible to reason, but only to authority.” (Arthur Schopenhauer)
A moving, thought-provoking novel that will stay with me for a long time.
April 19, 2023
Thank goodness I didn't buy this book because its being returned unread. How interesting he attempts to paint President Trump as a racist when the one occupying 1600 PA Ave in DC consistently voted against bills calling for desegregation. It's like he didn't even bother to do his own resesrch and just took MSM propaganda as truth. How ironic, a book about NAZI Germany uses U.S. MSM propaganda as truth. Too bad as the book itself may have been interesting but if just the prologue is tainted with propaganda I can't foresee the rest of the book being any better.
July 13, 2022
Leonard's extensive research is evident throughout the narrative. Through the characters presented, major and minor, he is able to show how Hitler and the Nazi party were able to gain the huge support of a citizenry demoralized at the outcome of the Great War.
Most impressive is his ability to write convincingly in a female voice about the kinds of pain suffered by so many women during the horrific events of WWII.
I look forward to his next novel.
Most impressive is his ability to write convincingly in a female voice about the kinds of pain suffered by so many women during the horrific events of WWII.
I look forward to his next novel.
June 6, 2024
Very political,
The story was informative but right in the beginning showed her personal political views.
I almost stopped reading. But decided to skip her political rants against Republican candidates.
I was hoping to read a story about Germany during the war Not read her political views against Trump.
The story was informative but right in the beginning showed her personal political views.
I almost stopped reading. But decided to skip her political rants against Republican candidates.
I was hoping to read a story about Germany during the war Not read her political views against Trump.
March 22, 2025
The middle of this book was great - 4 stars. But the beginning was very slow and obviously the author’s political bias and rantings. The end just dragged out. Much of the time, I found the writing style / choice of words pompous and sesquipedalian (yes I had to look that word up - “. Someone or something that overuses big words, like a philosophy professor or a chemistry textbook.”). Was quite the turn off.
October 7, 2022
I am spellbound.
How can anyone be so strong? I am no intellectual. I have had challenges, not anything like those described in this volume. I have learned that which is right and true is always right and true, regardless 'norm' of a particular society. Thank you for a read that latched on to me.
How can anyone be so strong? I am no intellectual. I have had challenges, not anything like those described in this volume. I have learned that which is right and true is always right and true, regardless 'norm' of a particular society. Thank you for a read that latched on to me.
June 13, 2023
Great book!
I have read many books on Wars especially the second, and this is best story of the pain and suffering the Nazis performed on Jews! There were other groups of men, women, children and those with physical problems endured! If you're interested in knowing about the Holocaust, please read this book!
I have read many books on Wars especially the second, and this is best story of the pain and suffering the Nazis performed on Jews! There were other groups of men, women, children and those with physical problems endured! If you're interested in knowing about the Holocaust, please read this book!
February 25, 2024
History rhymes with history. BE ALERT! Don't fall For the charlatan!
It seems lately I am drawn to historical novels, mostly centered around WW2. Perhaps because of the unrest in the world today. What should we be watching for? What has history foretold? This story starts just as Hitler was becoming. The story is deep and dark but it is a love story.
It seems lately I am drawn to historical novels, mostly centered around WW2. Perhaps because of the unrest in the world today. What should we be watching for? What has history foretold? This story starts just as Hitler was becoming. The story is deep and dark but it is a love story.
May 18, 2023
Unbelievable
I couldn't put this book down. I cried during reading some of it. It is unbelievable how much this book effected me even though I knew about the holocaust before. I highly recommend reading this.
I couldn't put this book down. I cried during reading some of it. It is unbelievable how much this book effected me even though I knew about the holocaust before. I highly recommend reading this.
July 10, 2022
excellent book!
Very good book. I can’t even begin to imagine living in those kind of conditions, let alone living with the memories!!!
Very good book. I can’t even begin to imagine living in those kind of conditions, let alone living with the memories!!!
October 10, 2022
great read punctuated with haunting accuracy
Wonderful on every level. I learned and I cried. One of the best books I’ve read about this time period.
Wonderful on every level. I learned and I cried. One of the best books I’ve read about this time period.
February 23, 2024
Very well researched. I really enjoyed the story of what happened after the war. Not many books go beyond coming to the US. All the struggles of living with the memories.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews