Wolfgang Lederer

Wolfgang Lederer, MD

April 19, 1919 - January 3, 2015

Wolfgang Lederer, M.D. died on January 3, 2015 at the age of 95 having lived a long and worthy life. He was a psychiatrist and a writer, a soldier and a gentleman, a great husband and father and a memorable friend.

Born in Vienna to a prominent Jewish family in 1919, he had to flee when Hitler entered Austria, first to Paris where he studied biochemistry at the Sorbonne, and from there to Berkeley where the University of California sponsored him with a student visa and a scholarship, for which he remained forever grateful.

Upon graduation with a B.S. in 1940 he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was deployed to the European front during World War II, landed on Omaha Beach, fought in the Ardennes as the commander of a tank destroyer company, was severely wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, and after an extensive hospitalization was discharged from the Army in 1946 with the rank of Major, two bronze stars and a Purple Heart.

When he started medical school at the University of Rochester, N.Y., he walked with a leg brace and a cane, but by the time he graduated in 1951 he again cut a dashing figure. Four years of psychiatric residencies in the U.S. and London followed. During his last year of training he married Alexandra Botwin, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist who became his partner in life and work. They had adjoining offices in San Francisco for most of his years in practice, 1956-1998, grew roots together in their country of adoption, had children and grandchildren, traveled the world and made lifelong friends who continued to visit him during his decline.

Wolfgang Lederer was a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco; a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association; a sought after lecturer and teacher and a highly regarded clinician. He was a tireless reader and talented writer and wrote seminal books from the joint perspective of his clinical experience and his literary interests. "Dragons, Delinquents and Destiny" (1964, about the qualifying battle between fathers and sons); "The Fear of Women" (1968, a cultural perspective, anticipating the backlash of the sexual revolution); "The Kiss of the Snow Queen" (1986, a psychobiography of Hans Christian Andersen and a discourse on adolescent development); "Disorder and Early Love, the Eroticism of Thomas Mann" (2011, a literary biography of the great writer, his homoerotic inclination, his family relationships, his politics, and how they informed his writing); as well as numerous articles in professional journals.

When the Austrian and German governments set out to compensate survivors of the Holocaust for loss and suffering by granting them pensions, Wolfgang Lederer worked with many such survivors in the Bay Area in order to draft the psychiatric evaluation necessary to qualify for the pension. It was disturbing work which caused him sorrow and sleeplessness, but he felt the obligation to the victims and to the memory of his family members who had suffered under Nazi persecution.

Wolf was a master gardener and took great pleasure in tending to his garden into his nineties, and had a lifelong fondness for good chocolate and bad puns. He had a wonderfully positive outlook on life which benefitted all who knew him. He loved the United States of America as only an immigrant can. He leaves a great void in the hearts of his wife of 58 years, Alexandra Botwin, and his children, Nicole Lederer (Larry Orr) of Palo Alto and Audrey Lederer Wells (Brian Larky) of Santa Monica, as well as his granddaughters Natalie Orr, Genevieve Orr and Tatiana Radzik. He is also survived by members of his family of origin, scattered all over the world.

Donations in his memory can be made to the "Dr. Wolfgang Lederer Scholarship Fund for Undergraduate Immigrant Students" at the University of California, Berkeley.