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Lotte Frank (ロッテ・フランク, Rotte Furanku?) is a cultural anthropology major enrolled at the Munich University Friedrich Emmanuel Campus. She would become enmeshed in the events concerning Johan Liebert after she befriended him and Karl Neuman, and later, Johan's twin sister Nina Fortner.
Personality[]
Lotte is generally a nosy, passionate, over-excitable young woman who tends to become motivated to do many things when she's with a person she really likes—namely Karl.
For better or for worse, she seems to believe the rumors surrounding Schuwald pretty easily, but at least tries to find out whether these claims are true or not, no matter how outlandish they might seem.
Lotte may not be the most stable, mature, polite, or competent person in the world, but she seems to have a very genuine personality and a big heart. She's certainly one of the more innocent and benevolent characters in the series, with a bit of a needy and controlling side.
Biography[]
Working for Hans Georg Schuwald[]
While attending school at the University of Munich, Lotte caught wind from the student office that business tycoon Hans Georg Schuwald was hiring female students. She landed a part-time position cleaning laundry and doing household chores for him five days a week. Spending so much time at the estate, she was able to observe the interactions between Schuwald and the male students he hired to read Latin, taking special note of Johan Liebert and Karl Neuman.
Johan caught her attention because with his perfect appearance and exemplary Latin she found it difficult to believe he really existed. The two formed a friendship around the same time Lotte met Karl.
In contrast to Johan's impeccable aura, Karl was below satisfactory. Horrible at Latin, he was constantly berated by Schuwald, who demanded to know why he even bothered showing up at their weekly sessions. The same question lingered within Lotte's mind, as most students would usually quit after receiving such harsh treatment, which is why she became interested in him.
Karl Neuman[]
During the summer of 1997, Lotte began investigating Karl, starting with his name and major. She also tried looking up his high school records, but was unsuccessful in finding any information. Soon after, the two crossed paths on campus and she introduced herself. Following their initial introductions, Lotte assured Karl that Schuwald was harsh with all of his readers. They also began talking about their boss and his eccentric 2 AM outings. Lotte said she had plans to follow him one night for her paper "Mental Profiles of Bayern's Rich and Powerful in the Middle Ages and Today". As the conversation escalated, Karl opened up about his past and how he lost contact with his mother, Margot Langer, while being tossed between different foster homes. Lotte urged him to look up his mother but he insisted it wasn't meant to be.
Confident she could help reunite the family, Lotte looked into Margot Langer later that day, only to discover she had been murdered nine months prior. She expressed her condolences to Karl the next morning. When it seemed the two had to nothing more to say to one another, Karl asked Lotte if he could join her as she tracked Schuwald in the night. They made preparations and followed him that evening to a red light district. Going upstairs, they came face-to-face with Blue Sophie and asked why Schuwald always visited her. The woman explained that she was "Margot Langer" and had given birth to Schuwald's son; he gave her money as a way to say sorry. Lotte then drew the connection between Schuwald and Karl, realizing that they were father and son. After exchanging words and validating the fact that this "Margot Langer" was a fraud, they discovered that Schuwald's Thursday reader was also claiming to be his son.
After Lotte did a bit of research, they were able to identify the "Thursday Boy" as Edmund Fahren, a philosophy major. The two waited for hours outside of Schuwald's estate to confront the culprit, but he failed to show up for his reading session. They also discovered from his classmates that he had not attended lectures recently. Curious, Karl and Lotte ventured over to Edmund's dorm the following Wednesday, horrified to find his corpse hanging from the ceiling inside.
Johan Liebert[]
Two days later, the school's atmosphere was still very grim as a consequence of Edmund's suicide. While sitting on a courtyard bench with Karl, Lotte was approached by one of her friends; the young man's name was Johan Liebert. After Lotte introduced him to Karl, Johan said that Schuwald was taking the news of Edmund's death very hard and wasn't even allowing his Latin readers to visit.
Schuwald remained in a low mood, so Lotte started talking to Karl about how they could cheer him up. Initially she suggested that he confess to being his son, but Karl said that he wanted to wait until he had Schuwald's trust before making such bold proclamations. Johan just happened to be in the area and joined in on their conversation, sharing that he had learned there was a beautiful, wooded area where Schuwald always went to find solace when he was younger. Locking Kunz in the bathroom, Lotte and Karl kidnapped their employer and took him to Obenberg Forest, only to discover time had transformed it into a construction site. Luckily, Johan had followed close behind and was able to turn the situation around by helping Schuwald recall positive memories and visualize the forest he once knew, and seemingly nearly convincing the others of his description's veracity through his intense charisma.
Nina Fortner[]
Karl gave up on confessing he was Schuwald's son, but Johan would not allow such an opportunity to pass so easily. Ultimately, Karl was reunited with his father and they got swept up in the world of economics. This left Lotte with little time to see her friend, whom she had developed a romantic interest for. Returning to her studies, Lotte was assigned to write a paper and decided to incorporate Margot Langer into it. Thus, she spent a lot of time doing research at the library and noticed on more than one occasion a familiar looking, beautiful blonde girl.
Lotte purchased some tickets to a dance and asked Karl to accompany her, but he declined as he was too preoccupied with his father's new agenda. She returned to the library that afternoon and decided to approach the young woman, Nina Fortner, to see if they had met before, soon to realize they were both investigating Margot Langer; the girls decided to discuss their findings over coffee. After becoming acquainted with one another, Lotte managed to drag Nina to the dance in place of Karl.
Lotte was excited over how much attention Nina was drawing to them, and hoped she would find someone who would make her forget about Karl. Instead, she spent the evening being followed around by the president of the Supernatural Phenomena Club who, in an inebriated state, accidentally slipped out that Karl had paid him to dance with her. Nina ended up having to restrain him before she and Lotte could leave the party. After consoling Lotte about her feelings for Karl outside, Nina had to go. Watching her bus disappear, Lotte realized why the blonde looked so familiar: her face was identical to Johan's.
The Nameless Monster[]
Meanwhile, Johan had gotten his hands on a copy of the The Nameless Monster and experienced a fainting spell because of it. Lotte decided to visit him in the hospital, but discovered he had been discharged a few hours before her arrival. Nevertheless, the trip wasn't for naught as she was able to meet the librarian who
witnessed the incident and learned the details leading up to Johan's collapse. She wasted no time, rushing over to library to get her hands on a copy and meeting Kenzo Tenma in the process.
The following morning she received word that Nina would be leaving Munich, and hurried to the train station to say goodbye and get some answers. She asked Nina if Johan was her twin brother, and quickly handed her a copy of The Nameless Monster. After Nina read it aloud, Lotte was suddenly hit with the realization that the deaths of Richard Braun, Margot Langer, and Edmund Fahren were all connected to Johan. Nina quickly departed for the book donation ceremony to try and shoot her brother a second time.
The End[]
Nina was admitted to the hospital for her injuries received during the fire. She and Lotte talked about Tenma's role in the incident, and Lotte accompanied her throughout her therapy with Dr. Reichwein and Dr. Gillen. When Nina and Dieter came back from Prague, she and Karl stopped by for dinner.
In the days leading up to the Ruhenheim Massacre, she, along with Karl, Schuwald, Eva, and others, had to go into hiding until the skies were clear again.
After graduating from university, Lotte joined a detective company in southern Germany called Wanz & Wanz, but was fired as a result of multiple disputes with her superiors over employee salaries and welfare. She then started working for a research company in Munich, performing trivial surveys such as what type of white sausage teenagers prefer. In 2001, she had plans to become an author; her first book was to be centered around a slave in the Middle Ages who escapes and tries to become a free man.
Another Monster[]
Main article: Another Monster
Lotte's chapter in Another Monster serves primarily to summarize her role in the series. She also discusses her overall thoughts on Johan, as well as Franz Bonaparta's picture books.