Lutheran clergyman, hospital administrator, b. Clayton County, Iowa. He graduated from Wartburg Theological Seminary in Iowa (1889) and attended the Univ. of Leipzig, Germany (1891-1892). He was ordained in the Lutheran ministry (1892), and from 1893 to 1902 held pastorates at Superior and Brandon, Wis. He was director of Milwaukee Hospital (1902-1943), and chairman of the hospital's board of managers (1902-1949). He helped found Milwaukee Hospital's school of nursing (1903), and inaugurated construction of the Layton Home for Invalids, a surgical annex, nurses' residence, and a maternity section. In 1920 he was instrumental in organizing the Protestant Hospital Association of America and in 1940 the Associated Hospital Service of Wisconsin. He was president of the Wisconsin Hospital Association (1920-1927), and was the author of The Story of Milwaukee Hospital (1945). Milwaukee Journal, Nov. 23, 1957; Who's Who in Amer., 23 (1944); J. A. Watrous, Memoirs of Milwaukee Co. (2 vols., Madison, 1909); H. L. Fritschel, Story of Milwaukee Hospital ([Milwaukee] 1945).

The Wisconsin Historical Society has manuscripts related to this topic. See the catalog description of the Herman L. Fritschel Institution of Protestant Deaconesses in Milwaukee Materials for details.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]