For many years Elsbeth Schragmüller, the film's subject, was invariably known as Mademoiselle Docteur or Fräulein Doktor, her actual name being revealed only in 1945 from German intelligence documents captured by the Allies after World War II, by which time she had already died of miliary tuberculosis in 1940.
Elsbeth Schragmüller, the film's subject, held a doctoral degree in political science - and not psychology as some fictional portrayals have claimed - from the University of Freiburg (1913), being one of the first generation of German women to gain an academic degree.
Fräulein Doktor is loosely based on the life of Elsbeth Schragmüller.
Fräulein Doktor is an Italian and Yugoslavian co-production.