Manfred grew up in Bielefeld and studied medicine, dentistry and philosophy in Münster and Bonn. After completing his dental training, in 1953 he attended Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on a Fulbright scholarship, studying International Relations and Political Science. After working as a manager with the Esther Williams swimming show and spending a year in the Far East, he established a dentistry practice in Bad Godesberg, Germany. To combine his interests in dentistry and politics, he cultivated a practice among diplomats, both Germans and representatives of foreign governments, and was a political voice behind the scenes at the highest levels.

In 2007 Manfred published “Ein Zahnarzt als Mittelsmann” (A Dentist as Middleman) about his political life. Published by Bouvier Verlag in Bonn, it is available from amazon.com. Until late in life, he was active as a “middleman, courier and catalyzer.”

In America in 1972, the New York Times wrote of an American family that traveled to a Dr. Manfred Freise in Germany because dental care there was “cheaper and better.” Here is that article, printed April 22, 1972: A Carolina Family Flies Over to Bonn For Its Dental Care - The New York Times. In case that link has been discontinued, the entire text of the article is reproduced below.

Dr. Paul Freise in Bismarck, North Dakota, became aware of that article after it was featured on national TV news. He vaguely believed a member of his Freise family in Germany was a dentist. So he wrote to “Dr. Freise, Bonn, Germany” and the letter was miraculously delivered to Manfred, his distant cousin. According to Manfred, Dr. Paul’s father Herman and Manfred’s grandfather had been half-brothers. Thus began a long and warm relationship between previously unknown German and American branches of the Freise family. Dr. Paul Freise never traveled to Germany but his daughter Elsa Freise Windh and her husband visited Dr. Manfred Freise and his family several times at their home in Bad Godesberg, the first time already in January of 1973. On regular trips to dental conventions in Chicago, Manfred Freise visited Elsa several times at her homes in nearby Kenosha and Racine, Wisconsin, as well. Often he’d call without warning on a February Saturday morning, crisply announce when he would arrive and depart by train in nearby Sturtevant, and spend a few animated and intense hours with us.

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A Carolina Family Flies Over to Bonn For Its Dental Care
By DAVID BINDER

BONN, April 22—Mrs. Louise Shaw lives in Winston Salem, N. C. Her dentist, Dr. Manfred Freise, lives here. Since 1970 she has been flying to Bonn for treatment because, she says, it is cheaper and better than dental service in her home town.

She came upon the idea two years ago when her neighborhood dentist in Winston‐Salem said it would cost about $1,000 to provide her with six gold crowns. “I went home and sat on the porch and cried,” she recalled. “We just could not afford that sort of fee.”

Her husband, Bynum, a former newspaperman who teaches journalism at Wake Forest University, comforted her with the recollection of the good and reasonably priced dental treatment they received here a decade earlier when he was foreign correspondent for The Baltimore Sun.

Mrs. Shaw did some calculating and some letter writing. Then she flew to Europe on Icelandic Airlines, whose round‐trip fare was $210 then. By the time she returned home she had spent about $500 and had six new crowns and pleasant stay in Europe to show for it.

Tax Deduction Allowed
At tax time last year Mrs. Shaw learned that the United States Government also took favorable view of her longdistance dental treatment and allowed the 10,000‐mile roundtrip air fare as a deductible medical expense.

“We were told that by halving the cost of treatment in the United States we had increased our taxable income, which pleased the Government,” she said.

Delighted by the experience, Mrs. Shaw dispatched her husband to Dr. Freise at Christmastime for a gold inlay and gum treatment and their 14‐year‐old daughter for orthodontic work. The Shaws reckoned that they had saved about 50 per cent.

Now Mrs. Shaw is here for new dentures, having given up hope on a fitting that would be painless. She said her new snap‐on denture provided by Dr. Freise was perfect at half the cost at home. “Besides,” she said, “I am having a wonderful time here, so good that I have lost track of the days.”

Asked about Dr. Freise's qualifications. Mrs. Shaw said: “He has studied at three universities in the United States and also in Switzerland and Sweden, and he is competent. I enjoy going to the dentist here.”