Ratjen's circumstances appear to have been a consequence of confusion shortly after his birth, which neither he nor his parents seemed able to rectify when his identity became conflicted during adolescence, after a childhood raised unquestioningly as a girl. Ratjen was after all only 17 in 1936 when asked to compete for the Fatherland. Although the story of deliberate Nazi fraud makes better headlines, Ratjen's story is probably a more homely and familiar one of medical error, gender uncertainty, and embarrassed silences.32