Ernst Vogel

Standartenführer Vogel was an imposing and ruthless officer in the SS-Leibstandarte "Adolf Hitler," or SS-LAH, the Führer's personal elite SS bodyguard detachment.

Vogel served with distinction in the Imperial German Army during the Great War, and received the Iron Cross, first and second class. In the postwar period, he joined the Nazi Party and the SS, and was recognized for his athletic prowess with the awarding of the SA Sports Badge. By 1934 or after, he had achieved a high rank in the SS-Leibstandarte "Adolf Hitler" (SS-LAH), Hitler's own personal SS bodyguard formation and the foremost unit of the SS-Verfügungstruppe or special purpose troops (SS-VT), the first SS paramilitary formations that predated the establishment of the Waffen-SS in 1940.

Assigned to help recover the Holy Grail in 1938, Vogel and Elsa Schneider tricked the American archaeologist Indiana Jones into releasing his father's Grail diary, rumored to contain a map of the Grail's resting place. When Jones and his father escaped from captivity, it became Vogel's mission to hunt them down and kill them under Adolf Hitler's orders. Vogel almost intercepted both Joneses as they were boarding a zeppelin; but Indy, disguised as a ticket taker, punched the colonel and threw him out the window into a pile of suitcases.

Leading the Nazi expedition to the Grail Temple, Vogel recaptured Jones Sr. in the desert and faced Indy in a one-on-one fight on a moving tank. The elder Jones and Marcus Brody managed to flee the tank as it was about to drive off a cliff. Indy knocked Vogel into a stupor and abandoned the tank just as it fell over the cliff's edge. Vogel clutched onto the back of the tank turret as the tank fell, and was crushed seconds later when the tank landed and rolled over him several times on the rocks below.

Behind the scenes
Vogel was played by Michael Byrne in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Vogel appears as a boss during the tank fight stage of Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures.

Appearances

 * Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
 * Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures

Trivia
Michael Byrne played a quite contrary role in Apt Pupil, as a Jewish concentration camp survivor.

At one point during the film, Elsa Schneider addressed Vogel as "Herr Oberst," but this is an inaccurate use of the term. Oberst is a rank in the Wehrmacht, and Vogel was a member of the SS, which had its own system of ranks. Vogel would have been properly addressed as "Herr Standartenführer," his correct SS rank. It should be noted, however, that both the Army rank of Oberst and the SS rank of Standartenführer represent the rank of Colonel, the American/British equivalent of Vogel's rank.