Indiana Jones Wiki
Register
Advertisement

"The guy is like a hypnotist – a madman who can make a whole country nuts."
Indiana Jones[src]

Adolf Hitler (also known as the "Führer") was a German politician who became Chancellor of Germany after serving in the First World War and subsequently the leader of Nazi Germany, ruling from 1933 to 1945. As dictator of the German Reich, Hitler's attempts at global expansion led to the Second World War with the invasion of Poland.

Hitler was described by Major Eaton as being "obsessed with the occult", hence his initiating a worldwide search for artifacts that included the Ark of the Covenant in 1936 and the Holy Grail in 1938. For these goals, Hitler sent his fiercest men, like Herman Dietrich or Ernst Vogel, and hired several people, like René Emile Belloq or Walter Donovan, in order to find them, but his attempts ended in failure.

Biography[]

Early life[]

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary. Growing up, Hitler became an admirer of Germany.[2]

For four years, Corporal Adolf Hitler was courier during World War I as part of the Bavarian army. Germany lost in the conflict, however, forcing the country to enact a capitulation that formally ended the Great War, though several patriots, like Hitler, saw this as a betrayal from their politicians, feeling that democracy was a failure and that the Parliamentary system was the one responsible for all the hardships the country had to endure. As part the Education and Propaganda Department of the Reichsweher group, Hitler also scapegoated Jews and Communists for the conflict and their defeat, painting them in a negative light in his propagada messages.[2]

In 1919, the Reichswar assigned Hitler to infiltrate the German Workers' Party, but he instead took it over, became its leader and renamed the party to the National Socialist German Workers, later known as the Nazis, by 1921. In 1923, Hitler and his fellow Nazis attempted to overthrow the German Weimar government, sending his militia to surround all government officials in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch and force them to pledge their loyalty to his coup d'etat. The Beer Hall Putsch failed and Hitler was arrested, sentenced to serve nine months in a prison of Landsberg for high treason.[2]

BerlinRally

Hitler holding a rally for the supporters of his Nazi ideology.

While in prison, Hitler gained recognition through the publication of his autobiographical work Mein Kampf (My Struggle), which also expounded on his views of National Socialist ideology, anti-Semitism and Aryan racial superiority, all part of his extremistic propaganda. His views attracted many other Germans who had felt betrayed by the weakening of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles, with their national pride further sinking down once the Great Depression reached Germany in 1930. Because of this, Mein Kampf virtually became a "bible" for the Nazi party and, by the late 1930s, a copy of the book could be found in every German house, with Hitler gaining popular and political support.[2] His book's first volume was published around the time the Schutzstaffel (SS) was formed to protect his party.[3] It would also be around this time that Magnus Völler, a German archaeologist and a disgraced University of Chicago former student, started running errands for Hitler.[4]

In 1929, the Wayua leader Maleiwa from the Interior world sought to entice Hitler into an alliance over the power of the alicorn, hoping that Hitler's loyal scientists could produce a synthetic nalca substitute to enable Hitler to rise to power and the two to take over the world with their combined forces later on, secretly planning to later betray the Nazi leader in place of his own ambitions of global supremacy over the interior and superior worlds. To do so, Hans Beitelheimer became the messenger between the two individuals, but fled into the forests of Chiloé Island instead of bringing Hitler to the Interior world. Maleiwa, however, was stopped by the American archaeologist Indiana Jones, before a meeting could take place. Indy himself would later theorize that because of the Interior world's parallels with the Earth, Maleiwa may have been Hitler's double in his dimension.[5]

Rise to power[]

"The Ark belongs in the Reich. Something of such antiquity belongs in Germany."
―Adolf Hitler[src]

The 1930s saw the National Socialist German Workers' Party gain political power, becoming the largest political organization in the country by 1932, forcing a pressured President Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Reich Chancellor of Germany.[2] In 1933, the Weimar Republic finally collapsed due its poor economic decisions and Germany was taken over by Hitler and the Nazi Party.[3] Street violence grew and several Germans such as Rudolf Reingold took part in the Reichstag fire that led to Hitler's installation as Germany's Chancellor.[6] Early on in the decade, Hitler's men grew interested in an unknown archaeologist's research on the mysterious wish-maker artifact known as Aladdin's Lamp in hopes of acquiring its powers for their leader, while Hitler himself was rumored to be searching for the Mjolnir, the Viking hammer wield by the Norwegian god Thor, due to Richard Wagner's mention of secret clues to the weapon's location within his Der Ring des Nibelungen opera cycle and sent agents under his command to find the Silver Hand of Nuada. Coincidentally, unknown to Hitler, his Nazi right-hands Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels also planned an artifact-seeking operation behind his back when they, assisted by their SS soldiers, tried to acquire an Imperial Fasces from Julius Caesar's time to keep it out from Benito Mussolini's clutches.[7]

During this period, apparently with the Hitler's permission, Colonel Albrecht Von Beck teamed up with the Chinese crime lord Kai Ti Chang to find Emperor Qin Shi Huang's tomb in the hopes of obtaining the Heart of the Dragon, which could control all men's will and Von Beck moved to collect for Hitler to use to conquer the world, though the expedition faced several delays.[8] It was also around this time that Hitler personally sent SS officer Franz Kroeger to Forteresse Malevil in order to buy the Crystal Skull of Cozan from the French archaeologist and mercenary René Emile Belloq, but the Crystal Skull was lost to Hitler when the U-357, the U-boat he dispatched to take Kroeger back to Germany, sunk and killed everyone aboard, allowing Indiana Jones to retrieve the skull and start hating Hitler's supporters due to his encounter with Kroeger.[9] Starting from this year, Hitler's fascination with the occult led the Germans to launch a global search for arcane artifacts.[3]

Back in Germany, Hitler gained dictatorial powers by playing on with the fears of the German population about a potential Communist takeover until he proclaimed himself the "Führer", a combination of his Chancellor position with that of the President, when von Hindenburg died in 1934, shaping Germany into the Third Reich.[2] To consolidate his power, Hitler had all the Brownshirts,[10] his earliest Nazi members inspired by the Italian militia of the Blackshirts,[11] purged in a series of assassinations that came to be known as the Night of the Long Knives. Ignoring the Treaty of Versailles by the following year for its limitations on the German military's size,[10] Hitler's regime underwent large scale efforts to rapidly rebuild the country's industrial and military fields. He took advantage of widespread media such as film, print and radio to promote a radical image of Aryan superiority which preceded unspeakable atrocities during the Holocaust, a genocidal purge on Europe's Jewish population which applied the newfound industrial efficiencies to claim the lives of eleven million people, among them six million Jews.[2]

Around these two years in the mid-1930s, the now Nazi officer Reingold would go with his SS troops under the Thule Society's orders in search of the location of the Ultima Thule, a realm populated by an underground civilization beneath the planet's crust whose entrance was through a portal in the Arctic, which the Nazis demed key to Hitler's plans for world domination under the impression that the so-cacelled master race originated from there, but regardless of Indiana Jones' presence there, Reingold and his men were killed by magical booby traps at Iceland.[6] Later on, the combined efforts of Von Beck and Chang through Von Beck's Nazi troops and Chang's Black Dragon Triad were able to proceed with their expedition and locate the Emperor's Tomb, both men unaware of the other's intent to get rid of him. However, Von Beck's plans for his Führer ultimately amounted to nothing, as Jones, assisted by the Chinese intelligence agent Mei Ying, interfered with the expedition that by the end of the quest, the Heart was lost forever and Von Beck was dead.[8]

In 1936, Hitler opened the Olympic Games in Germany's capital Berlin, and the way it was orchestrated did nothing but amplify his racist message. In July of that year, Hitler took advantage of the Spanish Civil War to test his forces and combat tactics by supporting General Francisco Franco, unleashing his air forces on the town of Guernica, Spain to bomb it down, showing off the deadly potential of the Luftwaffe. Shortly afterwards, Italy would ally with Germany, becoming two of the Axis powers.[2] Hitler's influence had by this point expanded enough to ensure he could have "eyes and ears" in every port, something that permitted Friedrich von Hassell and his Ahnenerbe agents to buy a whole ship originally hired by Indiana Jones as it sailed the North Pacific Ocean during the latter's search with the Key to the Tomb of the Gods for the legendary eponymous tomb. von Hassell aspired to uncover the Tomb's secrets for Hitler's power and glory, allowing him to create a new world in spite of Alex Beresford-Hope's cryptic warnings. However, Jones killed von Hassell and made sure to make the Tomb innaccessible for Hitler by dynamiting it.[12]

Indiana Jones: "According to legend, the Ark will be recovered at the time of the coming of the true Messiah."
Eaton: "Which is what Hitler probably imagines himself to be."
―The U.S. Government enlists Indiana Jones to find the Ark before the Nazis.[src]

That same year, at the behest of his inner circle, Hitler met with René Belloq to hire his services in acquiring the lost Ark of the Covenant claiming that such an antiquity belonged to his country.[13] If what the Bible described of the Ark of the Covenant was right, by carrying the Ark, Hitler would have an invincible army which could use the relic to level mountains and lay waste to entire regions.[13] On his behalf, the Third Reich Special Antiquities Collection also dispatched Major Arnold Ernst Toht to retrieve the headpiece to the Staff of Ra from the Ark expert Abner Ravenwood at his The Raven bar in Nepal, unaware that Ravenwood had died in an avalanche earlier that year.[1] Although the Ark was recovered in Tanis, Egypt thanks to the efforts of opposing interests led by Indiana Jones and Abner's daughter Marion, who managed take the Ark from the Nazis for a while, Belloq and Colonel Herman Dietrich's Nazi forces stole it back from Jones and Ravenwood aboard the Bantu Wind.[13] Concurrently, Hitler dispatched Captain Oskar Schomburg aboard the Wurrfler to offer support to his covert operations in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, with Schomburg being informed about offering any assistance to Dietrich's men in transporting the Ark to the Führer.[14] Intent on opening the Ark before handing it over to Hitler, Belloq convinced Dietrich that viewing the relic's contents at a tabernacle on Geheimhaven, a Nazi-controlled Mediterranean island base, would be preferable to presenting a potentially empty artifact to Berlin. Ironically, Belloq's treachery likely spared Hitler's life, as the Ark's ghosts brought God's lethal wrath down upon Belloq and all the gathered Nazi soldiers present before sealing themselves back into the Ark, leaving Jones and Ravenwood as the sole survivors due to showing proper respect.[13]

After losing the Ark, Hitler became aware of Indiana Jones' participation in the whole affair, so he sent Captain Emil Loeb of the Gestapo and Arnold Smith to both retrieve the Crystal Cylinder of Stonehenge to invoke otherwordly monsters before the American archaeologist could and prevent with his plans again just as advances of his Nazi ideology started concerning Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom.[15] Sometime afterwards, Hitler would send Colonel Curt Johan Vogel of the SS to the Congo to look for the Shintay crystal shards in hopes to find some kind of power within them to power the Nazi cause's war machine, teaming up with Indy's rival Doctor Ian McIver to retrieve them, but the Shintay people, led by Vyperion Rex, captured them all and Vogel's refusal to let the crystals go ultimately triggered a chain reaction that caused all of the Shintay and Nazis to be crushed by fallen debris, with only Jones, Ravenwood and McIver surviving.[16] Sometime afterwards, Hitler would request his Commissioner Friederich Berger to fund McIver, alongside Andre LaFonte, in their Nepal expedition to secure the healing powers of Ra-Lundi for the Reich,[17] but such search was for naught once Jones and Ravenwood discovered it first in the Tibet, leading to a chain of events that concluded with Ra-Lundi destroyed and McIver and LaFonte left at the mercy of the hairy guardians of the Ra-Lundi population.[18]

As Indiana Jones had thwarted Hitler's plans on numerous occasions, including his pursuit of the Ark, the Führer personally assigned Hans Degen to assassinate Jones, whom Degen tracked down to the Welsh mountains near Merthyr Tydfil.[19] However, the attempt also ended in failure: when Jones accidentally saved Degen's life from an enemy, the indebted Degen felt honor bound to spare Jones on that occasion but later sacrificed himself to save the archaeologist and his friends from Ben Ali Ayoob.[20] Later on, Hitler and his government started German-Russian relationships with the Bolsheviks to the point that the State Department started to feel concerned, though Count Alexander Salkovich secretly planned to take care of Hitler and his "huns" once the Bolsheviks finished off the Cossacks.[21]

In March 1938, Hitler expanded Germany's borders by annexing the country to his native Austria and pushed into the Sudetenland district, Czechoslovakia.[2] A time later, Hitler would sign the Munich Pact with Mussolini, Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier.[3] Feeling that looking for the Ark of the Covenant had been a "warm-up" and that it wasn't the most powerful talisman of all,[22] Hitler recruited the American businessman Walter Donovan later that year to find the Holy Grail, which could allow the Nazis to be granted with eternal life.[23] By this point, Hitler had come to believe that the Grail was indeed an actual relic like several myths of the holy vessel of immortality claimed, hence why did he send his dreaded SS troops to the ancient ruins of Renne-Le-Chateau in the South of France due to 4th century legends assuring that Mary Magdalene had taken the Grail to Marseilles after fleeing the Holy Land.[24]

Wanting the mission to not become of public knowledge to have a chance of success; upon being informed that not only Indiana Jones but his father Henry Walton Jones, Senior had been captured at Castle Brunwald,[25] Hitler sent a telegram to his operatives there with the command to eliminate the so-called American conspirators.[23] Once notified that the Joneses had escaped, Hitler personally assigned Colonel Ernst Vogel to hunt down and kill father and son.[26] Following their escape, the elder Jones would convince his son to find the Holy Grail first before rescuing their friend Marcus Brody to prevent Hitler from claiming the Cup of Christ, as, in Henry's words, it was a race against evil because Hitler's armies of darkness would march all over the Earth if they captured the Holy Grail.[23]

Hitler Indiana Jones

Adolf Hitler unknowingly signs for Indiana Jones.

Shortly afterwards, Hitler presided over a bookburning rally in Berlin outside the Institute of Aryan Culture,[23] which Goebbels had partially organized by blackslisting the works of authors like Bertolt Brecht and Ernest Hemingway to fill German bookshelfs with Hitler's Mein Kampf.[27] As he was being escorted from the forum,[23] struggling to hear to the instructions of a film director trying to film his appearance,[28] Hitler came face to face with a man in a Nazi officer's uniform who held a book in his hands. Not knowing the man was a disguised Indiana Jones or that the book was the Grail Diary his agents needed to use to find the Grail,[23] assuming that the diary was an autographed book,[2] Hitler took the book, motioned one of his aides for a pencil, signed the book and returned it to the startled 'officer' before continuing on his way.[23]

The Nazi effort to find the Cup of Christ still proceeded, with Donovan, Dr. Elsa Schneider and Vogel leading it to the Republic of Hatay, where they would be assisted by the Sultan with reinforcements on their way to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, the location of the Temple of the Sun. Unknown to Hitler, however, Donovan actually planned to use the Holy Grail on himself so he could live forever while Hitler could just "go the way of the dodo" due to simply wishing to take over the world, something that he couldn't really take forever due to his mortality. However, Jones interferred yet again, so by the end of the quest, the Holy Grail was lost forever and the Nazi leaders in charge of the expedition were all dead.[23]

In November of the same year, Hitler began the Holocaust, his genocidal campaign against all Jews. Between November 9-November 10, Hitler had their businesses broken into and destroyed in what became known as the Night of Broken Glass, erasing any last vestiges of hope for Jews to stay in the country.[3]

World War II[]

By 1939, Hitler started preparing the forces of his Third Reich for war by organizing marchs, bringing in heavy machinery and parading with car. All of this was reported on by Lucas-Tone News, who felt that Hitler's military might seemed unstoppable by this point.[29] Proceeding with the Holocaust, Hitler also stripped the possibility for Jews to hold professions or own lands, even restricting them from interacting with non-Jews. Jews would be either sent to concentration camps or relocated to ghettos where they were victims of violence frequently.[3] On August 20, Hitler spent some time at his Prinzregentenplatz 16 residence in Munich, waiting for an update on the V-1 rocket.[30]

Seeking to still expand Germany, Hitler first used diplomatic means to gain territories in building a greater German state, then invaded Poland in September, initiating World War II, unraveling the promise of the world's leaders to bring peace following the Great War and catapulting the world towards the very tragedy that the world's leaders had wanted to prevent.[31] Even months before, Hitler's threat had been leading several world leaders such as Joseph Stalin to grow paranoid at him, with Stalin prohibiting his country's authorities from interferring in any Nazi affairs, such as when Klaus Kerner stole a copy of the Hermocrates from a Leningrad library with zero consequences.[32] The invasion to Poland was the last straw for England and France, who lost no time in declaring war on Germany, starting the war.[2]

Early on the conflict, Hitler was successful in the Nazi campaigns spreading over most of Europe, starting to send Luftwaffe to "accidentally drop bombs over Great Britain in late 1940 until the British retaliated due to London's bombing, striking back with a raid to Berlin. Furious, Hitler ordered daily bombing runs over London starting on September 7, initiating The Blitz, a series of attacks that did nothing to greatly hurt the British.[3] Similarly, Hitler failed to connect the Third Reich with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and drove himself to his eventual doom by declaring war against the United States of America in 1941.[2] By the year's April, Hitler's forces had advanced to Greece, orchestrating raids at some archaeological sites.[33] That same year, Hitler and his inner circle became interested in the stories about incredible machines of destruction being hidden inside Mount Sinai, prompting State Department to send Indiana Jones to find the machines before Helmut von Mephisto. Later on in the year, Hitler had a phone call with Mussolini while the latter was visiting the Vatican City, engaging in a conversation that, as noted by a spying Jones, ended with Hitler berating Mussolini over the phone due to a discussion about the invasion on Greece. After Indiana stopped von Mephisto, Colonel Musgrove noted that they could stop worrying about him and his crones for a while.[34] Germany invaded the Soviet Union later on, and upon that invasion, Hitler's mass murder on the Jewish population of Germany began: nearly 1.4 million Jews, both European or Soviet, would be slaughtered by the end of the year.[3]

Having gained several enemies, Hitler's party suffered serious defeats in El Alamein, Egypt and in Stalingrad, Russia the following years.[2] In Spring 1942, Hitler had his forces mount a major offensive against Stalingrad, refusing to allow his troops to retreat despite the Soviet counteroffensive, a decision that ended in a Nazi defeat. Meanwhile, devising his "Final Solution" in Berlin, Hitler sent all his Jewish prisoners, in addition to non-Jews like homosexuals, prostitutes, gypsies, political opponents or the handicapped, to concentration camps in Auschwitz, Dachau and Treblinka among others, trips that costed some of their lives and determined if they would be healthy enough for labor or "cleased" at the gas chambers.[3] In 1943, Hitler personally sent Colonel Doctor Edwin Gruber, one of his veteran SS men, to investigate rumors of people impervious to bullets in Haiti and recover the formula if possible, but Gruber perished in the attempt.[35]

In 1944, the Nazi Germany's possibility of losing the war was apparently inevitable after the Allied forces landed in northern France on the D-Day, contrasting Hitler's early promises of an empire that would last for a thousand years.[2] Around this time, SS Colonel Weber oversaw Hitler's operations to loot artifacts and art from Nazi-occupied terrorises to ship them back to Germany, among them the supposed Spear of Longinus, retrieved by Doctor Jürgen Voller, though once again, Indiana Jones would disrupt the Führer's operations by infiltrating Weber's train with his friend Basil Shaw as part of a war mission, yet the Spear turned out to be a fake.[30] On July 20 of that year, some German generals would try to kill Hitler by orchestrating a bomb plot, but they failed.[3] Also on December 16, under Hitler's direct orders, the Third Reich army launched a brutal surprise attack that caught most of the Allied generals off guard except George Smith Patton, Jr., starting the Battle of the Bulge.[36]

Circa mid-late March 1945, a cloaked Hitler appeared in a vision to Jones, where he attacked the American in a lush forest while deminding the ownership of the actual Spear of Longinus, which, according to the subsequent apparition of a Mysterious Blond Woman, would lead to the world to drown in blood if Hitler were to wield it and decipher its mystery. Indy and his father would come across the Nazi colonel Dieterhoffmann and his son Seigfried,[37] two of several agents Hitler had desperately sent to Ireland and Great Britain in one last ditch effort to make his forces invincible.[3] However, the former had no intentions to claim the Spear for Hitler but for the latter due to their leader's "failures", hoping that Siegried would restore Germany's glory the way Hitler failed to.[37] Later next month, with the defeat of Germany likely, and Berlin near invasion, Hitler committed suicide on April 30.[2]

Legacy[]

"The world's seen enough dictators, don't you think?"
―Indiana Jones to Simon Turner[src]

Admiral Karl Doenitz succeeded Hitler as head of state following his suicide. However, Germany had already lost the war and surrendered on May 28's V-E Day.[3] Hitler was cremated after his death. By 1947, Doctor Matthias Jäger's accomplice Dunkelvolk tried to steal Hitler's ashes, but his attempt was unsuccessful and he became a person of interest to the Soviet Union which sought his capture.[38] Later that year, while trying to stop the delusional CIA agent Simon Turner from using the Infernal Machine to annihilate the Soviet Union only to be accused of planning to take over the world once all "Commies" were gone, Jones asked Turner if he didn't think that the world had seen enough dictators by that point.[39]

By 1969, now as a NASA employee and ex-Nazi scientist, Jürgen Voller looked for the legendary Antikythera of Archimedes to correct the mistakes Hitler committed in the war. This put Voller at odds with Jones, but upon retrieving the artifact, revealed his intentions to actually time travel back to 1939 prior to the Poland invasion to assassinate Hitler and insert himself as the architect of a Third Reich victory. However, Voller's attempts to meddle in time were ultimately his undoing, as he didn't account for Archimedes' ignorance of continental drift and sent himself back to the Siege of Syracuse in 214 BC. Consequently, unlike Jones and his goddaughter Helena Shaw, Voller and his men would end up dying in the past while Hitler's historical fate was left untouched.[30]

Personality and traits[]

"The Führer is not a patient man."
Herman Dietrich[src]

A savage and racist dictator, Adolf Hitler ruled Germany with an iron fist. As described by Indiana Jones, Hitler was like a "hypnotist", a madman who could make a whole country nuts, thanks to his persuasion,[40] bringing his own country the sense of hope in the form of nationalism and his idea of Germany's place in the world order.[14] Both Indy and his father Henry Walton Jones, Senior considered Hitler a "human devil" who could spout hatred,[41] a malevolent comparition similarly shared with the Mysterious Blond Woman, who deemed Hitler as a "demon" due to his stained hands with the blood of millions, whom the elder Jones felt didn't fully satisfy his bloodlust.[37] Inspiring his country with his hateful ideas, Hitler was able to rise up as Germany's leader by carefully maneuvering his moves and manipulating his people, disposing of any political opponents through methods like intrigue, planned scandal or murder.[2] However, as noted by Colonel Herman Dietrich, Hitler lacked patience and demanded progress,[13] with Colonel Doctor Edwin Gruber feeling that if Hitler deemed it necessary, he would "march through Hell" unquestioned[35] and Colonel Dieterhoffmann opining that Hitler would drag his country into the mud with his obsessions, sins and corruption.[37] As World War II came to close, instead of fighting alongside his men, Hitler would stay hidden in a bunker, leading Jones to dismiss him as a coward.[30]

A patriot to his country, upon Germany's defeat in World War I, Hitler believed that the politicians from the Parliamentary system betrayed their country by formally ending the war, seeing the system's failures as scapegoats for Germany's hardships after the conflict, personally feeling that democracy was unpredictable and flawed.[2] Deeming Communism a danger to his ideals, Hitler would use numerous "impure" conspiracies and threats from within to inspire his people to recover from the economic hardships and disgraces inflicted by their enemies.[14] His interest in the occult and in archaeological artifacts prompted Nazi research and recovery expeditions into artifacts to either support his views of Aryan racial superiority or to be used as weapons against Nazi enemies,[2] being deemed by Indiana Jones as someone who thought like the Wicked Witch of the West for his master race concepts[37] and by Major Eaton as "obsessed with the occult",[13] while "mentally deranged".[14] He would thus sent several of his Ahnenerbe agents to scour the Earth in search of proof for Aryan syperiority.[34] Despite this interest, Hitler couldn't care any less that artifacts like the Ark of the Covenant were of Jewish origin, but prioritized the religious significance and symbolism the artifact had the potential to represent his government.[1] As Colonel Musgrove supposed, Hitler's main interest was in weapons, no matter how archaic as long as they were technically advanced, hence his interest on the Hall of Records.[34] His ideology overall mandated that, in the search for power (as Curt Johan Vogel reprimanded to Ian McIver while trying to uncover the Shintay relics), there was no place for timidity in Hitler's new order, only for the bold in his future.[16] Another thing Hitler was interested with was the development of technology like rockets, counting with scientist like Hermann Oberth and Wernher von Braun to achieve so.[12]

Hitler was quite vengeful, even against people who hadn't come across him merely for disrupting his plans through his men. Once Indiana Jones stole the Ark of the Covenant from his forces, Hitler merely "bristtled" at the memory of the failed operation, dispatching his men to get rid of Jones and ensure he didn't interfere again.[15] His hatred for the American archaeologist would grow more and more to the point Hitler went as far to hire an assassin to take out Indiana's life instead of settling with a severe reprimand[20] or even personally task one of his right-hands to kill Jones and his father.[26]

Behind the scenes[]

Adolf Hitler was portrayed uncredited by the late Michael Sheard in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.[23] Sheard had previously played Oskar Schomburg in Raiders of the Lost Ark.[13] Although Last Crusade marked Hitler's first physical appearance in the Indiana Jones films,[23] Hitler's first physical appearance in the franchise was actually in Campbell Black's novelization of Raiders in an original second chapter fleshing out how René Emile Belloq was hired by him.[1] Sheard had previously appeared as Admiral Kendal Ozzel in George Lucas' Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back with Harrison Ford and Julian Glover.[42]

Selected for the role the moment director Steven Spielberg received the Last Crusade script,[43] Sheard's casting as Hitler was a way from Spielberg to compensate him for his brief Raiders role as Schomburg, as Sheard had most of his role cut thanks to a change of weather precluding the filming of most of his scenes due to scheduling conflicts he had already with a television product in Scotland. Sheard had reservations upon being first offered the part despite playing the role in other productions beforehand, as he was married to a woman of Jewish descent, but she encouraged him to play the role anyway. In a 2004 interview, Sheard acknowledged that he was never asked for interviews or DVD commentaries of the original trilogy due to his minor role, but didn't care given how memorable his scene was for the audience.[44]

Sheard had already played Hitler several times before playing him in Last Crusade - in the TV movie Rogue Male (1976); in a two-part episode of the TV series The Tomorrow People (1978), entitled "Hitler's Last Secret"; and in the TV movie The Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission (1985) - and would go on to play him one more time, in the documentary Hitler of the Andes (2003). He also played Heinrich Himmler (who was portrayed by his late friend Ronald Lacey in Last Crusade) three times in his career.

During the development of the film's script, written by Jeffrey Boam, Indiana Jones was not to have a face to face encounter with Hitler originally, instead viewing him from afar. He would also trap Elsa Schneider inside Hitler's car trunk so that she could not raise the alarm.[45] Though these concepts had changed by the finished version of the production, Indy only views Hitler from a distance in the film's Read-Along Adventure adaptation.[46]

Contrary to popular thought, the real Adolf Hitler was never a huge fanatic of the occult. Another possible anachronism is that it's said by some that Hitler was left-handed but he can be seen signing Henry Walton Jones, Senior's Grail Diary with his right hand. However, evidence has shown with the real Hitler signing, writing and even bowling with his right hand. In playing the role, Sheard didn't do any research but equally played Hitler just like he had done with previous roles, but while he does admit that the wrong signing was overlooked, Sheard admitted in a 2005 interview that he never filmed himself signing the diary and it was instead filmed by an stand-in with gloves long after Sheard had left the production.[43]

The scene with Indy's meeting with Hitler is reproduced in the video game Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure where the player has the option to give him any document to sign. Contrary to the canonicity of the film, the player can give him to sign a copy of Mein Kampf or a travel pass, which he can use to bypass Nazi guards later in the game. The player also has the opportunity to punch Hitler, which will evidently result in a game over, but the game will reward the action with 10 IQ points.[47]

Jager

Matthias Jäger from Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix.

LucasArts had planned to resurrect Hitler for the plot of Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix, their intended follow-up to the popular Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis video game, but the game was cancelled. In the Iron Phoenix story, former Nazi scientist Doctor Matthias Jäger revives Hitler with the Philosopher's Stone two years after World War II. However, the Führer returns from the grave malformed and kills Jäger for bringing him back with no military to fight with. Indiana Jones later tricks Hitler into destroying himself with the Philosopher's Stone.[48] Dark Horse Comics adapted its story as a comic book series but Hitler does not appear. Instead, a disfigured Jäger bears a strong resemblance to him and receives Hitler's fate from the game.[38]

During the development of the fourth Indiana Jones film, Frank Darabont's script Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods included an appearance by Hitler as part of an alien vision to German doctor Felix Von Grauen, who seeks the return of the "glory" created by the Nazis. Summoned by the Crystal Skull of Destiny, Hitler's form grants Von Grauen's wish by draining his life away.[49] Although Hitler didn't appear in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,[50] he is briefly visible in one the teaser trailers for the film (when the narration points out that Indiana Jones faced the armies of evil) as some footage of the Berlin bookburning rally scene from Last Crusade was included.[51]

Appearances[]

Sources[]

Notes and references[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Raiders of the Lost Ark novel
  2. 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 2.20 2.21 2.22 2.23 2.24 2.25 IndianaJones Adolf Hitler on IndianaJones.com (backup link on Archive.org)
  3. 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 The World of Indiana Jones
  4. Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings
  5. Indiana Jones and the Interior World
  6. 6.0 6.1 Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth
  7. Indiana Jones Artifacts
  8. 8.0 8.1 Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb
  9. Indiana Jones and the Dinosaur Eggs
  10. 10.0 10.1 The Adventures of Indiana Jones
  11. New Gods for Old
  12. 12.0 12.1 Indiana Jones and the Tomb of the Gods
  13. 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 Raiders of the Lost Ark
  14. 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 Raiders of the Lost Ark Sourcebook
  15. 15.0 15.1 FAIJ The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "Gateway to Infinity!"
  16. 16.0 16.1 FAIJ The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "Africa Screams!"
  17. Nepal Nightmare
  18. FAIJ The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "The Search for Abner: City of Yesterday's Forever!"
  19. FAIJ The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "The Cuban Connection: Beyond the Lucifer Chamber!"
  20. 20.0 20.1 FAIJ The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "The Cuban Connection: End Run"
  21. FAIJ The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "Trail of the Golden Guns"
  22. Lucasfilm Games Passport to Adventure
  23. 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 23.4 23.5 23.6 23.7 23.8 23.9 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
  24. IndianaJones Holy Grail's Marshall College entry on IndianaJones.com (backup link on Archive.org)
  25. The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones
  26. 26.0 26.1 Indiana Jones Masterpieces
  27. The Greatest Adventures of Indiana Jones
  28. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade novel
  29. Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings teaser trailer
  30. 30.0 30.1 30.2 30.3 Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
  31. The Best Intentions - The Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles
  32. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis comic
  33. Indiana Jones and the Golden Fleece
  34. 34.0 34.1 34.2 Indiana Jones and the Mystery of Mount Sinai
  35. 35.0 35.1 Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead
  36. George S. Patton - American Achilles
  37. 37.0 37.1 37.2 37.3 37.4 Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny
  38. 38.0 38.1 Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix
  39. Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
  40. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade junior novel 1989
  41. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade comic
  42. Star Wars Insider 96
  43. 43.0 43.1 Interview with Michael Sheard at The Indy Experience
  44. Michael Sheard Interview With T'bone at MichaelSheard.com (Web archive)
  45. The Complete Making of Indiana Jones
  46. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Read-Along Adventure
  47. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
  48. Iron Phoenix Design Doc. at Aric's World (Web archive)
  49. Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods
  50. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
  51. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull teaser trailer

External links[]

Advertisement