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Doctor Adolf Schmidt, alias Franz Heinzer, was an Austrian secret police captain and double agent.

Biography[]

During World War I, Doctor Adolf Schmidt, a captain in the Austrian Secret Police, worked out of a POW camp where he was particularly skilled at extracting information from the prisoners. At some point, he was inserted into the intelligence network of the enemy Allied Powers as Dr. Franz Heinzer who was partnered for a mission with Colonel Waters, an American operative.[1]

Towards the final months of the war,[3] the Austrian POW camp was attacked by a force led by Romanian separatist general Mattias Targo and the soldiers were liberated. François Picard, a French agent sent to investigate why Austria had been attacked by its own side, was captured and held at the camp long enough to become familiar with Schmidt's interrogation methods but managed to escape only to disappear soon after.[1]

When another two agents went missing after being given the same assignment, Allied intelligence assembled a small group to look into Targo consisting of Colonel Waters, Indiana Jones, Maria Straussler—Picard's fiancée but no less qualified for spy work—Nicholas Hunyadi and, secretly sent in by the Austrians, Franz Heinzer. As they infiltrated Targo's castle in Transylvania, the team was beset by various, difficult to explain phenomena including what Schmidt identified as examples of ball lightning and the death of Waters by spontaneous human combustion in a room covered entirely with ice.[1]

Targo eventually met with the survivors and took them to a dining hall where Picard and other inmates from the POW camp were sat eating comfortably. The Frenchman recognized Schmidt, who hadn't realized that they were previously acquainted, and revealed the doctor's true allegiances. Schmidt pulled out a gun and put a bullet into Picard after taking exception to the man casually stating his fortune in escaping. Distraught, Straussler killed Schmidt with a knife thrown into his chest. Although the secret police officer was gone, Picard then sat back up from what should have been his own mortal injury, indicating that Targo's influence was not limited to the rooms of his estate.[1]

Behind the scenes[]

Adolf Schmidt, credited under his alias as "Dr. Heinzer", was played Sam Kelly in the "Transylvania, January 1918" episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.[1]

Appearances[]

Sources[]

Notes and references[]

  1. 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Transylvania, January 1918" Masks of Evil
  2. Schmidt is indicated to be 49 in his American intelligence dossier which is dated February 5, 1917.
  3. The re-ordering of episodes between The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and its re-edit The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones muddies the chronology of events with "Transylvania, January 1918" presented as being set after "Istanbul, September 1918".
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