Although this article is based on canonical information, the actual name of this subject is pure conjecture.
Please see the reasons for this title in the "Behind the scenes" section below, and/or the relevant discussion on the talk page.
A Nazi cameraman was present at the 1936 opening of the Ark of the Covenant at Geheimhaven on the Aegean Sea as part of the German forces commanded by Colonel Herman Dietrich, French archaeologist René Emile Belloq and Major Arnold Ernst Toht.
Biography[]
Unexpected spectacle[]
In 1936, a German soldier was among those present at Geheimhaven, a Nazi base in the Aegean Sea, following the Nazis' discovery of the Ark of the Covenant at Tanis, an ancient city outside Cairo, Egypt, under the command of Colonel Herman Dietrich, French archaeologist René Emile Belloq and Major Arnold Ernst Toht.[1] He was given a motion picture camera to record the ritual for prosperity, with his fellow soldiers having set up a power generator to power a series of klieg lights for illumination purposes.[2] At the Tabernacle, where the Nazis prepared to open the Ark with a Jewish ritual performed by Belloq, the soldier set up the camera. The cameraman and his comrades stood amongst a large crowd as Belloq performed the ritual, before stepping back with Dietrich and Toht to allow the soldier and another to open the relic which appeared to contain nothing but sand.[1]
The cameraman incinerated by the Ark of the Covenant.
Moments afterwards, they were surprised when all their equipment, including the camera, malfunctioned then witnessed several ghosts emerge from the Ark and encircle the gathered Nazis. Soon, the ghosts started screaming wildly at the Nazis, and giant bolts of electricity suddenly fired from the Ark, impaling and killing soldiers left and right including the cameraman[1] when one blast of energy tore straight through the motion picture camera, destroying the film within, and the cameraman's head[2] via the lightning that fired down the camera's lens. The Nazi remains were subsequently swept up and consumed by the Ark afterwards to have their souls judged, leaving the captive Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood as the only survivors of the whole ordeal.[1]
Legacy[]
As all of the cameraman's filming equipment was destroyed by the electric currents unleashed by the Ark, nothing of the event the cameraman was supposed to film was recorded, which left Belloq's son as unable to verify what happened to his father on the island that night and thus obsesses with getting back at Jones for his apparent direct involvement in his death.[3] Due to having their eyes closed, the unreliable account provided by Jones and Ravenwood as the event's sole survivors did nothing but suggest among other things that filming God's wrath wasn't a good idea, as God shouldn't have wanted for sure that the Ark stay hidden for three thousand years because the powers that be would want to its powers to be eventually shown on media like YouTube.[4]
In September 1940, upon coming across the late René Emile Belloq's twin, who wanted to enact vengeance on his brother's death and demanded answers over what happened, Indiana Jones privately reflected he had no desire to tell a possible madman how God made a "fireworks display" on Belloq, a half of dozen other cronies and a German soldiers company, among them the cameraman, reducing them to a handful of ash.[5]
Behind the scenes[]
The Cameraman was portrayed by an uncredited performer in Raiders of the Lost Ark.[1]
Appearances[]
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark junior novelization
- Indiana Jones und das Erbe von Avalon (Indirect mention)