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 soldier was present at the Tanis digsite for the Ark of the Covenant outside Cairo, Egypt in 1936, under the orders of Colonel Dietrich and Major Gobler, and after the Ark was found he was among the men who prepared to defend the convoy transporting the relic. After the Ark was loaded onto a cargo truck, the soldier and a driver boarded a motorcycle and sidecar, the other man driving the bike, in order to defend the Ark from American archaeologist Indiana Jones and his comrades. During a chase which ensued as a result of the arrival of Jones, the motorcycle and sidecar were both knocked over by the truck.
Biography[]
Tanis, Egypt[]
In 1936, this German soldier was among the men who made up the Nazi party who attempted to unearth the Ark of the Covenant from the Well of the Souls at Tanis outside Cairo, Egypt under the orders of Colonel Herman Dietrich, Major Gobler, French archaeologist René Emile Belloq and Gestapo agent Major Arnold Ernst Toht. The Ark was secretly dug up overnight by American archaeologist Indiana Jones and his associates, including Arab excavator Sallah Mohammed Faisel el-Kahir, but Dietrich and Belloq confronted them, took the Ark, arrested Sallah and his men and sealed Jones and Marion Ravenwood inside the cave. However, the two soon managed to escape, and ended up blowing up the Flying Wing, the jet plane meant to transport the Ark to Berlin, Germany.[1]
Following the Flying Wing's destruction, Colonel Dietrich decided that the Ark would instead be transported from Tanis to Cairo by truck. With Jones' location unknown, this soldier watched as four of his fellow men carried the Ark into the back of a Mercedes-Benz LG3000 cargo truck, before getting inside themselves to protect the relic along with two other men and a Sergeant, with two other men in the front of the vehicle. The vehicle was protected by a Mercedes-Benz G5 troop car driven by Major Gobler, containing a Lieutenant who sat in the passenger seat and a gunner in the back, behind which was a motorcycle and sidecar helmed by this soldier serving as its passenger and another who became his driver.[1]
The Desert Chase[]
The desert convoy on the move.
Soon, the truck, jeep and sidecar began moving, following a 1937 Mercedes-Benz 320 carrying Colonel Dietrich, Major Toht, Belloq and their driver. All seemed to be going well as the convoy's journey through the desert began, but Indiana Jones promptly appeared behind the truck riding an Arabian stallion. Gobler's gunner began peppering Jones with gunfire, but both he and his horse made it to the truck and the American leapt onto the vehicle. Opening the door at the front of the truck, he hurled its front passenger out into the desert, before hopping inside and wrestling the driver. Their brawl caused one soldier to fall out from the back of the truck into the troop carrier's windshield, smashing it. The soldiers in the back struggled to remain inside the truck as it rocked back and forth from the fight, even going right through a construction site and destroying it, which provided a distraction allowing Jones to toss the driver out of the vehicle and over a cliffside.[1]
As the truck’s driver rolled past in the sand, the troop carrier drove forwards to level with the truck in an effort to allow their gunner to shoot the archaeologist, who was now driving the vehicle. However, Jones rammed into the jeep and knocked it off course into a forest. When the motorcycle and sidecar sped up and did the same thing, the truck swiftly knocked the vehicle fully over easily, leaving it in a swamp on the side of the road. The two men who had both fallen out of the vehicle immediately pulled themselves up out of the river,[1] bruised but otherwise uninjured,[2] and pushed the sidecar back onto its bottom, cursing after the truck.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
The desert chase sidecar passenger was portrayed by an uncredited actor in Raiders of the Lost Ark.[1]
While the character and his driver are both omitted from the console versions of LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures and its sequel,[3] two characters fulfill similar roles in the former's portable version. In said version, there are two Nazi soldiers each driving on motorcycles during the desert chase when Indiana Jones uses his bullwhip to damage the vehicles, causing the soldiers to be killed by the truck on which he and Sallah are standing.[4]
Appearances[]
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (First appearance)