While the article is based on canonical information, the actual subject lacks a formal identifier or nickname in official sources.
A German soldier was part of the Nazi effort to locate the Ark of the Covenant in the Well of the Souls at the Tanis digsite outside Cairo, Egypt in 1936. Serving under Colonel Herman Dietrich, Major Gobler, French archaeologist René Emile Belloq and Gestapo agent Major Arnold Ernst Toht, the soldier was among those who were sent as reinforcements when a fight broke out between American archaeologist Indiana Jones and a German Sergeant. However, all of the reinforcements were gunned down by Marion Ravenwood using the turret of the jet plane Flying Wing.
Biography[]
Fight by the Flying Wing[]
The German reinforcements arriving at the brawl.
In 1936, a German soldier was part of the German effort to locate the Ark of the Covenant in the Well of the Souls at the Tanis digsite outside Cairo, Egypt in 1936. Serving under Colonel Herman Dietrich, Major Gobler, French archaeologist René Emile Belloq and Gestapo agent Major Arnold Ernst Toht. After the Ark was recovered from the Well of the Souls by American archaeologist Indiana Jones and his associate Sallah Mohammed Faisel el-Kahir and then captured by the Nazis, the relic was scheduled to be stored on the jet plane Flying Wing, with soldiers preparing to fly the plane out of Tanis, Egypt to Berlin, Germany so that they could deliver the Ark to the Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler.[1]
The reinforcements being shot down.
However, having escaped Nazi imprisonment inside the Well of the Souls, Jones and his companion, bar owner Marion Ravenwood, sneaked onto the airstrip just as Major Gobler and his driver left following an inspection, the Americans planning to take control of the Flying Wing and depart with the Ark. When a fight broke out between Jones and a Sergeant, this soldier and eight others were sent to assist in a troop carrier. But, as they approached the scene, Marion mounted the Flying Wing's turret and shot down every Nazi soldier in the truck.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
The German troop carrier reinforcement was portrayed by an uncredited Paul Weston in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Weston also portrayed one of the soldiers aboard the Mercedes-Benz LG3000 transporting the Ark of the Covenant in the scene after the Flying Wing fight, as well as many Arabs in the film.[1]
Like his fellow troop carrier reinforcements, the man doesn't appear in Campbell Black's novelization or Marvel Comics' comic book adaptation of the film, both which drastically shorten the Flying Wing fight sequence.[2][3]