Gestapo (individual)

"...don't call me Junior!"

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A Gestapo agent served under the command of Colonel Ernst Vogel during the search of the Holy Grail in 1938 with the task to accompany Vogel to a zeppelin in order of arrest Indiana Jones and his father.

Biography Edit

In 1938, a Gestapo agent accompanied Colonel Ernst Vogel aboard the D-138 in search of Indiana Jones and his father. Vogel was thrown out of the zeppelin by Jones, but the Gestapo agent remained on board searching for the Joneses. He ran into the archaeologist whilst Jones was disguised as a steward, and Jones knocked him unconscious.

When the zeppelin turned around and began its return to Germany under the orders of the Nazis, the agent, having recovered, spotted Jones and his father and followed them, accompanied by a retired (and drunken) World War I pilot and a Zeppelin crewman. The pilot and Gestapo tried to follow the Joneses in a second biplane after the crewman almost died from a fall from the scaffold. However, the agent was too heavy and he sank partway through the bottom of the plane, and the distracted pilot uncoupled the aircraft without starting the engine, an act which sent the pair plummeting to their deaths.

Behind the scenesEdit

The Gestapo was played by the late stuntman and professional wrestler Pat Roach in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Roach previously portrayed the Giant Sherpa and the German Mechanic in Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Chief Guard in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

During the development of the film's script, written by Jeffrey Boam, the character was named as the "Second Gestapo Agent" as he was originally to be accompanied by another agent who fulfilled what became Colonel Vogel's role in the finished zeppelin scenes.^[1]

The sequence in which he is killed along with his partner was cut from the final version of the film because director Steven Spielberg considered it too long.^[2] However, the scene remains in the film's novelization and comic book adaptation. Footage from the scene was also included in the featurette The Stunts of Indiana Jones. The character still appears in the film albeit in a smaller capacity as the man accompanying Vogel on the ground, attempting to halt the takeoff of the zeppelin.

For the 2008 release of the Indiana Jones Masterpieces trading card series, illustrator Ken Steacy included artwork which was designed to depict a Pat Roach character from each of the first three films surrounding a captive Indiana Jones. While the German Mechanic from Raiders and the Chief Guard from Temple of Doom are present, the representation from Last Crusade does not match that of the Gestapo agent but of a machine gun-wielding Nazi in an Schutzstaffel uniform closer in likeness to that of the Principal SS Officer at Castle played by Luke Hanson. Whether this is an artistic choice or an error on Steacy's part is unclear.

AppearancesEdit

• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade novel (First appearance)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade comic
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

SourcesEdit

•  Indiana Jones Masterpieces (Card: Familiar Guys...?) (Possible appearance)

Notes and references Edit