Reichsführer Heinrich was a leading Schutzstaffel general in the Nazi Party. He led a detachment of former SS soldiers in collaboration with the insane alchemist Dr. Matthias Jäger to find the Philosopher's Stone in 1947.
Biography[]
By 1947, General Heinrich was helping Doctor Matthias Jäger on his search for the Philosopher's Stone to resurrect an army of Nazi soldiers, despite his lack of beliefs on the supernatural. The night of the full moon in which Jäger decided to perform the ceremony after Dunkelvolk gave him the three fragments of the Philosopher's Stone, Heinrich hold Soviet Major Nadia Kirov at gunpoint while Jäger performed the ritual.[1]
When the American archaeologist Indiana Jones came to stop the ritual, Heinrich was quick on knocking him out. This allowed Jäger to properly complete the ritual with zero interruptions and summon their fallen Nazi comrades back from the dead, surprising Heinrich by proving that he was right that the supernatural existed. All Nazis in the room then swore, Heinrich included, to rule the world, while the rest of the buried Nazi outside the tower started getting up as well.[1]
However, Jones regained consciousness in time to stop the ritual, leading Heinrich to try to shoot at him, but Nadia pushed his arm above to deflect his shot. Jäger tried to take the Philosopher's Stone back and was burned to death by its awesome power, as Jones had tried to warn that the Stone could only be used by someone pure of heart. The Stone's explosion momentarily blinded Heinrich in addition to causing the resurrected Nazis to burn away and destroying the temple. While Nadia and Indy escaped, Heinrich wasn't so lucky, as he was crushed to death by falling debris as he recovered his sight.[1]
Personality and traits[]
A high-ranking Schutzstaffel (SS) officer, Heinrich was a cruel person with deep loyalty to the Nazi ideology set by Adolf Hitler. Even after the end of World War II, Heinrich continued thinking about the superiority of Hitler's ideals, hence his reasoning to join Doctor Matthias Jäger and his acolytes in trying to resurrect the Nazis so they could rule the world. According to Jäger, Heinrich was a "charmer" among the cultists, which may imply that he had a charming personality to get others into assisting him and his allies. Like many SS officers, Heinrich was an aggresive, if not brutal, individual. He threatened Indiana Jones to shoot Nadia Kirov dead if he didn't strand fast, and when Jones tried to stop Jäger from carrying out the ritual, Heinrich quickly knocked him out with his gun.[1]
Although he agreed with Matthias Jäger that resurrecting the Nazis was necessary for Germany to "be reborn" and regain its lost glory following the end of the war, Heinrich was very skeptical about the supernatural. He was surprised when Jäger used the Philosopher's Stone to resurrect their fallen comrades despite Jones' warnings, swearing by God in Heaven upon witnessing such spectacle, easily giving up on his disbelief and swearing with Jäger and the resurrected Nazis that they would all rule the world. The Stone, however, ended up becoming Heinrich's undoing when the tower where the ceremony was being conducted was destroyed.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
Unlike most of the characters of Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix, which adapted the shelved game of the same name cancelled by LucasArts, General Heinrich was created for the comic.[1] He wasn't created for the game, as he is absent from the game's design documents.[2]
General Heinrich bears similarities with[1] Arnold Ernst Toht, the Gestapo agent who appeared as one of the secondary antagonists in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Like Heinrich, Toht was one of Adolf Hitler's most loyal followers and helped the main antagonist (in Toht's case, René Emile Belloq) to prepare a ceremony for the use an artifact despite scepticism of the supernatural. It was also the power of the artifacts which sealed their respective fates.[3]
Appearances[]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix
- ↑ Iron Phoenix Design Doc. at Aric's World (Web archive)
- ↑ Raiders of the Lost Ark