Post by GUEST on Feb 2, 2009 22:09:18 GMT
Accepted as the requested rank, but on the Wermacht side of the house, Stabsgefreiter, as you must be accepted into the SS before wearing the title. And yes, you could have pulled a senior NCO rank with this app. There was only a single misspelling, and a single puncuation error that I was able to locate.
Welcome
-JT
Account E-Mail: EDITED OUT!
Name: Günter Krause
Nationality: German
Army: Nazi Germany
Character History:
Born in Dresden in 1919 , Günter Krause lived a very idealized life of a young German boy. His father, Karl, was co-manager at the Yenidze cigarette factory in the Friedrichstadt neighborhood of the city. It was ran by a family of Turks, and although he would constantly complain and jest about his boss’ incompetence, body odor, etc Günter’s father brought home a paycheck that allowed his family to live peacefully. Old Karl Krause was a veteran of the Great War, serving in Der Reichswehr of the former Deutsches Kaiserreich. Günter’s mother Anna, Karl’s childhood sweetheart, had said that Karl was a changed man after the war. And although he tried to shield it from his children as best as possible, Karl still carried both physical and mental scars of the war. He was still a military man at heart however. He had trained his children (Günter, Lars, and Uwe) with his old rifle he used against the soldiers of the Allied Entente in the Western front; a dark brown Gewehr 98 that had a worn down bolt and a split in the stock. Its keen German engineering allowed it to fire like a weapon hot off the factory line, and with it the young men of the house were first introduced to the life of war.
Anna Krause, Günter’s mother, was a stay at home caretaker and former teacher. She took care of her children and loved them with all her heart. She taught the boys languages they did not learn at school, such as English and French—always emphasizing knowledge and intellect. During schoolwork, Günter often held high marks and was the envy of many. He caught the eye of many school girls as well, which led to trouble more times than not. At 14, his father had him join a youth Fußball club. He excelled at it, and once had dreams of becoming a player on the German National team.
Those dreams however would soon evaporate. After the savage raping of the German military and economy under the terms of the treacherous Treaty of Versailles, the country was finally gaining its strength back in hopes of becoming what it once was. The Deutsch Mark began to level off and jobs were once again open. But there was something else in the air. A fiery young orator had stepped up to the national podium and his popularity was sky-rocketing. He preached of extreme German nationalism… a return to the glory days of what the German Empire was before it had been stabbed in the back by the Western powers, the Fourteen Points, the Jew.
His name... was Adolf Hitler. And he had the country clutched in his fist. One day, Günter discovered a small paperback book on his father’s armoire. It was entitled Mein Kampf. He read through it, slowly taking in the fiery rhetoric. He was much too naïve to comprehend the message behind the text, but at this moment he had an inner understanding of the ethos of National Socialism. And although as he grew older and wiser he disagreed with much of what Hitler had to say, what he did agree with greatly was the idea of Lebensraum. In late 1933, Hitler was appointed as Chancellor by Paul von Hindenberg, ushering in the new Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei... ‚Nazis’ they called them.
Although he avoided conscription until after secondary school, Krause’s dream was to join the Schutzstaffel. He had been to nationalist rallies before, and he coveted the tall young men clad in all Black, their jackboots making the distinctive “clap” with every authoritative step they took. In 1937, at the ripe age of eighteen, he and his best friend had decided to enlist and fulfill their hormonal teenage dream. The SS physical inspector however, denied his friend from enlistment. He was but 168 cm, had poor vision, and was not the physical specimen they were looking for. Günter however was tall, lean, blonde haired and blue eyed. The recruiter was especially excited when he saw Krause… he was accepted. If only he knew what lay in wait.
Military Rank: SS-Rottenführer (if accepted into 2nd SS division), although I’m uncertain if rank is a big deal or not. If you thought I did well enough, a notice that I could achieve a higher rank would be appreciated. I would like to start off as a lower-ranked crony, however.
Writing Sample:
July, 1941. The beginning phase of Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa. Western Soviet Union.
The sky was a dark azure. The Russian countryside was a magnificent portrait of what beauty nature was capable of. A few kilometers to the east, a small Soviet ball-bearing factory town lay razed to the ground, the target of a minor Luftwaffe campaign which decimated the population, killing an estimated twenty-thousand partisans. Two nights before, the men of the Waffen-SS division 2.SS Panzer Division Das Reich were treated to a brilliant spectacle of fireworks provided by the scores of Junkers “Stuka” dive bombers. They were clumsy airplanes, but wrought terror upon its targets. Their unmistakable sirens wailed in the distance as they lined their sights up and their bombs illuminated the night sky. Smoke still rose from the ruined town, the smell of death in the not too far distance.
Krause’s platoon would be the first Germans to roll into the town on foot, setting up a forward station headquarter for the rest of the division which would then reinforce the town into a major outpost. They expected light resistance, and had two Panzerkampfwagen IVs in tow as support. The never ending dreary song of the panzer’s tracks crawling along at a slow trodden pace left a slight ringing in one’s ear if exposed to it for long enough. The noise served well as a forewarning to any foe in the area that the greatest of German fighting machines was on its way to do Hitler’s bidding. A somewhat new invention, the modern panzer first struck awe in all who saw it. Now, it struck fear. Its main gun could destroy anything foolish enough to stand in its sights and it was second to none in its brilliant engineering.
The commander sat upon his small chair looking out the top hatch of the main turret and conversed with a stout Hauptscharführer who had a jet black Maschinenpistole 40 slung across his chest. Inside the top of the opened hatch was a line of tape with writing in pencil scribbled on it. Günter realized it as a passage from the Bible, Revelations 6:8-- Und ich sah, und siehe, ein fahles Pferd. Und der daraufsaß, des Name hieß Tod, und die Hölle folgte ihm nach... And I looked, and behold, a pale Horse. And he who sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. The Rottenführer got a kick out of it. Too often he encountered those of the ‘non-humorous’ type, who had an agenda to make this war as miserable as possible. He was positioned up on the front of the panzer, relaxed as his left arm slung around the small 75cm main gun. He grasped a dark-brown laminated Karabiner 98k, the standard infantry rifle of German forces since 1935. The brilliant Mauser design was controlled-fed bolt action rifle with a five round 7.92x57mm stripper clip. It was deadly accurate in the hands of a trained marksman and it packed the most powerful standard round on the battlefield. Its shorter karabiner design increased its practicality and durability. The men called it “Kars”, for short, and they respected it.
A Schütze waded through the brown grass to his right. He dangled a cigarette from the corner of his dry mouth, removing it every so often to blow a plume of smoke in the damp, mild air. Two other men joked to each other to the left of Krause’s ride, occasionally bursting out in a laughter that would draw curious attention from the men around them. The exhaust fumes from the panzer in front of the men would drift up and irritate them, resulting in a chorus of curses under their breath. A dozen other soldiers were cast about in a forty meter radius around the two panzers… a crackling voice would occasionally bark over the panzer commander’s radio. Günter reached for his canteen, his dirty hands unscrewed the cap and he quenched a thirst that had been nagging him for the better part of an hour. He reached in his supply pack and retrieved a small portion of stale bread. The food the Wermacht supplied them with tasted of shit—often a tube of rancid cheese, powder soup, hard butter caramels, and bauernbrot bread. A confectionary ration was a real treat if you could get your hands on it.
The placid ambience of the day was soon interrupted. Chaos-- A small explosive had hit the inside of the track of the panzer in front of Krause. A small secondary explosion burst from the side of the vehicle, and the men near it dove for cover. Günter ducked his head and the Hauptscharführer sitting beside him scrambled off in a terrified haste. ”Partisans!” screamed a German soldier as Rottenführer Krause dove off the steel war machine. Four compatriots were already in a defensive position out in the open 20 meters from his position, returning fire at an invisible enemy. A second explosion sprung up from the earth in front of Günter. Dirt and smoke flew into his face as he sprinted through the report, hunched over for safety with his Kar by his side. His platoon had been ambushed by a small group of soviets, their patience in waiting for their prey evident as nobody had noticed them as they lay in wait. The trap was sprung, and the Germans were trying to survive. Rifle fire soon opened up all around the scared youngster. His adrenaline began to flow through his body, his senses heightened. The smell of gunpowder and explosives filled the air. A fellow soldier was running parallel to Krause, his hand atop his helmet attempting to keep it on. A silhouette appeared to rise the corner of Günter’s eye, and a sharp crack ruptured through the air… the sound of a bullet striking its target was quite unique, as the German in front of Günter fell forward in an uncontrolled dive towards earth, saying not a word or a shout or moan. When a human is shot by a rifle, the scream of burning pain is agonizing. When a human is shot dead by a rifle, there is no scream.
Krause slid to the ground as he used to slide through a patch of mud when he was a child. Four platoon members flanked him to his immediate right. Günter drew up his Karabiner, firmly grasping the stock. He caressed the trigger with his right index finger as he was taught and drew a bead on the area of tall grass. The explosive force of rifle rounds pushed the grass up and out as the Soviets continued their fire, only slightly concealed. To the Rottenführer’s left, the panzer he had just recently been perched on began to wearily rotate its turret to the location of the partisan militia force. It stopped as it lined up the shot—three Soviets leapt up in an attempt to escape their impending doom at the hand of the 75cm gun and ran. Krause drew his sights in on one and squeezed a round off. Impact. It tore into the back of the man and he fell forward, dead before he hit the cold hard ground. A split second later, the panzer’s gun fired with a loud thud and a large plume of dust and smoke erupted from the ground 20 meters from the men’s location. A Soviet pig was tossed upward, his leg blown off from the mid thigh. In his sick sense of violent humor, Günter laughed to himself. Two more dazed partisans jumped up and began to return fire to the Germans. A burst from the mounted MG-34 cut them down. “Auf der linken Seite!” barked an officer, warning of another group to the left of the men. The Germans opened up. “Krause! Ein Granate!” Günter reached down to his side, groping for grenade. He retrieved an M24 Stielhandgranate. He quickly removed the base cap and took a look at his enemy, hunkered down behind a large collective bail of hay. From his prone position, he raised his upper body and yanked down on the porcelain ball attached to the pull chord, igniting the fuse. He hurled the explosive and buried his head into the dirt. An explosion rang out and the sound of dirt and hay returning to earth after being sent flying quickly told the soldiers to continue firing. Krause’s grenade had hit its target with superb accuracy, killing two and wounding one. A wounded crawled out from behind cover in an attempt to surrender, blabbering about in his native toungue. A quick retort of an MP40 rang out and struck the man through the head, killing him in a fashion especially suited for the ultra-violent world these men live. A German soldier howled in pleasure, and the rest of the men laughed. They had survived.
Welcome
-JT
Account E-Mail: EDITED OUT!
Name: Günter Krause
Nationality: German
Army: Nazi Germany
Character History:
Born in Dresden in 1919 , Günter Krause lived a very idealized life of a young German boy. His father, Karl, was co-manager at the Yenidze cigarette factory in the Friedrichstadt neighborhood of the city. It was ran by a family of Turks, and although he would constantly complain and jest about his boss’ incompetence, body odor, etc Günter’s father brought home a paycheck that allowed his family to live peacefully. Old Karl Krause was a veteran of the Great War, serving in Der Reichswehr of the former Deutsches Kaiserreich. Günter’s mother Anna, Karl’s childhood sweetheart, had said that Karl was a changed man after the war. And although he tried to shield it from his children as best as possible, Karl still carried both physical and mental scars of the war. He was still a military man at heart however. He had trained his children (Günter, Lars, and Uwe) with his old rifle he used against the soldiers of the Allied Entente in the Western front; a dark brown Gewehr 98 that had a worn down bolt and a split in the stock. Its keen German engineering allowed it to fire like a weapon hot off the factory line, and with it the young men of the house were first introduced to the life of war.
Anna Krause, Günter’s mother, was a stay at home caretaker and former teacher. She took care of her children and loved them with all her heart. She taught the boys languages they did not learn at school, such as English and French—always emphasizing knowledge and intellect. During schoolwork, Günter often held high marks and was the envy of many. He caught the eye of many school girls as well, which led to trouble more times than not. At 14, his father had him join a youth Fußball club. He excelled at it, and once had dreams of becoming a player on the German National team.
Those dreams however would soon evaporate. After the savage raping of the German military and economy under the terms of the treacherous Treaty of Versailles, the country was finally gaining its strength back in hopes of becoming what it once was. The Deutsch Mark began to level off and jobs were once again open. But there was something else in the air. A fiery young orator had stepped up to the national podium and his popularity was sky-rocketing. He preached of extreme German nationalism… a return to the glory days of what the German Empire was before it had been stabbed in the back by the Western powers, the Fourteen Points, the Jew.
His name... was Adolf Hitler. And he had the country clutched in his fist. One day, Günter discovered a small paperback book on his father’s armoire. It was entitled Mein Kampf. He read through it, slowly taking in the fiery rhetoric. He was much too naïve to comprehend the message behind the text, but at this moment he had an inner understanding of the ethos of National Socialism. And although as he grew older and wiser he disagreed with much of what Hitler had to say, what he did agree with greatly was the idea of Lebensraum. In late 1933, Hitler was appointed as Chancellor by Paul von Hindenberg, ushering in the new Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei... ‚Nazis’ they called them.
Although he avoided conscription until after secondary school, Krause’s dream was to join the Schutzstaffel. He had been to nationalist rallies before, and he coveted the tall young men clad in all Black, their jackboots making the distinctive “clap” with every authoritative step they took. In 1937, at the ripe age of eighteen, he and his best friend had decided to enlist and fulfill their hormonal teenage dream. The SS physical inspector however, denied his friend from enlistment. He was but 168 cm, had poor vision, and was not the physical specimen they were looking for. Günter however was tall, lean, blonde haired and blue eyed. The recruiter was especially excited when he saw Krause… he was accepted. If only he knew what lay in wait.
Military Rank: SS-Rottenführer (if accepted into 2nd SS division), although I’m uncertain if rank is a big deal or not. If you thought I did well enough, a notice that I could achieve a higher rank would be appreciated. I would like to start off as a lower-ranked crony, however.
Writing Sample:
July, 1941. The beginning phase of Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa. Western Soviet Union.
The sky was a dark azure. The Russian countryside was a magnificent portrait of what beauty nature was capable of. A few kilometers to the east, a small Soviet ball-bearing factory town lay razed to the ground, the target of a minor Luftwaffe campaign which decimated the population, killing an estimated twenty-thousand partisans. Two nights before, the men of the Waffen-SS division 2.SS Panzer Division Das Reich were treated to a brilliant spectacle of fireworks provided by the scores of Junkers “Stuka” dive bombers. They were clumsy airplanes, but wrought terror upon its targets. Their unmistakable sirens wailed in the distance as they lined their sights up and their bombs illuminated the night sky. Smoke still rose from the ruined town, the smell of death in the not too far distance.
Krause’s platoon would be the first Germans to roll into the town on foot, setting up a forward station headquarter for the rest of the division which would then reinforce the town into a major outpost. They expected light resistance, and had two Panzerkampfwagen IVs in tow as support. The never ending dreary song of the panzer’s tracks crawling along at a slow trodden pace left a slight ringing in one’s ear if exposed to it for long enough. The noise served well as a forewarning to any foe in the area that the greatest of German fighting machines was on its way to do Hitler’s bidding. A somewhat new invention, the modern panzer first struck awe in all who saw it. Now, it struck fear. Its main gun could destroy anything foolish enough to stand in its sights and it was second to none in its brilliant engineering.
The commander sat upon his small chair looking out the top hatch of the main turret and conversed with a stout Hauptscharführer who had a jet black Maschinenpistole 40 slung across his chest. Inside the top of the opened hatch was a line of tape with writing in pencil scribbled on it. Günter realized it as a passage from the Bible, Revelations 6:8-- Und ich sah, und siehe, ein fahles Pferd. Und der daraufsaß, des Name hieß Tod, und die Hölle folgte ihm nach... And I looked, and behold, a pale Horse. And he who sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. The Rottenführer got a kick out of it. Too often he encountered those of the ‘non-humorous’ type, who had an agenda to make this war as miserable as possible. He was positioned up on the front of the panzer, relaxed as his left arm slung around the small 75cm main gun. He grasped a dark-brown laminated Karabiner 98k, the standard infantry rifle of German forces since 1935. The brilliant Mauser design was controlled-fed bolt action rifle with a five round 7.92x57mm stripper clip. It was deadly accurate in the hands of a trained marksman and it packed the most powerful standard round on the battlefield. Its shorter karabiner design increased its practicality and durability. The men called it “Kars”, for short, and they respected it.
A Schütze waded through the brown grass to his right. He dangled a cigarette from the corner of his dry mouth, removing it every so often to blow a plume of smoke in the damp, mild air. Two other men joked to each other to the left of Krause’s ride, occasionally bursting out in a laughter that would draw curious attention from the men around them. The exhaust fumes from the panzer in front of the men would drift up and irritate them, resulting in a chorus of curses under their breath. A dozen other soldiers were cast about in a forty meter radius around the two panzers… a crackling voice would occasionally bark over the panzer commander’s radio. Günter reached for his canteen, his dirty hands unscrewed the cap and he quenched a thirst that had been nagging him for the better part of an hour. He reached in his supply pack and retrieved a small portion of stale bread. The food the Wermacht supplied them with tasted of shit—often a tube of rancid cheese, powder soup, hard butter caramels, and bauernbrot bread. A confectionary ration was a real treat if you could get your hands on it.
The placid ambience of the day was soon interrupted. Chaos-- A small explosive had hit the inside of the track of the panzer in front of Krause. A small secondary explosion burst from the side of the vehicle, and the men near it dove for cover. Günter ducked his head and the Hauptscharführer sitting beside him scrambled off in a terrified haste. ”Partisans!” screamed a German soldier as Rottenführer Krause dove off the steel war machine. Four compatriots were already in a defensive position out in the open 20 meters from his position, returning fire at an invisible enemy. A second explosion sprung up from the earth in front of Günter. Dirt and smoke flew into his face as he sprinted through the report, hunched over for safety with his Kar by his side. His platoon had been ambushed by a small group of soviets, their patience in waiting for their prey evident as nobody had noticed them as they lay in wait. The trap was sprung, and the Germans were trying to survive. Rifle fire soon opened up all around the scared youngster. His adrenaline began to flow through his body, his senses heightened. The smell of gunpowder and explosives filled the air. A fellow soldier was running parallel to Krause, his hand atop his helmet attempting to keep it on. A silhouette appeared to rise the corner of Günter’s eye, and a sharp crack ruptured through the air… the sound of a bullet striking its target was quite unique, as the German in front of Günter fell forward in an uncontrolled dive towards earth, saying not a word or a shout or moan. When a human is shot by a rifle, the scream of burning pain is agonizing. When a human is shot dead by a rifle, there is no scream.
Krause slid to the ground as he used to slide through a patch of mud when he was a child. Four platoon members flanked him to his immediate right. Günter drew up his Karabiner, firmly grasping the stock. He caressed the trigger with his right index finger as he was taught and drew a bead on the area of tall grass. The explosive force of rifle rounds pushed the grass up and out as the Soviets continued their fire, only slightly concealed. To the Rottenführer’s left, the panzer he had just recently been perched on began to wearily rotate its turret to the location of the partisan militia force. It stopped as it lined up the shot—three Soviets leapt up in an attempt to escape their impending doom at the hand of the 75cm gun and ran. Krause drew his sights in on one and squeezed a round off. Impact. It tore into the back of the man and he fell forward, dead before he hit the cold hard ground. A split second later, the panzer’s gun fired with a loud thud and a large plume of dust and smoke erupted from the ground 20 meters from the men’s location. A Soviet pig was tossed upward, his leg blown off from the mid thigh. In his sick sense of violent humor, Günter laughed to himself. Two more dazed partisans jumped up and began to return fire to the Germans. A burst from the mounted MG-34 cut them down. “Auf der linken Seite!” barked an officer, warning of another group to the left of the men. The Germans opened up. “Krause! Ein Granate!” Günter reached down to his side, groping for grenade. He retrieved an M24 Stielhandgranate. He quickly removed the base cap and took a look at his enemy, hunkered down behind a large collective bail of hay. From his prone position, he raised his upper body and yanked down on the porcelain ball attached to the pull chord, igniting the fuse. He hurled the explosive and buried his head into the dirt. An explosion rang out and the sound of dirt and hay returning to earth after being sent flying quickly told the soldiers to continue firing. Krause’s grenade had hit its target with superb accuracy, killing two and wounding one. A wounded crawled out from behind cover in an attempt to surrender, blabbering about in his native toungue. A quick retort of an MP40 rang out and struck the man through the head, killing him in a fashion especially suited for the ultra-violent world these men live. A German soldier howled in pleasure, and the rest of the men laughed. They had survived.
