Post by Rudi on Jun 25, 2010 20:01:49 GMT
Looks very good, Jer. I'll happily accept this at Oberleutnant, however you must apply to join the 21st Panzer Division before you can serve in it.
Do this by posting in the divisional thread requesting that Hauptmann Merhoff accepts you in to his division.
Name: Rudolph Horst Veigt
Nationality: German
What Army will Your Character Serve Beneath? Heer, 21st Panzer Division
Character History:
The land of Cracau, Germany had always been known for its fertility. Amongst the banks of its various waterfalls and river eddies lay rich black soil, perfect for growing cabbage, beets, and barley. An added bonus was that just outside of the woodlands that sheathed the village lay the commercial city of Magdeburg, a bustling hub of activity and politics. The farmers of Cracau were prosperous compared to their neighbors, living in large farmhouses and owning huge plots of land. Some of the villagers were even wealthy enough to afford automobiles to ferry them to and fro. Despite these modernizations the citizens of Cracau still lived with an old-fashioned mindsets, abiding old traditions and fearing ancient spirits that more civilized people would find preposterous.
Cracau’s country nostalgia and the beckon of an agricultural fortune made it a perfect lure for Karl Veigt, a young man looking for a place to settle and live out his life. Karl had been born in Berlin in the late 1800s, raised by a religious arithmetic teacher and his wife, brought up on numbers and preciseness. Unfortunately Karl had been somewhat of a delinquent, blowing off his parents and other authority figures while practicing petty crimes such as pick pocketing and shoplifting. His unsavory behavior upset his conservative family extremely, leading him to be disowned at the age of fifteen. Karl, forced to scrape out an existence in the streets of Berlin, realized that he had to pick up his life or he was destined for poverty and small-time criminal activity.
Young Karl Veigt was soon offered a job at an established brewery in the city of his birthplace, working deep in the stinking fermentation rooms checking valves and meters with glass faces crusted vomit green by the acidic hop fumes. The sixteen year old did jobs that no respectable adult would do, crawling between teetering towers of barrels to fetch dropped equipment, facing certain death if the beer were to collapse. He quickly fell in love with all types of hop-based alcohol, learning the trade from his employers. He learned what type of spices to add to beers with a heavy feel compared to a light one, what type of beer people would like for different seasons, and many different types of preferences that the general public was oblivious too.
Karl separated from the brewery when he turned eighteen, traveling Cracau after hearing of several acres of hop-growing gardens going up for sale outside of the village. He purchased the land with his entire savings pooled with a bank loan, moving into a small log cottage nestled amongst rows of wire. He soon realized it would be a fool’s errand to try to reap the vast climbing fields of hops by himself, forcing him to hire three year-round workers and twenty when the crop was ripe. Unfortunately he had absolutely no way to afford this help.
Veigt finally struck a deal with an wealthy older man named Johann Schaefer. In return for several shares of “Veigt Hop Gardens” and 30% of the first year’s profit Schaefer would send his four teenage sons to work the farm every week. Karl figured that he would have earned enough by harvest season to hire a large labor force for a few weeks while the hops were ripe, and that the 30% would hardly be a problem as long as he had enough to eat.
But, alas, the finger of love had dipped its finely painted nail into Karl’s life. He soon married Johann’s daughter, Anna, fortifying the bricks of the Veigt-Schaefer business agreement with the dainty mortar of marriage. Anna moved in with Karl on the hop farm, bringing extra money from her father with her. The Veigt family seemed to have everything going for well for them. Karl had struck a deal with a massive brewery in Magdeburg which had ties to a large hotel and he was able to get some advertising done in the château of the resort. With this ample self-promoting he was soon berated by sales to minor breweries and families in the countryside, even a few establishments in other German cities.
But, unfortunately, fate would strike again. When the Great War began Karl Veigt was drafted into the Imperial German Army, thrown into the torrent of war in France. Johann Schaefer, too old to be drafted, took temporary control of the hop farm and would take it over should anything happen to Karl. Luckily, Karl was not seriously injured in the length of the Great War and managed to come home after Germany’s defeat with an honorable record. He never held a rank above Corporal but he was thought to be obedient, swift, and brave. He won an Iron Cross award at the Battle of Verdun for clever use of hand grenades and fulfilling the call of duty.
The hop farm once again came under Karl’s command, raking in a good sum of cash. When the Schaefer boys had grown up and moved on Veigt could afford to hire actual paid laborers. The Veigts had their first child in 1920, a boy named Rudolph Horst. He was a happy child, with a head full of blond hair and broad, pouting red lips. His parents called him ‘Rudi’, preferring the shortened version to the rather formal longer one. They had a second child, named Michael, in 1922, identical to Rudi except with curling locks of pale brown hair inherited from his mother. The two siblings interacted as early as infants, becoming quite adventurous in their toddler years.
Rudolph and Michael grew up on hard work and rough play. They started to become useful around the farm at age seven, carting around picked seed pods in wheel barrows and helping shuck the hops when the hand-powered machines were swamped. Cracau was filled with other farmer’s children, and there was no shortage of playmates for the Veigt brothers. Michael was always a rather rambunctious and outgoing one, while Rudi found more solace in tinkering with sowing equipment and reading books borrowed from the big marble library in Cracau. Despite Rudi’s rather solitary pastimes he was still well liked, always invited to play innocent games with the townsfolk’s sons and daughters.
It was when school began that Rudi’ true aptitude shined. He was an excellent athlete, always picked first in the gymnasium’s play yard. The young blond ran fast, kicked hard, and slowly developed thick, handsome muscle and blocky features that had been mistaken for fat when he was younger. In his early school years he played the game of football [American soccer] with good talent, wearing his school’s colors of leaf green and canary yellow on his jersey with pride. Rudolph did well in school also, earning average grades. His brother hardly had his luck though, barely passing each grade and never getting anywhere in athletics because of his sinewy physique.
When Rudi was twelve he dropped football and picked up Hitler Jugend sponsored track and field, earning Magdeburg area champion for 100 –meter dash in both his freshman and senior year. He also had several romances in his late high school, girls falling for the dashing Hitler Youth track star. When he reached fifteen his father allowed him to drive their dented metal pickup truck to the city to deliver hop bundles to wealthy families trying to brew their own beer in their basements and attics. Rudolph loved the job, and he was able to keep fifty percent of all purchases and any tips that customers might give him.
Rudolph graduated in 1938 with a decent academic achievement score and an excellent athletic background. Service in either a government labor force or the Heer was mandatory for all young men, and Rudi picked the Heer. He had been fascinated with arms demonstrations when he was a member of the HJ and he was thrilled to actually hold firepower in his hands. He was accepted into a military officer’s academy to learn thorough tactics in the summer of 1939 and held the rank of Leutnant in time for the invasion of Poland later that same year.
Military Rank: Oberleutnant. I put a lot of work into this app’ and I am sure that I will post long/well enough in neutral threads and be fit to lead troops in a hostile thread with this rank. If I cannot attain it, is it possible I can lengthen/strengthen it to achieve the rank?
Writing Sample:
Blazitopha Railway
Southwest Russia, Summer of 1941
Rudi leaned on the red leather backing to his booth, feeling pinpricks as droplets of perspiration snaked down from his hairline, over the back of his neck, and then disappeared into the damp white folds of his officer’s service shirt. It seemed that when the German army had commandeered the passenger train it had neglected to turn its air conditioning on. The air in the enclosed compartment, big enough for four passengers, hung stale and hot. Oberleutnant Veigt had been extremely lucky to get the space to himself, for most of the officer’s car was occupied. But Rudi had chosen the booth nearest to one of the piston-powered wheels, right on top of it in fact, and the roar of hissing gas and steel against iron worked its way into every thought. But the noise was a small price to pay for solitude, which he had gotten so little of the past month. He had heard how lonely being a soldier was, how dark and dismal being posted alone on sentry duty. But everything he had experienced so far was the exact opposite. He had constantly been in contact with other Heer personnel, eating, sleeping, and bathing with other people was exhausting. Too much human contact. He enjoyed the noisy peace that was his car.
The wooden table that used to occupy the booth was long gone, taken out and scrapped by the Heer. Material things like that take up to much space. Rudi could still see the rust-colored imprints where the steel legs had been bolted the floor, a quintuplet of blood red circles where the rivets had been. The two benches sat opposite each other so that the seated persons could look at each other. Rudi sat on one side, his jackbooted feel propped up against the opposite bench. He had stripped off his tunic and hung it on the closed door. The glass that made up the door reminded him of the kind that was used to make sliding shower doors; hazy and disrupted so you could only see outlines. Every once in a while he saw the bulky form of a soldier walk past, probably on the way to the overused and stinking latrines at the rear of the cart that opened onto the train track. He wished he could see the outline of comely female, all curves. He hadn’t seen an attractive woman for what? Two months now? Only ugly Slavic peasants fleeing from the German advance. Nothing special.
The debris from a past meal lay next to him on the bench. A half-eaten can of stew, gravy dribbling down the steel frame, grew stagnant in the heat. He had enjoyed all the coffee but left a hunk of black rye. He was not hungry enough to eat something that tastes of sawdust. A packet of clear blue sugar candies added as a morale-booster had also found its way into his stomach, the sweetness cleansing his foul, unwashed palate. He had lost his toothbrush to some scavenging enlisted man a week ago and had not found a replacement yet. He was disgusted at what Germans were degraded to during wartime. A soldier stealing from an officer would have never even been thought about two years ago! But, alas, times have changed.
Looking out the dirty orange-tinted glass of his booth’s window he could fortify this statement further. Why the hell, out of all the nations out there, did we pick this to conquer? The steppe rolled on for what seemed to be infinity, the wide mountains marking the beginning of the Middle East just barely visible in the south. What do honest people have to gain from this? Germany should have attacked Spain, he thought. At least they have beautiful women, not just hags born from dirty whores. He closed his eyes and reclined, cuddling up to an imaginary Spanish girl that only a soldier on campaign could dream up.
***
A sharp rap woke Rudi from his nap. “Veigt, move your lazy ass!” came a cry from outside. He gently rose from his booth, realizing that the train had stopped and docked at a landing platform. Rudolph knew the demanding voice was his captain, Hubert Zoller. “Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann.” Rudolph said with a spark of irritation, reaching for his tunic and placing it over his shoulders. He followed the grey garment up with his black utility belt and his service cap, pulling the brim down over his forehead. He instinctively reached for his holster to check that his Walther’s safety was on, but he remembered that all firearms had been confiscated before the train trip. For your own good, the Sergeant who took his pistol had said. Rudolph still didn’t fully understand why he had to give it up. But rules are rules.
Rudolph emerged from his booth with a sigh, joining a line of officers churning to exit the train. As he waited for the exit he looked at the mural painted on one wall of the landing platform; a Hellenic-esque fresco showing birds perched on grape vines. Quite odd for a little place in the middle of the Steppe. As he stepped onto the platform he realized that the station was much bigger than he had thought. It had once been a grand place, but the green and red paint was now peeling and several windows were broken. The rest of the town around the station also looked in disrepair. It was something straight out of one of those silly American westerns he’d watched at the pictures, with the mouths that would move with some unknown English tongue while the German audio siphoned in would hardly match.
When he started to look around he could tell that the train was taking soldiers back behind the German lines too. Men with tired and lined faces piled onto the train, obviously stressed by war. Suddenly Rudi became frightened. Was this what was coming for him?
Do this by posting in the divisional thread requesting that Hauptmann Merhoff accepts you in to his division.
Name: Rudolph Horst Veigt
Nationality: German
What Army will Your Character Serve Beneath? Heer, 21st Panzer Division
Character History:
The land of Cracau, Germany had always been known for its fertility. Amongst the banks of its various waterfalls and river eddies lay rich black soil, perfect for growing cabbage, beets, and barley. An added bonus was that just outside of the woodlands that sheathed the village lay the commercial city of Magdeburg, a bustling hub of activity and politics. The farmers of Cracau were prosperous compared to their neighbors, living in large farmhouses and owning huge plots of land. Some of the villagers were even wealthy enough to afford automobiles to ferry them to and fro. Despite these modernizations the citizens of Cracau still lived with an old-fashioned mindsets, abiding old traditions and fearing ancient spirits that more civilized people would find preposterous.
Cracau’s country nostalgia and the beckon of an agricultural fortune made it a perfect lure for Karl Veigt, a young man looking for a place to settle and live out his life. Karl had been born in Berlin in the late 1800s, raised by a religious arithmetic teacher and his wife, brought up on numbers and preciseness. Unfortunately Karl had been somewhat of a delinquent, blowing off his parents and other authority figures while practicing petty crimes such as pick pocketing and shoplifting. His unsavory behavior upset his conservative family extremely, leading him to be disowned at the age of fifteen. Karl, forced to scrape out an existence in the streets of Berlin, realized that he had to pick up his life or he was destined for poverty and small-time criminal activity.
Young Karl Veigt was soon offered a job at an established brewery in the city of his birthplace, working deep in the stinking fermentation rooms checking valves and meters with glass faces crusted vomit green by the acidic hop fumes. The sixteen year old did jobs that no respectable adult would do, crawling between teetering towers of barrels to fetch dropped equipment, facing certain death if the beer were to collapse. He quickly fell in love with all types of hop-based alcohol, learning the trade from his employers. He learned what type of spices to add to beers with a heavy feel compared to a light one, what type of beer people would like for different seasons, and many different types of preferences that the general public was oblivious too.
Karl separated from the brewery when he turned eighteen, traveling Cracau after hearing of several acres of hop-growing gardens going up for sale outside of the village. He purchased the land with his entire savings pooled with a bank loan, moving into a small log cottage nestled amongst rows of wire. He soon realized it would be a fool’s errand to try to reap the vast climbing fields of hops by himself, forcing him to hire three year-round workers and twenty when the crop was ripe. Unfortunately he had absolutely no way to afford this help.
Veigt finally struck a deal with an wealthy older man named Johann Schaefer. In return for several shares of “Veigt Hop Gardens” and 30% of the first year’s profit Schaefer would send his four teenage sons to work the farm every week. Karl figured that he would have earned enough by harvest season to hire a large labor force for a few weeks while the hops were ripe, and that the 30% would hardly be a problem as long as he had enough to eat.
But, alas, the finger of love had dipped its finely painted nail into Karl’s life. He soon married Johann’s daughter, Anna, fortifying the bricks of the Veigt-Schaefer business agreement with the dainty mortar of marriage. Anna moved in with Karl on the hop farm, bringing extra money from her father with her. The Veigt family seemed to have everything going for well for them. Karl had struck a deal with a massive brewery in Magdeburg which had ties to a large hotel and he was able to get some advertising done in the château of the resort. With this ample self-promoting he was soon berated by sales to minor breweries and families in the countryside, even a few establishments in other German cities.
But, unfortunately, fate would strike again. When the Great War began Karl Veigt was drafted into the Imperial German Army, thrown into the torrent of war in France. Johann Schaefer, too old to be drafted, took temporary control of the hop farm and would take it over should anything happen to Karl. Luckily, Karl was not seriously injured in the length of the Great War and managed to come home after Germany’s defeat with an honorable record. He never held a rank above Corporal but he was thought to be obedient, swift, and brave. He won an Iron Cross award at the Battle of Verdun for clever use of hand grenades and fulfilling the call of duty.
The hop farm once again came under Karl’s command, raking in a good sum of cash. When the Schaefer boys had grown up and moved on Veigt could afford to hire actual paid laborers. The Veigts had their first child in 1920, a boy named Rudolph Horst. He was a happy child, with a head full of blond hair and broad, pouting red lips. His parents called him ‘Rudi’, preferring the shortened version to the rather formal longer one. They had a second child, named Michael, in 1922, identical to Rudi except with curling locks of pale brown hair inherited from his mother. The two siblings interacted as early as infants, becoming quite adventurous in their toddler years.
Rudolph and Michael grew up on hard work and rough play. They started to become useful around the farm at age seven, carting around picked seed pods in wheel barrows and helping shuck the hops when the hand-powered machines were swamped. Cracau was filled with other farmer’s children, and there was no shortage of playmates for the Veigt brothers. Michael was always a rather rambunctious and outgoing one, while Rudi found more solace in tinkering with sowing equipment and reading books borrowed from the big marble library in Cracau. Despite Rudi’s rather solitary pastimes he was still well liked, always invited to play innocent games with the townsfolk’s sons and daughters.
It was when school began that Rudi’ true aptitude shined. He was an excellent athlete, always picked first in the gymnasium’s play yard. The young blond ran fast, kicked hard, and slowly developed thick, handsome muscle and blocky features that had been mistaken for fat when he was younger. In his early school years he played the game of football [American soccer] with good talent, wearing his school’s colors of leaf green and canary yellow on his jersey with pride. Rudolph did well in school also, earning average grades. His brother hardly had his luck though, barely passing each grade and never getting anywhere in athletics because of his sinewy physique.
When Rudi was twelve he dropped football and picked up Hitler Jugend sponsored track and field, earning Magdeburg area champion for 100 –meter dash in both his freshman and senior year. He also had several romances in his late high school, girls falling for the dashing Hitler Youth track star. When he reached fifteen his father allowed him to drive their dented metal pickup truck to the city to deliver hop bundles to wealthy families trying to brew their own beer in their basements and attics. Rudolph loved the job, and he was able to keep fifty percent of all purchases and any tips that customers might give him.
Rudolph graduated in 1938 with a decent academic achievement score and an excellent athletic background. Service in either a government labor force or the Heer was mandatory for all young men, and Rudi picked the Heer. He had been fascinated with arms demonstrations when he was a member of the HJ and he was thrilled to actually hold firepower in his hands. He was accepted into a military officer’s academy to learn thorough tactics in the summer of 1939 and held the rank of Leutnant in time for the invasion of Poland later that same year.
Military Rank: Oberleutnant. I put a lot of work into this app’ and I am sure that I will post long/well enough in neutral threads and be fit to lead troops in a hostile thread with this rank. If I cannot attain it, is it possible I can lengthen/strengthen it to achieve the rank?
Writing Sample:
Blazitopha Railway
Southwest Russia, Summer of 1941
Rudi leaned on the red leather backing to his booth, feeling pinpricks as droplets of perspiration snaked down from his hairline, over the back of his neck, and then disappeared into the damp white folds of his officer’s service shirt. It seemed that when the German army had commandeered the passenger train it had neglected to turn its air conditioning on. The air in the enclosed compartment, big enough for four passengers, hung stale and hot. Oberleutnant Veigt had been extremely lucky to get the space to himself, for most of the officer’s car was occupied. But Rudi had chosen the booth nearest to one of the piston-powered wheels, right on top of it in fact, and the roar of hissing gas and steel against iron worked its way into every thought. But the noise was a small price to pay for solitude, which he had gotten so little of the past month. He had heard how lonely being a soldier was, how dark and dismal being posted alone on sentry duty. But everything he had experienced so far was the exact opposite. He had constantly been in contact with other Heer personnel, eating, sleeping, and bathing with other people was exhausting. Too much human contact. He enjoyed the noisy peace that was his car.
The wooden table that used to occupy the booth was long gone, taken out and scrapped by the Heer. Material things like that take up to much space. Rudi could still see the rust-colored imprints where the steel legs had been bolted the floor, a quintuplet of blood red circles where the rivets had been. The two benches sat opposite each other so that the seated persons could look at each other. Rudi sat on one side, his jackbooted feel propped up against the opposite bench. He had stripped off his tunic and hung it on the closed door. The glass that made up the door reminded him of the kind that was used to make sliding shower doors; hazy and disrupted so you could only see outlines. Every once in a while he saw the bulky form of a soldier walk past, probably on the way to the overused and stinking latrines at the rear of the cart that opened onto the train track. He wished he could see the outline of comely female, all curves. He hadn’t seen an attractive woman for what? Two months now? Only ugly Slavic peasants fleeing from the German advance. Nothing special.
The debris from a past meal lay next to him on the bench. A half-eaten can of stew, gravy dribbling down the steel frame, grew stagnant in the heat. He had enjoyed all the coffee but left a hunk of black rye. He was not hungry enough to eat something that tastes of sawdust. A packet of clear blue sugar candies added as a morale-booster had also found its way into his stomach, the sweetness cleansing his foul, unwashed palate. He had lost his toothbrush to some scavenging enlisted man a week ago and had not found a replacement yet. He was disgusted at what Germans were degraded to during wartime. A soldier stealing from an officer would have never even been thought about two years ago! But, alas, times have changed.
Looking out the dirty orange-tinted glass of his booth’s window he could fortify this statement further. Why the hell, out of all the nations out there, did we pick this to conquer? The steppe rolled on for what seemed to be infinity, the wide mountains marking the beginning of the Middle East just barely visible in the south. What do honest people have to gain from this? Germany should have attacked Spain, he thought. At least they have beautiful women, not just hags born from dirty whores. He closed his eyes and reclined, cuddling up to an imaginary Spanish girl that only a soldier on campaign could dream up.
***
A sharp rap woke Rudi from his nap. “Veigt, move your lazy ass!” came a cry from outside. He gently rose from his booth, realizing that the train had stopped and docked at a landing platform. Rudolph knew the demanding voice was his captain, Hubert Zoller. “Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann.” Rudolph said with a spark of irritation, reaching for his tunic and placing it over his shoulders. He followed the grey garment up with his black utility belt and his service cap, pulling the brim down over his forehead. He instinctively reached for his holster to check that his Walther’s safety was on, but he remembered that all firearms had been confiscated before the train trip. For your own good, the Sergeant who took his pistol had said. Rudolph still didn’t fully understand why he had to give it up. But rules are rules.
Rudolph emerged from his booth with a sigh, joining a line of officers churning to exit the train. As he waited for the exit he looked at the mural painted on one wall of the landing platform; a Hellenic-esque fresco showing birds perched on grape vines. Quite odd for a little place in the middle of the Steppe. As he stepped onto the platform he realized that the station was much bigger than he had thought. It had once been a grand place, but the green and red paint was now peeling and several windows were broken. The rest of the town around the station also looked in disrepair. It was something straight out of one of those silly American westerns he’d watched at the pictures, with the mouths that would move with some unknown English tongue while the German audio siphoned in would hardly match.
When he started to look around he could tell that the train was taking soldiers back behind the German lines too. Men with tired and lined faces piled onto the train, obviously stressed by war. Suddenly Rudi became frightened. Was this what was coming for him?