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Udo Eisen Blog Entry |
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June 17, 2022, 2:52:24 AM 6/17/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's character from my anthro WWII series is Feldwebel (Sergeant First Class) Udo Eisen. He's General Schavich's/Schavitz's chauffeur and "fixer," cleaning up all evidence of the horrible things his boss does. He really doesn't like doing it, he just offered to to save his own skin after witnessing such an incident and did so well it became his job. I decided on a whim to give him green eyes rather than the blue I usually use for the antagonists in this story. That's supposed to be a chauffeur's cap he's wearing (Schavich/Schavitz makes him wear a black chauffeur's uniform), though it was hard to get the look of it right. He had worried-looking eyebrows but they got hidden by the cap's bill. TUMBLR EDIT: Sgt. Eisen is a more secondary character, plus is pretty new, so doesn't have a lot of history yet. He takes part in an adult scene I've been writing which describes General Schavich's/Schavitz's (I'm gonna call him Schavitz the rest of this entry to try to commit to it more) awful...um...leisure activities. It turns out Schavitz likes to trawl secondary schools for pretty young blond girls. Eisen becomes his chauffeur, so has to participate in this unsavory activity by driving him to his preferred hunting grounds and inviting the teen of his choice to join him for a nice ride through the country to visit his castle. Yep, Schavitz lives in a castle, which both Eisen and I are pretty sure he stole from an old Jewish family after their deaths. (Schavitz is also very well off financially, another thing Eisen credits to "dead Jews.") Teenage girls are easily impressed by such things, plus Schavitz has some sort of "agreement" with the local schools that he'll provide them generous donations as long as they look the other way, so this state of affairs carries on for quite a while with no serious repercussions. Even most of the girls and their families themselves don't complain, as Schavitz is generous with his money and favors toward them as well. That is, until he accidentally kills one of them during the act. Oops. Eisen just happens to overhear what happens and hurries to investigate, sees the dead girl, and Schavitz sees him seeing her. Double oops. Eisen thinks fast when the general heads toward him menacingly, and offers to "clean up" the scene and take care of everything so no one comes along with questions. Although skeptical, Schavitz gives him a chance. And Eisen follows through. Bites down his revulsion, cleans up the bedroom, disposes of the girl's belongings, contacts a shady associate of his to "disappear" the body and make it look like an accident in case she's found, and offers both a fictional story about her running off with a boyfriend, plus a nice cash incentive, to the family. The ruse works--nobody comes questioning what happened to the poor girl. Schavitz is so impressed, he hands Eisen control of his ill-begotten finances and assigns him the extra duty of working as his "fixer," taking care of any further problems that may arise as a consequence of his favorite pastime. Well s**t. Eisen despises this, but orders are orders, and it's the only way to keep his own neck safe. Although he realizes he's just getting himself deeper and deeper involved with Schavitz's crimes, he can't think of any real way out, and Schavitz grows to rely on him as well. All this means Eisen gets twisted up in lots of Schavitz's other issues. He knows Schavitz's secrets, where the figurative and the literal bodies are buried. For example, since he's the one Schavitz orders to get his application for joining the Schutzstaffel in order, he also knows the reason why the SS decides to reject him--Schavitz has some Jewish ancestry which even he didn't know about (and which he refuses to believe is true). He knows exactly how Schavitz treats the rest of his staff, including the pretty young maids who keep the castle clean. Even though he's trustworthy with Schavitz's finances, he knows all about all his confiscated goods. In short, even though his life is in Schavitz's hands, as time goes on the power balance slowly shifts, and Eisen ends up holding Schavitz's life in his hands. It's a good thing for Schavitz that Eisen doesn't want to rock the boat or endanger his own prospects, just yet. He knows how easily he could ruin Schavitz's life, but unlike the rather impulsive general, he knows he would ruin his own life in the process, too. And also unlike Schavitz, he's patient enough to play the long game. He keeps his mouth shut, his head down, and does as he's told, no muss, no fuss. Although dark rumors constantly swirl around the general--most of them passed along by fellow members of the Wehrmacht, who are in a better position than most to know such things (Private Godfrey Klemper, who also has lots of connections as well as a grudge against the SS, confides some of these rumors in Lt. Ratdog when they stop by Schavitz's castle, the lieutenant also now in Schavitz's employ)--there's never quite enough proof to back any of them up, and everyone just has to live with the fact that occasionally, young pretty schoolgirls have a tendency to go missing while in Schavitz's company. Schavitz is important...they're not. Eisen plays a direct role in an incident with long-term, drastic consequences while driving Schavitz through the woods one day on his motorcycle and sidecar. Schavitz insists he speed up to reach their destination more quickly, and knowing him, he probably threatens Eisen into complying, possibly at gunpoint. The forest road is rough and windy and the sergeant has to struggle to maintain control of the sputtery vehicle. Just as they round a turn, he spots a small child in the road and attempts to slow down and turn aside, but Schavitz, possibly not seeing the kid (or maybe just not caring), grabs at the handlebars and forces him to keep going. The sidecar strikes the kid and the two barrel down the road a bit before Eisen finally regains control and brings the motorcycle to a halt. Even though Schavitz rages and threatens him, he insists on jogging back to check on the kid. Before he can round the turn again he hears anguished wailing; when he gets there he finds a man cradling the dead boy in his arms and sobbing. This is the child's single father, Adel (last name never given), whose home is nearby in the woods; the forest road is almost completely unused, and this is his first time raising a kid (by himself, no less), so he took it for granted the child would be safe. Eisen, as always, thinks fast. He breathlessly tells the crying father that he saw a motorcycle and sidecar, driven by a pair of Trench Rats (the Allies in the story), speed by and strike the kid; he and his own boss tried following but failed to overtake them. He promises they'll head off and keep looking, and returns to the seething Schavitz. The only reason the general doesn't snap his head off right there is because Eisen says he needed a credible story to explain away his involvement in a little child's death--this isn't one of his schoolgirls, this child's body was left behind for his parent to find, so a different sort of story is needed. Schavitz steams but realizes he's right, and Eisen tries to forget the incident. Well, that's easier said than done. Eisen's story, rather than mollify the grieving Adel, just stokes his rage, and he picks up a new hobby: Sniping Trench Rats. And it turns out he's pretty good at it. So good that Schavitz himself gets word of it, and is intrigued; he recently lost his eye to the Trench Rat sergeant, Black Rat, and is itching for some revenge of his own. If he can locate and convince this nameless sniper to work for him, killing off Trench Rats, it'd be a huge bonus. He sends out some feelers to find out more about this person and soon discovers his name is Adel and he's apparently just some guy who lives in the middle of the woods--not even a soldier--yet for some reason he seems to like killing Trench Rats. Schavitz is so self-centered he doesn't even put two and two together until Eisen reminds him who this is and why he's doing what he's doing. Schavitz doesn't care that he himself, NOT the Trench Rats, is the cause of Adel's actions--he wants him to come work for him, immediately. He has some officers pay Adel a visit and request him to come see him at his castle; he can make his drive for revenge worthwhile. Adel arrives at the castle late one rainy night and is reluctantly let in by Eisen. He goes to speak with Schavitz, who briefly outlines how he could use his services and that he will even grant him an honorary Wehrmacht rank of Oberleutnant (first lieutenant), along with perks such as a city apartment and a salary, if he works for him, just doing what he's already doing. Adel isn't impressed by the military title or the money but he agrees; when the general suggests that he take a relevant nickname and asks what he'd like it to be, Adel offers the name "Ratdog"--because he's hunting Rats. On his way out, Eisen quietly says to him, "You don't remember me, do you?" and Ratdog says no, he doesn't; Eisen doesn't explain, and Ratdog doesn't ask. He goes to work for the very person responsible for the death of his son, and he has no idea. Eisen knows, and this alone wears on his conscience far more than any of Schavitz's other crimes--this time, he saw and heard the parent's grief firsthand. Yet as always, he keeps his mouth shut, his head down. Eisen remains mostly in the background throughout the story though I'm sure he could have a lot of interesting stories of his own, including a brief unpleasant encounter with one of Schavitz's conquests as he's getting ready to drive her back home. (He experiences what's basically a sexual assault, though he pretends what happened is normal and not worth mentioning to anyone.) He doesn't have any background to speak of yet; all I know is he's in the Wehrmacht and for some reason was assigned to assist Schavitz in a sort of noncombatant position (Schavitz doesn't actively lead troops into battle anymore, either--I'm not sure WHAT he does, he just seems to get by on his reputation), and he has a rather nervous, subdued personality, and prefers to blend into the scenery, which is one reason why Schavitz putting him on display with his immaculate chauffeur uniform and big shiny black car makes him so ill at ease. He must have either some hidden reserve of fortitude and cleverness and/or personal experience with very unpleasant things, however, seeing how he responds to Schavitz's criminal activities and how effectively he deals with them despite his own anxiety. So there's some intriguing potential character development there, for how he got to be the resourceful person he is, though his character hasn't "spoken" to me yet regarding his past the way some others like Godfrey Klemper and Gunter Hesse have, and I prefer not to force such things, so Eisen's past remains a mystery at the moment. I'm pretty sure I already typed up in another entry how Eisen's part in the Trench Rats storyline ends...let me simply quote myself. Much later, toward the end of the war and after Schavich has been killed, another general (so far unnamed) assumes his command, restores Klemper's rank and promotes him and Dasch, and starts laying out how things are going to be done differently. Eisen asks if it's true that Schavich is dead; when this is confirmed, he exclaims, "My name is Feldwebel Udo Eisen, and I proclaim that Herr Generaloberst Schavich was a criminal, not just against Jews, but against civilians, German citizens," and proceeds to spill out the details of every horrid act Schavich ever committed--the women he assaulted, the girls he killed, the Jews and citizens he slaughtered and stole from, the military rules he broke, the hit-and-run of Ratdog's son, everything. Not just that, but Schavich's personal papers are in the safe, proving he isn't of pure Aryan ancestry--something the SS can verify. Then, after adding that he himself was complicit in covering up these acts and is sorry for it, Sgt. Eisen takes out his gun and shoots himself dead. Eisen didn't want to be a bad person, he just wanted to live. I like to think he felt at least a little of the guilt lifted from his shoulders before he died, though obviously he would have preferred that he'd done none of it at all. [Udo Eisen 2022 [Friday, June 17, 2022, 2:52:24 AM]] |