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Theodor Schulte Blog Entry |
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April 8, 2022, 1:22:04 AM April 8, 2022, 1:41:02 AM April 8, 2022, 1:45:48 AM 4/8/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's character portrait attempt from my weird anthro alternate-reality WWII storyline is Hauptscharführer (Master Sergeant) Theodor Schulte: without headwear (top), with a Stahlhelm (middle), and with a peaked cap (bottom). He's the right-hand man of Obersturmführer (1st Lieutenant) Gunter Hesse and often does more unsavory tasks for him. He saved Hesse's life and then Hesse saved him from a dead-end position (Schulte's kind of a dim bulb, so his superiors didn't see much use in him), so he's slavishly devoted to Hesse now, and likes to call him "Boss." He also has a habit of fathering lots of kids out of wedlock, though he provides for them all because he loves having kids. Regarding his design, he's supposed to be a blue/gray Great Dane; I originally imagined him wearing the cap like Hesse, though I now think he's more of a Stahlhelm guy. His hairstyle may be changed in the future since it might be more shortly cropped, just that I don't know how to draw that yet. There'll be more about him later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. TUMBLR EDIT: Here's Master Sgt. Theodor (that's pronounced TEE-oh-dor, because it's German) Schulte; I likely mentioned him in Gunter Hesse's entry, because they are two peas in a pod. *checks* Okay, so I only briefly mentioned him. I don't know much about Schulte's life before he enters Hesse's life but here goes. There's some sort of big SS meeting thingie and everybody goes outside at the end to mill around and chat; Hesse is minding his own business when somebody suddenly yells, "Gun!" and he's abruptly shoved to the ground, gunshot sounds ringing out. At first he thinks he's been hit but it's hard to tell because somebody's lying on top of him and he has to push him off just to sit up. That someone is then-Sgt. (Unterscharführer) Schulte, who is also the one who yelled. For some reason a gunman targeted the SS guys and although I don't think he was aiming for Hesse specifically, Hesse was in the line of sight, and Schulte just saved his life...but took three bullets himself in the process. Ouch. Schulte ends up in the hospital; Hesse recovers from his shock, and looks into his background. He can't understand why Schulte has been stuck at the rank of sergeant for as long as he has, and goes to speak with Schulte's supervising officer. The attitude he gets is very dismissive but the gist of it is that everyone else in the SS considers Schulte a "big dumb idiot" not worth promoting or moving into any other, more promising position. He has some odd habits, but isn't known as a troublemaker, and he obeys orders. So Hesse doesn't really understand that, and requests permission to take Schulte off their hands if they aren't interested in him. Schulte's supervisor is like, go right ahead, just make sure you fill out the paperwork. (This is a sort of running gag among the SS in my storyline...they're the terror of WWII Germany...and they're really super anal about paperwork.) Hesse then tries visiting Schulte in the hospital, but he's--well, here's how the exchange goes in the (adult, sorry) scene I'm currently writing that includes a description of the incident: A slight noise came from the bed. Hesse glanced up. Sgt. Schulte shifted and made a pained face before dragging his eyes open, blinking groggily at the ceiling. Hesse stood and stepped toward the bed; Schulte's glazed stare focused on him now, at least, as much as it could focus. "Herr Unterscharführer...?" Hesse said. "How are you feeling?" Schulte slow-blinked. "Funny." "That's probably the morphine." Schulte slow-blinked again. Stared a moment. "Do I know you?" Hesse decided to ignore the lack of honorific. "Obersturmführer Gunter Hesse. You saved my life the other day." "Oh." Another blink. "Well. I hope you're grateful." He shifted again and shut his eyes and dozed off. Hesse didn't quite succeed in keeping a slight smile from his face. "I'll come back when you're not high as a kite," he said, although he knew Schulte didn't hear him, and left the room. All righty then. Things don't go much more smoothly the next time he visits, either: He returned two days later and found the sergeant considerably more awake and lucid, though still obviously weak and in pain. He was staring at the meal on his bed tray as if not sure what to do with it; when he noticed Hesse entering the room, his eyes grew and he started pushing himself further upright, wincing terribly. Hesse realized he was trying to sit up straight to salute. "As you were," he said with a wave; Schulte hesitated before relaxing, though he still seemed confused. "Do you remember me?" Hesse asked. Schulte furrowed his brow. "Nein. I mean...I'm not sure. Do I?" "The SS meeting several days ago, you attempted to stop a gunman." "Seems sort of familiar. Were you the gunman...?" "Nein...I was not the gunman. You jumped in front of the gunman, before he could shoot me." "Did you do something to piss him off?" Hesse paused to take a breath. Well, they had warned him. "I wouldn't know. I don't know who he was or what his issue was. I came here to talk about you." "Oh." Schulte seemed to cringe a little. "I apologize if you did not want me to jump in front of him, Herr Obersturmführer. I won't next time." Hesse mentally resolved never to engage in any conversations with him if he could help it, if only for his own peace of mind. "I came here to thank you for your actions." Schulte just blinked. "There is anything wrong, Herr Unterscharführer?" Hesse inquired, hoping he wouldn't regret it. "Oh. Nein, Herr Obersturmführer..." "Hesse. Gunter Hesse." "Theodor Schulte. Or just Theo. Nein, there is nothing wrong, just...ah, I'm not used to officers thanking me when they show up. Usually you folks say something else." Big dumb idiot, perhaps...? "Well, perhaps those days will be over. I've spoken with your supervising officer about why you've been stuck at Unterscharführer as long as you have, and wondered if you'd be interested in a transfer, and a possibility to move up in the ranks." "Transfer to where?" "To my office. You'd be helping out me." "Why?" Hesse blinked now. "I...just explained..." "Nein, nein, I mean...what do you want me for?" The sergeant furrowed his brow. "Surely someone like you can find somebody better?" "You're the one I'm interested in." A long pause. Schulte asked, "Did you lose a bet?" And that's all I have written of that part of the scene but you get the idea. He's definitely not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but Hesse takes him on anyway, inviting him to stay in the same apartment building he and some other members of the SS occupy when in the city, as well as to stop by his office for his orders. Schulte is beyond confused--he can't figure out why a smart, classy guy like Hesse would be interested in him--but obeys. Well, Schulte proves to be just as his superiors said, not too bright or ambitious but obedient and good at following orders, which is exactly what Hesse was looking for, since he needs somebody who'll step in and do his dirty work for him every now and then without any qualms and without question. Not only is Schulte obedient, he's a big hulking thuggish guy who easily intimidates others, and has no problem either knocking people around, or outright murdering them and their entire families if necessary. (C'mon...this is the SS here, what were you expecting.) Additionally, he's good at gathering intelligence on the sly, since some of the lower-ranking and lower-class members of the SS still like him and share info with him, which he reports back to Hesse. He shows no interest in climbing through the ranks to a powerful position but Hesse manages to eventually get him promoted to master sergeant, which is good enough for him, and the pay is nice since he has at least half a dozen kids by different mothers in the city--that's his odd habit, he's basically catnip to lonely city women and has no problem financially providing for all of them, because a good SS guy is supposed to have lots of kids, right? Right. Anyway, the fact that Hesse upheld his promise--and doesn't treat him like an absolute moron (and that the SS was actually just about to discharge Schulte for his injuries)--is enough for Schulte to pledge undying loyalty to him, doing anything he asks, almost without question (and even the very few times he does ask a question, he still leaves the decision up to Hesse and follows through if necessary). The two become nearly inseparable despite their great differences in mindset and temperament; Hesse is more cultured, levelheaded, and intellectual, while Schulte is more practical, short tempered, and interested in simple pleasures; another difference is Schulte's rather crass morals and sense of humor, which grate on Hesse constantly, though he puts up with it. This scene from another WIP of mine is pretty unsavory but illustrates his way of thinking pretty well--Hesse is invited to the private quarters of Sophie Sommer, a nightclub singer he's developed an interest in and she's developed an interest in return, but she passes out drunk before they can really get anywhere; Hesse ends up leaving. He meets Schulte standing outside having a smoke. Outside, he found Schulte leaning against the corner of the building, smoking a cigarette; he blinked in surprise on seeing Hesse, dropping the cigarette and grinding it out before hurrying to fall into step beside him. Hesse walked a little quicker than usual, grateful for the dimness of the lights. "Wow, Boss," Schulte said, "that...that was fast." "We didn't do anything," Hesse said shortly. "Oh. Uh." Schulte furrowed his brow, said nothing for a few moments. He rubbed at the back of his neck. "There are other pretty fish in the sea, Boss," he finally offered. Hesse fought not to roll his eyes too hard. "Not like that," he said. "She passed out," he added, at the master sergeant's inquisitive look. Another blink. "Then...what are you doing here with me?" Schulte exclaimed. "This is the perfect opportunity. She can't say no or anything!" Hesse didn't care; he did roll his eyes this time, taking a deep breath and letting it out for good measure. "I'm not f***ing an unconscious woman, Schulte," he said. "She seems to be into you, Boss, if that's what has you worried," Schulte retorted. "What's it matter if she's awake or not? It's not like she'll know the difference." Theodor Schulte, everyone. There's an additional relationship I haven't mentioned yet, and that's the one between Schulte and Josef Diamant, escaped Jewish labor camp inmate and current leader of the Diamond Network, which engages in occasional acts of sabotage and destruction in the city. Although they've barely ever seen each other, they know each other very well by reputation, and Diamant makes the most of this by constantly getting under Schulte's skin. All he has to do, it turns out, is paint graffiti aimed at Schulte, calling him "big dumb rutting ox." (The graffiti is in Yiddish, so one of the others has to translate it for Schulte.) Now, Schulte may be used to being called dumb...and he's okay with people considering him promiscuous, since he is...but that particular combination of the two, implying that mindlessly bonking every woman in the city is all he's good for, just INFURIATES him. It takes a bit for Schulte to lose his temper but this definitely does the trick, every time. (In one scene he shoots another SS officer who makes a similar comment--when Hesse rebukes him by saying he can't just randomly shoot other people, Schulte snaps, "Why not? You do!" Well...touché.) More than once he screams about how he's going to personally stick Diamant on a train straight to the gas chambers. (Oddly, these two characters don't engage in their "final" confrontations with each other...Diamant ends up confronting Hesse, while Schulte is confronted by...a random busboy working at Sophie's club. But I can't get into that here.) I'm sure I'm forgetting some juicy stuff, but I guess that's what Toyhou.se is for, yes...? Hope somebody enjoyed my excerpts from writing that'll probably otherwise never see the light of the Net. :/ **NOTE:** Just when you thought this couldn't get any longer, at literally the last minute--after typing up all the above, yet before posting it--I came across THIS little tidbit on Wikipedia: Himmler always detested the army's class distinctions. It was forbidden for SS men to follow the army custom of addressing superior officers by prefixing Herr to their rank, and Kamerad was an approved form of address under most circumstances. Oopsie! 😳 I've thus been Googling all morning trying to find clarifications and mostly failing miserably, since looking up German military honorifics will give you info about how it's done TODAY, not how it was done specifically in Himmler's SS. A brief look in The Order Of The Death's Head, which has loads of detail on other obscure SS practices (I was originally looking up how exactly one "applied" to join the SS, did they get a form to fill out??--never did find out for sure though I did learn you had to submit a photo for Himmler to mull over and see if you were Aryan enough, haha), didn't enlighten me further, alas. I did find the sources where I learned in the first place you're supposed to include "Herr" in military titles (forgot how I learned that) and a few clarifications that I haven't been doing it quite right, then I found THIS: "Herr..." -- In past and modern German military protocol, "Herr" ("mister") is said before ranks when someone is addressing a person of higher rank. For example, a lieutenant ("Leutnant") would address his captain as "Herr Hauptmann" ("Mr. Captain"). Superior officer address subordinates with "Herr" and their last name or simply their rank, but not adding "Herr" to the rank. This practice was forbidden in the Waffen-SS, as it offended Himmler's egalitarian principles. All righty, so (although my characters are Allgemeine-SS and SS-Totenkopfverbände, not Waffen-SS), here's further confirmation that "Herr" has to go, though no clarification on proper usage of "Kamerad," nor how to address female auxiliaries (my story does feature one). I learned "Kamerad!" was used by German soldiers as a cry of surrender in WWI (one source said WWII but I think that was an error), which REALLY confuses things, but based on my further reading I'm going to just ignore that meaning. SO...since I have no experts on this subject to ask (I always have abysmal luck when asking my weird niche writing questions on websites, so I won't bother trying), I believe I'll proceed in the following manner: *Wehrmacht members (in my version of events, this will include both "Nazified" and non-Nazified soldiers, almost like two factions) (don't fret too much, this is a decision based on how I originally designed the story for this universe, I don't buy the "clean Wehrmacht" myth) still use the term "Herr" when referring to each other, albeit with the rank distinctions mentioned above (previously I had superior officers misusing the term), and since there is one female character falling in this group, she'll probably be addressed as Frau even though she's unmarried since Fräulein seems to be more of a "young girl" thing. (This was what I had the most trouble deciding on, all I can find is how outdated Fräulein is nowadays, not how it and Frau were used in WWII, presumably because the Nazis didn't like women in the military. This particular character, Lt. Senta Werner, is an anomaly who needs some artistic license to explain her presence.) I'm not sure yet how they'll refer to SS members; they'll probably still use Herr since they're not "technically" comrades...? *shrug* *SS members use the term "Kamerad" in Herr's place when referring to each other, though they'll presumably use "Herr" when referring to non-SS members, because they're elitist snobs like that in my story. (This is why Himmler trying to do away with class distinctions amuses me.) I have one female "SS" character so far, actually an auxiliary since the SS didn't allow women to join; she's a member of the SS-Helferinnenkorps (crud, I found three ranks for this on some foreign site and thought I bookmarked it but I can't find it now) (welp, a long slog through my tablet history found nothing, so maybe it's on my laptop) (EDIT, it isn't, but on my laptop I bookmarked THIS which has the same info) and her rank is SS-Helfer. She's young and unmarried, and all the characters referring to her so far outrank her, so they've been calling her Fräulein. I'm getting the feeling this is inappropriate though I can't be sure (all the stuff I'm finding regards current usage of the term, not the non-PC ways it might've been used in 1930s/40s Nazi Germany), so I was going to have them call her Frau...BUT!...she's a "Kamerad" too, isn't she? So she should perhaps be called Kameradin (the feminine form)? I'm leaning toward that right now. For this entry I'm leaving the terms as originally written in my scenes though they'll later be edited where appropriate. In the infinitesimal chance anyone who actually knows anything about this sees this, feel free to enlighten me on proper usage of Nazi Germany military honorifics, especially in regards to wimminz, haha. [Theodor Schulte 2022 [Friday, April 8, 2022, 1:22:04 AM]] [Theodor Schulte 2022 2 [Friday, April 8, 2022, 1:41:02 AM]] [Theodor Schulte 2022 3 [Friday, April 8, 2022, 1:45:48 AM]] |