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Inga von Dobermann Blog Entry |
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November 4, 2022, 4:00:19 AM November 4, 2022, 4:00:48 AM July 3, 2024, 1:20:06 AM 11/4/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Sunshine." I did Free Draw Friday. This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Inga Dobermann, her natural look (top drawing) and her disguise as a maid (bottom drawing). I drew her husband Louis Dobermann last week. There'll be more about her later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. TUMBLR EDIT: Inga Dobermann has quite a story, which I've fortunately already covered in significant detail: the most noteworthy info being in my previous character entry for her husband, Louis Dobermann, though additional material is in Tobias Schäfer's entry, and Adelina Dobermann's. (Feel free to browse and see inconsistencies in how the story's developing.) So I don't need to gush out a novel this time around, though I'll give some more detail. Inga is Jewish, though obviously nonpracticing. She wears or carries a tiny Star of David pendant on her person, but she doesn't go to synagogue or keep kosher or celebrate the holidays or anything--not for any particular reason, I think she just came from a family that was equally lax. By the time she meets and then marries Dobermann, she's nearly agnostic; I think she believes in God but doesn't think about Him much because there's just no real reason to. Granted, that changes in the '20s and '30s when the Nazi Party rises to power...but by then she's been married quite a while, and has a daughter, so it's complicated. She decides it's safest to just keep quiet and not let anyone know. Most complicated and nuanced is her friendship with Gunter Hesse. She meets him while he and Dobermann are recuperating in hospital near the end of the Great War; Dobermann is actually the one who introduces them, by advising Inga, who visits wounded soldiers to boost morale (her actual profession is never given, I have the strong feeling she's merely from a well-off family and uses sizable savings to get by--this is supported by the socialite role she easily assumes after marrying Dobermann), to pay Hesse a visit too. Hesse, whom Dobermann saved in the trenches, spent his entire pre-war life in an orphanage as a ward of the state following his parents' death in a fire when he was an infant; after he aged out (no one ever adopted him), the military was the only feasible path open to him. The rest of his unit was killed, so he has no visitors, not even a superior officer. He's heavily drugged when Inga visits him, and very confused--who is she, why is she there?--but appreciates the visit anyway. An unintended consequence of Inga's visits is the men's reaction to her: She's unusually beautiful, graceful, and gracious, and they're easily smitten with her. (It isn't something she does on purpose, though as I make clear later she does sometimes take advantage of this when it suits her.) Dobermann and Hesse are no exception--both are single and have no family (Dobermann recently lost his to the flu), so Inga's presence is especially meaningful. The similarities end around there, though: While Dobermann is (unknown to Inga) wealthy and literally comes from aristocracy (he's a Freiherr--baron--from a Junker family) and owns a large country estate, Hesse comes from a lower middle-class family and is quite poor, having only the small savings his parents left for him. While Dobermann has his family name and fortune to fall back on, now that Hesse is wounded, he has no real prospects left. Also, Dobermann is quite practical and suppresses his emotions almost to a fault, while Hesse grew up on fabulous stories of knights and maidens and chivalry and so has rather fanciful dreams of things that, for Dobermann, aren't too far from reality; he's long sustained himself on the hope that somewhere out there, his "maiden" is waiting to choose him as her champion. When Inga arrives at his bedside, his drug-fogged brain can't help but wonder if she's the one, come to him at last. Both he and Dobermann fall in love with Inga over the course of her visits. Dobermann is the one who acts first, however, and she reciprocates--she doesn't make the choice based on wealth or social status, since she assumes the two men are about equal in those regards, and if Hesse had acted first, things might perhaps have turned out quite differently. But she makes the choice anyway, and when Hesse sees the ring on her finger and receives the news, he pushes down his thoughts of knights and maidens and offers her sincere congratulations. Inga isn't as ignorant as the men around her often think. Hesse blinks in surprise when she tells him she and Dobermann were married by the chaplain, and right before he smiles at her, she sees it--in his eyes, a flicker of disappointment and regret. It surprises her, as he'd never said a word or made a move like Dobermann did. But it's obvious now that he loves her, too. She feels a pang of guilt but knows that to reveal she's aware of his feelings will humiliate him, so she pretends not to notice. When the time comes for Dobermann and herself to leave, though, she's grown fond enough of him as a friend that she gives him the address she'll be moving to (Hesse recognizes that part of the country, and is a bit puzzled--it's the countryside, where the old rich families tend to live), and urges him to contact her any time he needs to. He promises, though has no intention of following through--she's moving on without him, so he'll let her go. Inga leaves, and yet again Hesse is left behind, the one who wasn't chosen. He tries not to feel bitter, is mostly just resigned; he's used to this by now. What does make him bitter is when the military downsizes and cuts him loose, truly leaving him on his own despite him freely giving them years of his life and service; although Dobermann meets the same fate, at least he has his estate and wealth, and now Inga. Hesse has his family's meager savings, a tiny apartment in a poor part of the city, and a serious injury that has left him in pain and addicted to morphine. While Inga is swept off to her new husband's huge property complete with modest farm and help staff and frequent social visits from other wealthy parties, Hesse settles into his new life of leaving his cold damp apartment only for necessities and food he's barely interested in eating, and seeing newspapers whose headlines fill him with spite, then spending the rest of his time alone in a drugged stupor because it's better than the reality. Inga is nearly overwhelmed by the life Dobermann unexpectedly thrusts upon her--she had no idea he's rich--but quickly adapts, since her previous life wasn't terribly different. She's very skilled, unlike her asocial husband, at handling social affairs, and easily fills the role of gracious hostess and political influencer--her unintentional ability to make men fall in love with her serves this purpose well, and yes, she takes advantage of it, with Dobermann's blessings. (I just realized Inga is the perfect "bright side" of the coin whose dark side is represented by Eva Heidenreich, another graceful, wealthy, politically influential woman with an inordinately powerful husband--in Eva's case, Col. Rupprecht Heidenreich, the chief of SS intelligence--both women come across on the surface as kind, generous, and subservient to their husbands, while in truth both are much more manipulative than one would think. The difference is Inga holds on to her humanity and tries to use her talents for good, while Eva lets herself become corrupted and becomes just as evil and murderous as her husband--maybe even more so, considering that she ends up murdering him. Inga is fortunate in that she and Eva never meet--later in the story it becomes clear that Eva, on her own, has figured out Inga's secret, though she never acts on it, aside from vaguely threatening Inga's daughter Adelina. But yeah...Eva is totally Dark Inga.) She's so busy with all this that she forgets Hesse for a while; when he suddenly pops back into her thoughts one day, she's surprised. This happens to me with unfortunate frequency, I suddenly recall a person I used to care about but then just...forgot. Difference is, in my case, all those people completely forgot about me too and never cared about me as much as I did them, I doubt I ever cross their thoughts. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ With Inga, Hesse never forgot her, but he never reached out, either. She wonders how he is, and lets Dobermann know she's going to look him up and pay him a visit. Dobermann isn't ignorant either--he sensed Hesse had feelings for Inga. He's not the jealous sort, though--jealousy is for insecure people, and Dobermann is definitely not insecure--and so he has no objections to Inga's plans. Inga goes to the hospital where she last saw Hesse, but he was released long ago; they give her his address. Inga finally learns that Hesse isn't nearly as lucky in life as she's been, and feels guilty about never checking in on him before now. He doesn't answer when she knocks on his door; unsure if he's home, she tentatively tries the handle, and it's unlocked--she peers in. Hesse's apartment is so small, it consists of only two rooms, the bathroom, and the rest--the main room has a small table/desk, the food storage area, a dingy window overlooking a dingy side street, and the bed. This is where Inga finds Hesse, slumped over naked--a syringe on the bed near him. Alarmed, she hurries to try to wake him--to her immense relief he's still alive, and he manages to crack his eyes open and even murmurs, "Frau Inga?" She's perplexed when he groggily asks, "You're my maiden...?" but decides to ignore it. She offers him some water to drink, to try to snap him out of it. This here is from an adult WIP from Hesse's POV. He could feel the morphine still swirling in his system--he hadn't crashed entirely back to earth yet--so a lukewarm haze still surrounded him despite the throb in his side, and when he looked at Inga, she seemed to glow softly, as if she'd stepped out of his dream. He tentatively reached out toward her, intending to touch her face and see if she was real; she grasped his hand before he could, and her fingers were warm and solid. "Why are you here?" he asked. "I wanted to know how you were," she said softly. "It's been ages. I should have stayed in touch. Herr Gunter, what happened?" He looked around himself a little, taking in his flat. "Life happened," he said, unable to keep a trace of bitterness out of his voice. "Herr Gunter, you could have called me. I would've come to help you." "I don't need help." He pulled his hand away, hating how petulant and slurred his voice sounded, like a drunken toddler. "You have your own life, you don't need mine butting...butting in on it." "Your life is part of my life, too. You're my friend, Herr Gunter. I like to hope I'm yours." "Does your hus...your husband know you're here?" He had to struggle to find words and get them out, and started blinking drowsily. "He wouldn't mind. He worries about you too." She straightened a little, reached out and patted his cheek. "Herr Gunter, keep your eyes open." When he started slumping she stood up and gently pushed him back to lean against the wall. "Do you have a telephone...?" "No telephone," Hesse murmured. It was ridiculous, someone like him having a telephone, when he had no one to call and could never justify the expense. "Where can I find one?" "One what?" "A telephone. Stay with me, Gunter. Sit up. Keep your eyes open." She patted his face again. "Across from the corner," he said, voice faint. Golden light bordered his vision and he wanted to drift back into it before the drug wore off, but Inga grasped his wrists and rubbed them hard, keeping him there. "The cafe." "I'm going to call a doctor and get you some help." "Nein!" The word flew out of his mouth sharper than anything he'd said so far and he heard her gasp. He blinked repeatedly, seeing her staring at him; he had to shake his head, though it did little to help. "No doctors," he said. "Doctors are what got me here." Inga hesitated a moment, seeming uncertain. "Then I'll call Louis," she said. "If you're not going to hospital then you're coming with us. But I'm not just leaving you here like this." She reached to him, grasped his arms and pulled him back upright when he started to slump to the side. "Bitte, I know it's hard, Herr Gunter, but keep your eyes open, can you?" "I'm tired," Hesse said faintly. "I know. I'm going to go call Louis. Try to stay awake for me, bitte. I'll be back as soon as I can." "I'll try," Hesse murmured, not caring either way, though after Inga squeezed his hand and hurried from the flat, door closing softly behind her, he realized he really didn't want to disappoint her after she'd gone to such trouble. He really did try to keep his eyes open, and to stay sitting upright, but the corners of his vision started dimming; it wasn't the golden glow of earlier, yet it was still warm and welcoming, and he was getting tired of fighting it. After a few moments he no longer even remembered why he was trying so hard to stay awake, anyway. His eyes slipped shut without him even knowing it, and blackness settled over him, and it felt so good; he welcomed it and sank into it, a lake of insensibility, of forgetting. (Big disclaimer. I've never gotten high or drunk in my life--I'm a teetotaler, I never got a buzz or hooked or anything on any of the opioids I was ever given for medical procedures, and even the nitrous oxide they gave me when they pulled all my teeth had no effect on me. (Laughing gas, my a**.) Numerous psychiatric meds (Abilify, Adderall, amitriptyline, BuSpar, Klonopin, Lexapro, melatonin, Prozac, Risperdal, Ritalin, Wellbutrin, I may be forgetting one or two, maybe Strattera?) never had the intended effects and I quit each of them cold turkey, most after months of use, with no effects other than the Lexapro, when I went hypomanic for a few days. (I had enough bad side effects while on them, though--especially apathy, intense hunger, and weight gain. And drowsiness--while on Adderall.) Maybe I'm just impervious to the good effects of drugs. 😕 All my descriptions of the effects of drugs are based on what I could find on Google ("DO YOU NEED HELP?!" Google is like, every time I search for the effects of drugs or overdoses or withdrawal, NO GOOGLE, IT'S CALLED RESEARCH 😒 ), and to my frustration I've found that concrete descriptions of drug highs are almost nonexistent--I'm guessing it's simply ineffable, a state that can't be adequately described. Therefore, my characters' reactions are based on me trying to imagine what the ineffable must be like for myself. As Dobermann describes it to Inga in my previous entry--"Imagine the time in your life when you felt safest and happiest, most protected and warm. Just purely loved, nothing else. Now make that tenfold. That still doesn't quite capture what it's like"--the heroin/morphine high is most often described as like being wrapped in a big warm blanket and just feeling utterly loved--a sort of personal heaven. I've never experienced any feeling like that--I don't come from an affectionate, touchy-feely family--so I had to try hard to imagine it for myself, though for that reason I do know the feeling of LONGING to be hugged and loved, like Hesse does. No wonder it's addictive. In this scene Hesse first enters a warm, hazy, golden dream of a childhood he never had but wishes he had--his mother, of whom he has no memory, is described as simply "faceless and eternal." It's a dream of golden sunset fields and swaying grass and crickets and children's laughter and the smell of flowers and baking bread. Heaven to someone who grew up like Hesse. After Inga drags him, unwilling, out of this dream, he's unable to return, though he does manage to slip back into insensitive--yet welcoming--darkness, until she pulls him out of that too. Tl;dr: Drugs?--I have ZERO personal experience to draw on, and only minimal help from the Internet, so all of this is likely WAY off; all I could go on was my attempt at putting myself in the character's shoes. All I can say is I tried. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) Inga returns with Dobermann--I'm not sure why/how she was in the city without him or the car, so she must have called a ride--and the two of them bustle Hesse back to the estate--he passes out along the way. They get him settled in a guest room and Inga asks to sit with him so he doesn't wake up alone and confused; Dobermann agrees, so she sits at Hesse's bedside. He wakes with no memory of how he got there. Inga explains things, again apologizes for leaving him hanging, but promises to set things right: He's to stay with them until he's better, whatever that means and however long it takes. Hesse tries to protest but she shuts him down, knowing that he'll never allow her to help him if she leaves it entirely in his hands--he's too ashamed and embarrassed to ask for help, so she'll just have to give it. She won't accept his refusal. He finally agrees to stay. Inga's attitude softens, and she reiterates how much she cares, how sorry she is that she let it get so bad--she'll set it right. Without thinking about it much, she reaches out and places her hand against Hesse's cheek, a comforting gesture. To her surprise, however, he promptly places his hand over hers--almost like a reflex action--shuts his eyes, and presses his face against her palm. It's a simple passing gesture that lasts only several seconds before he lets her go, but she understands immediately what it means. They both know the feeling goes only one way, and he never makes any other effort to win her over; but Hesse still loves her, and something as simple as a mere touch to the face carries far more meaning for him than for her: For the love-starved Hesse, who's never been chosen in his life, a single affectionate touch means the world--it's more than he's ever gotten from anyone. He knows Inga doesn't love him the way he loves her, and she never will, but the mere touch of her hand will do. She's not his maiden but he'll go to the ends of the earth for her anyway. Hesse doesn't know that Inga knows this, yet she does. And despite her best intentions to do good, and her truly considering Hesse her friend, she's far from perfect. As the political landscape starts to change for the worse--taking Hesse with it--his feelings for her nonetheless stay the same, and she takes advantage of that, for the safety of her family. It leaves a bad taste in her mouth but she definitely uses Hesse's affection for her own benefit, and for the most part, he lets her. Her guilt over letting him down when he needed someone the most somewhat blinds her to the true ugliness he harbors inside--she sees it, but doesn't want to believe it. And the love he shows for her proves he can't REALLY feel that way, can he? Denial is denial, though. It doesn't help that Hesse passes this along to the Dobermanns' young daughter, Adelina, whom he adores as if she's his own. Dobermann is distant from Adelina, and although she tries to fill the void, Inga is often too busy assisting him; Hesse steps in to care for "little Lina," and doesn't complain. He tells her all the same old heroic stories he was told, and she hopes to find a noble knight someday. Along with the old stories of chivalry, however, she absorbs the anger and malice he expresses regarding how the war ended; although Dobermann is clear eyed enough to know better, Hesse, looking for any sort of explanation for things to make sense, latches on to the idea that Germany's enemies stabbed them in the back. Who are those enemies? The Zigeuner, the Communists, but especially the Jews. (Although they were one of the first groups to be targeted, Hesse doesn't view the disabled quite the same as his fellows--probably because of his personal experience with physical injury and addiction. He expresses empathy toward a drug addict and a mentally deranged woman at different points in the story.) He reads the propaganda, listens to the speeches. He's already primed to believe it, so it's easy to take at face value. He DOESN'T directly pass this on to Adelina, but his hatred is so palpable that she picks up on it anyway. When Inga expresses concern, Hesse is mortified, and has a talk with Adelina, instructing her not to pay attention to or parrot such things. He never denounces the views themselves, though...he just gets better at keeping quiet. Inga feels torn when he finally announces his intentions to join the Waffen-SS and fight in the budding war. She's never heard of the SS until Dobermann tells her who they are: The Schutzstaffel are a paramilitary organization who fancy themselves the modern successors of the medieval knights, protecting Germany from its enemies--no wonder Hesse is drawn to them--but the truth is "They're just hate, hate plain and simple, hate in black caps and shiny boots," Dobermann scoffs privately. "These aren't the men who fought in the last war." Except some of them, such as Hesse, are--and that's what Inga finds frightening. The newly reorganized German military holds many of the same views as the SS, and some of the SS's most vicious members served honorably in the Great War. It's spooky seeing how they've changed, when the Dobermanns know they served alongside Jews who defended Germany just as tirelessly. She tells Hesse farewell, knowing she'll miss him, yet she can't help but feel relief that he won't be around to keep influencing her daughter. She's also relieved that Dobermann shows no interest in returning to military life or joining the Nazi Party, though he ends up having to deal with the Nazis anyway--they've suddenly become very interested in his house. He and Inga have had to deal with all sorts of officials vying for their attention since she came to live with him--she'd had no idea how influential and well known he is--so she's gotten pretty good at that, yet the Nazis are something else. They're VERY persistent in their requests to make use of the Dobermann estate to combat the growing resistance movement, and Dobermann gets so fed up he takes unusual action in requesting that Wehrmacht troops who are NOT affiliated with the Nazi Party be stationed on his property, ostensibly to protect it from the partisans who are supposedly running rampant, in truth to protect it from the Nazified Wehrmacht. Inga's impressed that he pulls this off; it also gives her some hope that he may not be so sympathetic to their cause, though she can't be sure. He's always rather vague with his comments, as he's been warned that to seem TOO critical of the Reich could be dangerous. Inga tries to fill in the void Hesse left behind him by spending more time with Adelina, but the truth is her own daughter is nearly a stranger to her; she's sad and gloomy without Uncle Gunter around to keep her company, and Inga feels guilty that she has no other siblings or friends. Every letter that Hesse sends from the front is the high point of her days; she retreats with them to her room and pores over every word, chattering about them nonstop at dinner (Inga can tell Dobermann hates hearing about Hesse, but he tolerates it), writing back her own chatty letters. Hesse also writes occasionally to Inga, things he doesn't include in his letters to Adelina, though Inga has the feeling there's a lot more he's leaving out; there's a sense of distance that wasn't there before. After several years, an official letter from an SS hospital arrives; Inga is filled with dread, but it turns out Hesse is merely wounded and will be returning soon. She's rather surprised to realize how much she's missed him; though, seeing how excited Adelina gets at the news, she's anxious as well, remembering the state Hesse was in following the last war. He arrives a week or so later in a military truck, leaning on a crutch. Inga almost doesn't recognize him: He's lost weight and is rather gaunt, though harder and more muscular as well. His gray uniform is dirty and worn, but most striking are his eyes--they're sunken and glazed and it's almost like he looks through everyone rather than at them. She remembers this look from the faces of the soldiers following the Great War. Despite this, he marvels at how "little Lina" has grown up, and when he sees Inga, his eyes focus for a moment and he offers her a slight smile and accepts a hug. However, when she's leading him to his room so he can take a nap before dinner, she tries to touch his face, and rather than let her and clasp her hand in return, he flinches and pulls away. An invisible barrier has formed between them; although she can tell he has the same feelings as before, now he keeps a distance. She's not sure what changed, but modifies her own behavior accordingly to give him his space. Something alarms her, though--when she stops by his room at night to leave some water on the stand, she glances at him sleeping, and notices he sports something he didn't have when he left: A large Totenkopf, or death's-head, tattooed on his chest. Normally this would be odd but not concerning--the death's-head was a common military insignia for Prussian soldiers in the old days. Thing is, Dobermann, who's Prussian, has filled her in on a more recent development: The Totenkopf has been co-opted as an emblem of the SS. Adelina is eager to ask Hesse all about what war is like--it seems glamorous, to her. She thinks of the old legends of knights. Hesse is unusually reluctant to discuss it; although Inga explains to her daughter that this is because war is quite stressful and he needs time for things to return to normal (which is true), there seems to be more to it, as he's uncommunicative with her as well. Given the rumors Dobermann has been reporting about what the Nazis are up to--the SS especially, with the camps they're running--Inga doesn't press. (She gets even more familiar with this when Dobermann attempts a social alliance with Lt. Col. Ernst Dannecker, the commandant of the local labor camp; his oily manner and cold eyes completely put her off. Needless to say she has no idea exactly HOW skeezy he is.) She worries that he'll return to using morphine, but he doesn't--instead, he transfers from the Waffen-SS to the Allgemeine-SS, the noncombatant branch that deals with internal investigations, records collection, and ensuring that the race laws are enforced. Uh-oh. His attitude toward her still doesn't change--in fact, the job seems to give him a renewed sense of purpose--but her hopes that maybe things aren't as bad as they could be are dashed when Dobermann brings home an unusual guest: A Jewish prisoner from the labor camp. A doctor whose practice was rendered illegal by the race laws, Tobias Schäfer was literally at death's door, ready for execution, when Dobermann bought him from Dannecker. Almost everyone in the household, including the Wehrmacht troops, easily accept his presence--but Hesse is LIVID when he finds out. Appeals to Dobermann to return him to the camp go nowhere, so he actually asks Inga to intervene and "set Herr Dobermann straight." Although Inga has Dobermann's ear and he always listens to her input, treating her as an equal, Inga feigns helplessness this time, insisting she has no say. Hesse doesn't push, but she can see the fury and hatred in his eyes as he turns and leaves. All she can do is wonder if he'd have that same look if he knew about her. I've gone into more detail than intended, but wished to illustrate a bit more of the complexity of Inga's and Hesse's relationship. Most of Inga's history, including how she finally gets involved in the resistance efforts herself, and how Dobermann assists in faking her death after she kills a trespassing Nazi in self defense, is given in the previous entries; shortly after, she learns for certain that her husband is still devoted to her despite their marriage being illegal, when he continues letting the resistance network use their property. Hesse is completely in the dark. Inga stays with a neighbor, in disguise, and through the grapevine hears rumors of the sorts of activities he's involved in; for example, when another neighbor's house goes up in flames, an investigation finds her body in the rubble, with a bullet hole in her forehead. She was another collaborator with the resistance Diamond Network, who was recently paid a visit by the SS; the officer presumably in charge was Hesse. There are even darker rumors involving mass executions, including from his time in the Waffen-SS; although it seems he wasn't involved in those, he definitely knew of them, and of what's happening in the camps--but these more recent incidents from his time in the Allgemeine-SS, he almost certainly actively participated in. This explains the holes in his letters, and his reluctance to discuss the war with Adelina. It's impossible for Inga to keep hoping he's ignorant of or uninvolved in such things, even while she can't bring herself to hate him; it's a very painful, confusing position to be in. Rather than hate, she feels grief, as if her old friend from the Great War has died. It's easier to believe that than the reality, that this person who has cared so much for her for so long--he even, albeit not with full knowledge of what he was doing, helped cover up her faked death--could want her dead. As I went over in the earlier entries, toward the war's end Inga reveals herself to Adelina, then returns home to Dobermann. Hesse is stunned to learn she's still alive--and that she's one of the same people he despises so much. He's killed by resistance leader Josef Diamant before any of them can process this completely, and the Dobermanns flee to the mountains. Inga is overjoyed to be reunited with her husband and daughter after so long, though Hesse's death is a harsh blow. They decide to start a new life in the mountains; it's much different from the life she knew, but she has her family, that's what matters. For a year or so they live in peace, until it's revealed Nazi activities haven't entirely ceased...the details are given in the previous entries, though I'll point out that Inga and Hesse are oddly reunited, and both of them manage to get a small sense of closure. Inga has already mourned Hesse's death and moved on, so his return is quite jarring; Adelina, who's finally come to believe the awful rumors she'd heard about him, is frightened and skittish now, not letting him near her. This alone seems to break his heart; combined with the knowledge that the Third Reich and the SS and everyone he once knew--including his lover, Sophie--are no more, he pretty much gives up, and shows no interest in following through on his mission to bring about the Fourth Reich. Inga learns that he'd been growing disillusioned prior to the war's end, seeing all the corruption and hypocrisy in his once beloved SS; and upon learning that Sophie was pregnant, had started making plans to ask the SS for permission to marry her, fully intending to leave them for her if they refused. He still harbors spite toward the Jews but the fact that the Third Reich collapsed anyway and now his own people are the ones scattered and in hiding starts to convince him they weren't to blame for Germany's previous loss (something Dobermann had stated previously--the "stab in the back" story the Nazis promoted was fiction). (NOTE, shortly after I typed this, Hesse--and, oddly, Maj. Delbrück--shared additional info with me regarding plot events in Reunion, including details that help to start eroding Hesse's belief in the "stab in the back." I won't go into excessive detail as it's still developing, but Hesse gets convincing anecdotal evidence that he's being lied to. Considering how he trusted the SS, his feelings are much similar to Inga's.) Such ingrained bigotry can't change overnight, but he does tell Inga (after confirming that he'd loved her all those years), "If I'd known, it wouldn't have changed my feelings. I'd have kept loving you anyway." She has no way of knowing for sure if it's true, but Inga believes him. Their efforts to put the Nazi activities to an end unfortunately result first in Dobermann's death--Hesse returns his wedding ring to Inga--then to Hesse's. Both of them sacrifice themselves to ensure that she, Adelina, and the others escape safely. Diamant is the one left to lead them to safety. Although Dobermann's last request was that Diamant look after Inga--he knew they'd developed feelings for each other while Inga was in hiding--Diamant retreats to give Inga time to mourn. Eventually they're reunited, though it takes her a long while to work through her grief at losing two of the men she was closest to in the world. She thinks back over the time she visited them in hospital; if Dobermann hadn't asked her first, she quite likely would have ended up with Hesse. She wonders how differently things might have gone, even though it's rather a useless endeavor. She and Diamant grow close, though he never quite replaces her love for Dobermann, who despite her doubts proved he loved her and Adelina no matter what. There's one more detail I wanted to point out before I end this meandering entry. Although Louis and Inga Dobermann are lauded by the Nazis' victims and by the people of the city for their good works (even earning the nicknames "Saint Louis" and "Saint Inga"), they're both far from perfect--Dobermann tries a long time to avoid getting involved in things, while Inga is quite manipulative. She comes across as kind and selfless, and she knows it and makes use of it; her influence on men is especially useful in getting what she wants. Fortunately, what she wants is to help others; but things could easily have gone in a different direction, especially if she'd had a less fortunate upbringing. Even with her good friend Hesse--ESPECIALLY with Hesse--she frequently uses his feelings for her to get her own way. (Dobermann even continues with this method, relying on Hesse's love for Inga to help keep the investigation into her "death" to a minimum, after she goes into the Network.) I believe Hesse is aware of at least some of this, which is why, after his extended absence in the Waffen-SS, he pulls away from her. By this point, he's found something else that accepts him, something else to belong to: the SS. He doesn't have to rely solely on Inga and Adelina anymore for his sense of purpose, for feeling needed. Inga isn't sure why his reaction gives her a bad feeling; seeing that he went as far as having their logo tattooed on him, I think she starts to get it. Although he still cares about her and would put his life on the line if she asked, he owes his loyalty to something else now. For the first time in his life, someone/something chose him...it's just unfortunate for the Dobermanns that it happens to be the SS. Does this make Inga to blame for Hesse's radicalization? If she'd chosen him, rather than Dobermann, would he have taken a different path, become someone like Dobermann rather than someone full of murder and hate? Inga agonizes over this, but Hesse himself (in Ultima Thule, when they're in the Alpine Fortress) answers her question. He's surprised she'd even think about blaming herself: "I made my choices, not you. Things could have been different, maybe, but I doubt you could have saved me. Why would you even think any of it was your fault?" He admits he always placed blame where it didn't belong even while he insisted on trying to turn his life around and take responsibility for his own actions, and he'd been getting tired of looking for scapegoats. His actions in the Alpine Fortress--first saving Diamant's life, then volunteering to stay behind to ensure the Nazi project ends, which will surely result in his death, after Lukas Mettbach offers to stay first since the Nazis killed off most of his people--indicate that his sentiment about taking responsibility is sincere; it won't make up for everything else he did, but it's something. It isn't until much much later that Inga learns it's true, while she could have changed the course of Hesse's life, she couldn't have changed many of his core choices, because they were his to make and not hers. A new development just came to light--again, still heavily developing, so it may change or even be scrapped. I mentioned previously that I wasn't sure whether Adelina and Stephen Gerhardt have any children or not; I was leaning toward not. That's changed, at least currently. In the current development Addy gives birth to twin boys; with Gerhardt's agreement, she names one of them Louis, after her father, while the other is named Diepold, after Hesse's middle name. (It's too painful to name the child "Gunter.") Since Addy asked to keep her maiden name while taking Gerhardt's name--Adelina Ilse Gerhardt von Dobermann--this means the Dobermann name won't die off with her after all. When Addy and Gerhardt tell Inga the boys' chosen names, she starts to cry. [Inga Dobermann 2022 [Friday, November 4, 2022, 4:00:19 AM]] [Inga Dobermann 2022 2 [Friday, November 4, 2022, 4:00:48 AM]] 7/3/24: r/SketchDaily theme, "Someone's Family Portrait." This took me 5.5hrs, somebody please enjoy it. ;_; The (von) Dobermann family, Louis, Inga, and Adelina. [Dobermann Family Portrait [Wednesday, July 3, 2024, 1:20:06 AM]] |