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Information
Name/Nickname: Godfrey Klemper; Götz; Kid; Spielzeugsoldat; Toy Soldier; Klebrige Finger; Sticky Fingers; Packesel; Packhorse; the Hero of Zierenwald
Gender: Cisgender male
Birthdate/Age/Sign: NA; late teens/early twenties; Cancer
Orientation: Homoromantic homosexual
Relationship Status: Involved (Elias Baswitz; Unnamed Unteroffizier; Ratdog/Adel von NN)
Race/Ethnicity/Nationality: Caucasian; Germanic descent; German
Class: Working (blue-collar poor)
Religion: Mixed Völkisch/Germanic pagan/Roman Catholic beliefs
Profession: Before the war--farmer/interpreter (assists his father and then mother); during the war--Wehrmacht infantryman/border patrol; assistant/bodyguard/spotter for Lt. Ratdog
Birthplace/Residence: Germany (deceased during the main story)
Personality/Characteristics
[Coming soon.]
Appearance
Klemper is of average height; with a slender/androgynous body type bordering on thin; has light blue eyes; and has cool light gray fur.
Klemper usually wears the traditional field-gray Wehrmacht uniform with greatcoat (if needed) and Stahlhelm, though he may wear a garrison cap instead to special occasions. He despises dressing formally as it makes him physically uncomfortable, though he does wear his Iron Cross First Class. He often has a sullen expression; he also frequently dissociates, during which he goes glassy eyed and stares off into space. Despite his slight build, he's physically strong, and often carries so much military weaponry and supplies (including twin Panzerfäuste and his prized Tommy gun) that he's earned the nickname der Packesel (Packhorse/Pack Mule).
Family & Relationships
Georg Klemper (Father)
[Coming soon.]
Agnes Klemper (Mother)
[Coming soon.]
Ratdog/Adel von NN (Associate/Comrade/Lover/Partner)
[Coming soon.]
Elias Baswitz (Former Lover)
[Coming soon.]
Unnamed Unteroffizier (Former Lover)
[Coming soon.]
Godfrey von Adel (Namesake)
[Coming soon.]
History
[Coming soon.]
Klemper In Heaven
[Coming soon.]
Trivia
*Klemper has a habit of stealing small items for his own use, so much that he's earned the nickname Klebrige Finger, Sticky Fingers. This does not, however, fit the criteria of kleptomania; Klemper's thievery is likely due to his childhood trauma and impoverishment, and he only steals things he wants or can find a use for; if he later on finds that he has no use for something he's stolen, he'll give it away to someone else. (He refuses to simply throw things away, insisting that "Nothing should ever be abandoned.") He has a fondness for sweets and small shiny objects, which he often gives to others as a gesture of affection (for example, the Hershey bars he gives to Baswitz).
*He steals a small prism from Dr. Kammler's office and shortly after gifts it to Kolten, who mistakes it for a toy keystone and afterward guards it jealously. (This is the same incident where Kolten observes Klemper long enough to make a drawing from memory; this drawing is later used to help design The Hero Of Zierenwald.)
*His weapons of choice are a pair of Panzerfäuste (anti-tank weapons), and an American Thompson submachine gun he stole, along with ammunition, from a Soviet weapons cache.
*He goes through a series of mixed promotions and demotions, thus his range of different ranks; he first works his way up to Unteroffizier and briefly assumes command of Frieder Dasch's unit, during which time he prevents the burning of Zierenwald; after word gets out of his involvement with Elias Baswitz, he's demoted to Oberschütze, loses his leadership position, and is prevented from receiving future promotions; yet finally, following Schavitz's death, another general lifts this prohibition and promotes him to Feldwebel.
*He's addicted to Pervitin, a legal form of methamphetamine widely utilized by German troops. Due to this he often deals with brief but unpredictable fits of paranoia or rage, a frequent irritable attitude and twitchiness, and occasional dissociative spells. He goes long periods without eating or sleeping, then binges on food or sleeps for the entire day.
*His meth-fueled dissociation is also connected to his childhood trauma, and he occasionally regresses to a childlike state. He can sometimes be snapped back to the present by someone referring to him by rank.
*He's starved for affection yet is also intensely jealous and insecure, and meets many of the criteria for borderline personality disorder, possibly due to his repeated emotional/sexual trauma. Initially, he forms instant emotional attachments to any older men who show him any interest or kindness; however, after several bad experiences, he learns instead to distrust everyone even if he's attracted to them. He expects everyone to abandon him eventually, and reacts with extreme anger toward the slightest sign of disloyalty. It takes Ratdog/Adel a very long time to break through to him, and even after he at last wins Klemper over by keeping his promise to return when he says he will, Klemper still occasionally accuses him of being ready to abandon him. He confides in Ratdog that he's "too broken" to be fixed, and doesn't feel that he will ever be worthy of love.
*A genealogist constructs a family tree for him in the story. He declares that Klemper hails from "a long proud line of peasant farmers" dating back at least around five hundred years. Ironically, given the geographic location of the Klemper farm and Lt. Ratdog's/Adel von NN's former family estate, it's highly likely that the Klemper family worked the von NN family farmlands as servants centuries ago.
*His father and mother follow different belief systems, so his faith is an odd, occasionally contradictory mishmash of Völkisch, pagan, and Christian belief mixed with superstition. He'll often make random superstitious assertions with total confidence, such as, "There are no such things as ghosts! But there are elves!" His basic beliefs seem to boil down to "whatever works."
*He occasionally expresses casual racism, homophobia, and misogyny which never really stands up to scrutiny; for example, he initially refuses to believe Dorothea is lesbian or that lesbians even exist as it goes against women's instinct to bear children, yet no such prohibition exists against male homosexuality; yet at the same time, he often disparages gay men with the epithet "Schwuchtel," never mind that he himself falls in this category. He makes similar comments about Jews and Roma. Aside from this, he never expresses any overt hostility toward any of these groups, disagrees with the Nazi Party's persecution of them, and even amends his opinions about them if he gets the chance to interact with them personally. The one minority group he never disparages is Poles; he speaks fluent Polish, and often negotiates with them. All of this indicates that his attitude toward these groups was instilled by his father, who ridiculed all of these--especially homosexuals--except the itinerant Poles who helped work his farm.
*He's very perplexed by Ratdog's/Adel's bisexuality, and theorizes that he simply has trouble making up his mind.
*He has an odd semi-friendly, semi-hostile rivalry with Didrika, who is also Ratdog's primary rival during the war. He calls her Rifle Broad while she calls him Toy Soldier, and they often exchange insults when they come into contact. Despite this, he goes along with Ratdog when he sends civilians her way to help them escape Nazi persecution, even though it could endanger his own tenuous position in the Wehrmacht. After the war and his death, Didrika names her and Adel's firstborn child after him.
*He despises the Nazi Party (and the SS especially, after their investigation of him) and is extremely insulted when anyone assumes he's one; Baswitz points out, to his chagrin, that he still serves them, as the swastika on his Iron Cross proves.
*He can read, but finds it too difficult to write. He bristles with offense when Ratdog misassumes that he's illiterate.
*He's the only one of Kaspar Lange's victims to successfully fight him off and escape assault. He's briefly suspected in Lange's murder, as he and Ratdog are the first to discover his body, and Klemper responds by laughing and shoving a handful of dirt in Lange's mouth.
*He's a child soldier, having illicitly joined the Wehrmacht while underage (thirteen). He's already considered experienced by the time he and Ratdog are introduced, despite being only about 17-18; this leads to the unusual situation of him being appointed as the relatively inexperienced, yet higher-ranking, Ratdog's guardian or "babysitter" (as he puts it).
*In a twist of irony, the German soldier who shoots him at the war's end is an underaged member of the Volkssturm. In effect, he's killed by a fellow child soldier.
*[Coming soon.]
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