WEISZ, Stefan, MILITARY, AXIS

[Stefan Weisz]

hauptmann stefan weisz;

_{THIS IS A COLD WAR. DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE FIGHTING FOR?}

			Stefan Anselm Weisz ____________________ NAME Male ____________________ SEX 23, 11 July 1918 ____________________ AGE, DATE OF BIRTH German ____________________ NATIONALITY Married ____________________ MARITAL STATUS Hauptmann (Captain) ____________________ PROFESSION Military ____________________ CLASSIFICATION No ____________________ EXTRA Y/N

PERSONALITY
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To know what moves Stefan, look no further than his wife, Nadja. He loved her from childhood, and though they were forced to marry in secret to avoid reprisals from a Nazi state which frowns upon such unions, the sacrifices made to protect her safety and preserve their happiness are more than worth it, in his eyes. She's been the great love of his life and the prime motivation behind it for many years, now. For her benefit, he is capable of being entirely selfless, and would willingly sacrifice his own life if it meant keeping her out of the hands of the very government he serves and perpetuates by way of gun and bullet. Nothing means more to him than Nadja, and the only thing he hopes for amidst the darkness and loneliness of war is that once it's over, they'll be able to live: happily, freely, and openly.

Yet Stefan fights to foil that very goal. He considers himself a proud, patriotic German, born in the aftermath of the first World War and when Hitler came to power, he was a wholehearted supporter against the corruption and criminal negligence in government that had laid the German state and the German people so low. Growing up in the depths of the Depression, he remembers when a loaf of bread cost fifty million marks and what it was to go to bed unable to sleep for the excruciating pain of an empty stomach. When the time came to enlist, he signed up without hesitation, and would have stayed a supporter of the Nazi state ... if it had not descended into tyranny. Concerned at the suppression of the press, disgusted by the assassination and execution of political dissidents whose only crime was to voice an opinion contrary to that of Hitler and his cronies, and finally, thoroughly disenchanted when the policies of hatred and bigotry cut too close to home and Nadja's own safety became an issue with the passage of the Nürnberger Gesetze ... the Nuremburg Race Laws. By then, though, he already belonged to the Wehrmacht, having enlisted shortly after conscription was re-introduced in March of 1935. From patriot to objector in uniform, his democratic beliefs have been tested nearly to their breaking point over the last seven years. Stefan is convinced that the war itself was right. Germany deserved to be made whole again. But ... a war of restoration has turned into a war for conquest, and the patriot finds himself regretting every bullet he must fire in defense of Nazi Germany.

Beyond a loving husband and a silent objector to the actions of the Axis powers, he's a man who loves, or loved, rather, the simple pleasures of life. Summertime strolls through the hills of his native Bavaria. A good mug of beer, some good conversation with friends, and the love of a good woman. Plain-spoken, there's very little filter between his brain and his mouth, and it is a supreme effort for Stefan not to broadcast just what he thinks of the sons of bitches pulling the strings of power in Berlin. His impulsiveness and stubbornness has got him into more than a little trouble over the years, but beneath all of that lies a man who truly means well. Even so, he makes a bloody good soldier. Intelligent, courageous, willing to lead from the front lines rather than give orders from the safety of the rear, he's risen in the ranks to that of Hauptmann, and while he may not agree with the ideology behind it takes his responsibilities with all seriousness and earnesty.

A good, honest, forthright man who has been forced, in a time of unparalleled war and destruction, to grow up well beyond his still young years. He's not gone thoroughly jaded and bitter, though. Not yet. For all of his hopes and dreams are vested in that goddamn beautiful woman waiting for him at home. As long as he has those, and her, Stefan can bite his unruly and sometimes impolitic tongue. He can swallow what he thinks and keep on fighting, where to do otherwise would endanger the woman he loves and the future he hopes to share with her. God willing, a future without the Nazis.

LIKES ______________________ - Good beer - Good Conversation - The all too rare opportunities to return home to Nadja - Barracks life - Spending time in nature, particularly back home in Bavaria - Honesty - Plain-speaking - German nationalism and its right to self-determination

DISLIKES ______________________ - The Nazis and the doctrine of hate with which they have perverted a war that Stefan could, and would, have otherwise supported. - The grim realities of the battlefield and fighting against those he know would help make Germany free again - Anti-Semites - Liars - Sleeping alone - Flying - The French

Brown ____________ HAIR COLOR Blue ____________ EYE COLOR 6'1" ____________ HEIGHT 204 lbs ____________ WEIGHT Andrew Cooper ____________ PLAY-BY

APPEARANCE __________________________________ Tall, broad-shouldered, ruggedly handsome in that typically Aryan way, Stefan cuts quite a figure in a German officer's uniform, which is typically how he's found these days. A strong, angular face with a proud jawline, proportionate nose, and a chin given more often to stubble (to no end of complaint from Nadja, his wife) with war leaving very little in the way of time for shaving, is completed by a pair of brilliant blue eyes and a mouth prone to sideways, endearing smiles. Stefan's head of soft brown hair has a tendency to go unruly, even under regimental regulations, always managing to look tousled and uncombed. Which it usually is, truth be told, so he rarely bothers trying. His tall frame, a little over six feet in height, is muscled more like a swimmer than a weightlifter. Lean and tightly corded, kissed with a deep, bronze tan, they're the legacy not only of a career in the Wehrmacht but of many summers hiking and swimming in Bavaria.

FAMILY
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Father - Frederick Karl Weisz (deceased)
Mother - Annalais Theresa Weisz nee Kuehnelt
Sister - Isobel Weisz
Brother - Karl Weisz
Wife - Nadja Weisz

BIOGRAPHY
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Stefan could hardly remember a time in his life when Nadja wasn't in it. His father, Frederick Karl (called 'Karl' by all of his friends) had first met Nadja's father at their local officer's club. They had both served proudly in the Prussian army, indeed in the same company along the Western Front during the first World War. It turned out they were both from Bavaria, from Munich no less ... and had lived for years along the same street without having ever met. One of war's strange ironies, that, how it brings together those who should otherwise have never known each other at the same time as it sunders families and tears the oldest, fondest of relationships apart. After the war, as Frederick settled down with his beautiful wife, Annalais, the brave and happily mustered out soldier wasted little time getting her pregnant, and in 1919 they welcomed their first child, a boy: Stefan. He came out of the womb howling like the Devil himself and according to his mother, he's never shut up since. He could be a fussy, willful child, and always highly opinionated and stubborn, but he was a good boy, and a fierce protector of his younger brother and sister who followed in due time. His father's commission and some money his mother had inherited from her Junker father meant the Weiszes could live a comfortable life, with many summers spent swimming the Danube and the Main or hiking along the Alps. Stefan's were loving parents, his father stern and slightly removed, a man of the 19th Century rather than the 20th, but never unkind or abusive to either his children or his wife. It was, however, Annalais who typically showered them with the love and affection they craved, as well as an endless array of food from her kitchen where she loved to cook for her family even though they retained a woman who came in daily to prepare meals.

The earliest specific date Stefan can remember, the first day he can go back to and recall exactly where he was and what he was doing, is May 14, 1926. That was the day he first met Nadja, when he was six and she four. Her father had brought his family over to the Weiszes' for dinner. And as Stefan and Nadja were told to go play, scampering happily off to his room, childish curiosity got the better of the boy. The sound of Nadja's mother screaming bloody murder would later call the men from the parlor where they were happily smoking and playing billiards, only to find their children in Stefan's room. Utterly naked. Stefan had wanted to see what a little girl looked like, and with disappointment he frowned, pointed at Nadja, and exclaimed in a judgment that reduced four very concerned parents to a riot of laughter: 'Mama! Daddy! Look! HER WEEWEE FELL OFF!'. Stefan would later joke that his charm and good looks had got Nadja naked long before they were married. And she'd never fail to give him a good-naked smack for it, too.

From that point on, though, they were inseparable. They attended the same schools, often partook in the same games and activities afterwards, and were more like brother and sister than anything else. It wasn't until puberty set in and Stefan started to have veeeeery different emotions and feelings about the girl, the kind that made him want to see her without her clothes on for very different reasons, that it got a little awkward. Not that he let on. No, not for a long time. Not until he was sixteen and she fourteen, and Nadja got her first boyfriend. 'Some asshole named Hans', Stefan would gloomily recall, years later. The first time he saw them, hand in hand, walking down the street, Stefan walked calmly towards them, smiled and greeted Nadja. And then without skipping a beat punched Hans in his face and broke his fool nose. It was in that unlikely moment, with her new beau laid out on the ground, bleeding and groaning as he cradled his face in his hands that Stefan professed his love for her. He never had been good at subtlety.

Nadja was the only girl he ever dated. Or kissed. Or made love to, after that night in 37 when they were caught out in a rainstorm, had a little too much schnapps, and decided that stripping off and sleeping together was a damn fine way to warm up. Ever since, schnapps always has made him unbelievably horny. It may not have been the most romantic relationship, starting out, but Stefan was smitten with Nadja from the start of it. There wasn't any other girl in the world for him, and he knew it when he proposed to her in 1939, just before hostilities broke out with Poland. Already by then, the Nazis had enforced their hated race laws upon the people of Germany, and so with their parents' blessing, Stefan and Nadja were married, secretly, by a Rabbi and a Catholic priest who were careful to draw up no marriage certificate that could later be found and confiscated by the Gestapo. They had a few weeks of married bliss before Stefan was shipped off for Poland ... it must be said, in a state where he could hardly walk upright; happily married if a little weary for making every moment last with his new wife before the army called him away.

Over the next three years, their reunions depended on when Stefan received permission to take leave. Those opportunities were regular and often lengthy, back in the sunny days of victory in '39 and '40. He'd come home from Warsaw or Paris bursting with gifts which were usually left, along with his clothes, at the front door the minute he entered their little flat in Munich. Stefan was obsessed with keeping her safe, especially as the other Jews in what had been a fairly tolerant community grew fewer and fewer. Halfway through 1940, once Stefan returned home from France, he moved Nadja and their home to Berlin, thinking it would be safer there, lost in the sea of humanity in Germany's capital.

He couldn't have been more wrong. Shipped off to the Soviet Union in June of 1941, he wouldn't see Nadja again. Of course, he couldn't know how long that absence would be, amidst the over-confidence of the Wehrmacht that they would overrun Moscow within mere months. He fully expected to be home in time to celebrate Christmas with his wife. That, however, was not to be. Things did not got to plan in Russia. The German high command had failed to prepare for the resistance which Moscow held out, German armies nearly at its gate, within sight of the spires of the Kremlin ... but unable to penetrate the ring of steel which Stalin and what generals he hadn't liquidated managed to build around the Soviet capital. That campaign was what really changed Stefan. The things he saw: men freezing to death because the goddamn generals in their overconfidence had failed to send winter coats; entire armies having to trudge west in retreat on foot because their tanks, jeeps, and trucks were immobilized for their petrol freezing solid. The coldest winter in a century did as much to winnow the German ranks as the Soviets, and as glorious advances were turned into a humiliating retreat, Hauptmann Weisz felt keenly every loss in his company of men as they beat as fast a retreat back home to Germany as circumstances and the bull-headed resistance of the German high command would allow.

All that time, though, he never failed to write daily to Nadja. Sometimes not receiving replies from her for weeks, even longer as Operation Barbarossa dragged on and letters from home became a secondary priority to survival for the army, he was disappointed but no less understanding when her words took longer and longer to reach him. He kept her photo by his cot and never failed to make it the last thing he looked at before shutting his eyes. The very pillow he slept on was taken from their bed, and as he laid his head upon it and, bone-tired and soul-shattered begged for rest, he swore he could smell her on it. And the hell of the world outside his tent became a little less unbearable. Now, at last, he has been given permission for a week's leave. Taking every plane and train he can requisition to speed towards Berlin as fast as possible, he can hardly wait to return home. To peace, however fleeting. And most of all ... to Nadja.

GRIFF // 28 // PM, PLEASE!

[ADMINISTRATOR]

_{ROSTER • FACE CLAIM • RELATIONSHIP CARDS}

Oh dear god, Griff. The love story here makes me go gooey inside. I feel like I'm intruding on them when I read what you have of their history. He's AMAZING, and I SERIOUSLY can't wait for Nadja to come around.

Please don't forget to do everything in the above links!