Although this article is based on canonical information, the actual name of this subject is pure conjecture.
Please see the reasons for this title in the "Behind the scenes" section below, and/or the relevant discussion on the talk page.
A Nazi soldier was present at the Tanis digsite for the Ark of the Covenant outside Cairo, Egypt in 1936, under the orders of Colonel Dietrich and a Sergeant, and after the Ark was found he was among five other soldiers who, with the Sergeant, loaded onto a cargo truck which contained the ancient relic in order to defend it from American archaeologist Indiana Jones and his comrades. During a chase which ensued as a result of the arrival of Jones, this soldier and his fellow men all ended up falling out of the truck after it was hijacked by the American.
Biography[]
Tanis, Egypt[]
The soldiers preparing the Mercedes-Benz LG3000 cargo truck.
In 1936, this German soldier was among the men who made up the Nazi party who attempted to unearth the Ark of the Covenant from the Well of the Souls at Tanis outside Cairo, Egypt under the orders of Colonel Herman Dietrich, Major Gobler, French archaeologist René Emile Belloq and Gestapo agent Major Arnold Ernst Toht. The Ark was secretly dug up overnight by American archaeologist Indiana Jones and his associates, including Arab excavator Sallah Mohammed Faisel el-Kahir, but Dietrich and Belloq confronted them, took the Ark, arrested Sallah and his men and sealed Jones and Marion Ravenwood inside the cave. However, the two soon managed to escape, and ended up blowing up the Flying Wing, the jet plane meant to transport the Ark to Berlin, Germany.[1]
The soldiers sitting around the Ark of the Covenant.
Following the Flying Wing's destruction, Colonel Dietrich decided that the Ark would instead be transported from Tanis to Cairo by truck. With Jones' location unknown, this soldier and three other men carried the Ark into the back of a Mercedes-Benz LG3000 cargo truck, before getting inside themselves to protect the relic along with two other men and a Sergeant, with another two soldiers driving the truck. The vehicle was protected by a Mercedes-Benz G5 troop car driven by Major Gobler and two officers and a motorcycle and sidecar helmed by a driver and his passenger.[1]
The Desert Chase[]
The desert convoy on the move.
Soon, the truck, jeep and sidecar began moving, following a 1937 Mercedes-Benz 320 carrying Colonel Dietrich, Major Toht, Belloq and their driver. All seemed to be going well as the convoy's journey through the desert began, but Indiana Jones promptly appeared behind the truck riding an Arabian stallion. Gobler's gunner began peppering Jones with gunfire, but both he and his horse made it to the truck and the American leapt onto the vehicle. Opening the door at the front of the truck, he hurled its front passenger out into the desert, before hopping inside and wrestling the driver. Their brawl caused one soldier to fall out from the back of the truck into the troop carrier's windshield, smashing it. This soldier struggled to remain inside the truck as it rocked back and forth from the fight, even going right through a construction site and destroying it, which provided a distraction allowing Jones to toss the driver out of the vehicle and over a cliffside.[1]
The soldiers struggling in the back of the vehicle.
As this soldier remained in the back of the truck with his fellow men and their Sergeant, the troop carrier drove forwards to level with the truck in an effort to allow their gunner to shoot the archaeologist, who was now driving the vehicle. However, Jones rammed into the jeep and knocked it off course into a forest. When the motorcycle and sidecar did the same thing, the truck swiftly knocked the vehicle fully over easily, but as he did the troop carrier stumbled back onto the road and made another attempt to shoot Jones, only to be bashed into and knocked over a cliff to its destruction and the deaths of its passengers.[1]
The soldiers in the right rearview mirror.
With the troop carrier and sidecar both destroyed and the soldiers in the front of the truck gone, the Sergeant ordered this soldier and three other men to climb around the side of the truck to confront their opponent head-on. This soldier acted as a backup to the other soldier as they went around the right rearview mirror's side of the truck, whilst two other men went around the other side. But, unfortunately for the soldiers, Jones noticed them in his mirror. In an attempt to remove them from the vehicle, Jones first drove through a large bush, knocking the soldier on the other side of the truck and his backup off and allowing them to roll away from the road and down a hill, but not quite getting this soldier and his backup off the truck.[1]
Clinging tightly so as not to suffer the same fate of his companions, this soldier and his colleague clung tightly to the cover of the truck. At one point, the soldier's feet slipped, but he managed to regain his balance. However, Jones finally got rid of the soldier by hitting him against a weak tree with the truck, catching the soldier's cap between its branches and dumping him down into the steep road, his backup falling off shortly afterwards. The soldier did not fall through the tree, but the cape of the awning which he was holding did not resist his weight any longer and it ripped, causing the soldier to fall down the steep road, rolling comically to the joy of Jones.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
The right rearview soldier's backup was played uncredited by the stuntman Vic Armstrong in Raiders of the Lost Ark.[1]
In the film's Read-Along Adventure adaptation, the soldiers get shaken off the back of the truck by Indiana Jones after he kicks out the driver.[2]