Steffen Schulze

Schutze Schulze (19) from Wuppertal in the Rhine Province. Recently sent to the front, he was one of a number of reinforcements sent to bolster German troops in the region. Inexperienced and homesick, for Schulze each day in the Cauldron is like hell.

Description

Age: 19

Rank: Schütze

Role: Rifleman

Appearance:

At school, Steffen was always the runt in the class: short and dark-haired, he was bullied incessantly. Average-looking, his uncontrollable brown curls have only made his romantic life more difficult. After a month on the Eastern Front, his hair is starting to grow out of the high and tight Prussian-style. Along his strong jaw-line, his razor is now encouraging a thicker, more mature stubble, occasionally irritated and inflamed after rubbing against his collar.

Personality

Schulze is stable in many aspects. Bullied as a child, he is no stranger to deferring to authority, nor physical discomfort. Despite being guided by a principled moral compass, he is quite flexible due to his weak will. All it takes is enough peer pressure, and Schulze would bend any way he was pushed.

He always intended to join the Army, but now Schulze is struggling with the realities of his life: thousands of miles from home, facing death and the prospect of the autumn and winter cold. The letters from his family keep him from breaking down, but having never left his province, let alone Germany, before the war, now he is out of his depth. Schulze tempers his emotional discomfort with a gallows humour that his effuses at all times; even though he understands how depressing it might be to other people, he is unable to rein it in.

Equipment

New to the theatre, Schulze wears a crisp new uniform that he believes some of his longer-serving comrades might be quietly jealous of. Everything is dangerously new. Schulze spends some of his time trying to dull the sheen of his helmet, but he's got a long way to go. Beyond the uniform and mess kit, he holds his Mauser Kar98 close at all times: it's not just regulations, it's for comfort too - he quickly learnt where getting caught short can lead you. In the same reasoning, when on guard duty or patrol, he carries a stick grenade in his boot for easy access - something he learned from the more experienced members of his unit.

History

Steffen Schulze was born and raised in the western city of Wuppertal in the Rhine Province. His father was enlisted in the Army and had fought in the final battles of the Great War. Schulze had always wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, partly as a result of the pride with which his father carried himself. Bullied at school due to his size, Steffen believed that serving in the Army would make him a man. A thoroughly average student in school, he believes he has found his calling in the Wehrmacht. Time will tell.

So begins...

Steffen Schulze's Story

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