Prologue to a fic...
Jul. 18th, 2004 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unautremonde Back around May 2003, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aelane came up with a great idea for a possible RPG. The story would be set in London in 1941; some scientist would have just been found dead and a number of mysterious players would reveal themselves around that death. Billy would have been said scientist's protégé and so called to take up his work where he'd left it, Cate would have been evil or something, Dom would have been a former German spy now trying to escape his past... it was all very involved and well plotted. We started playing in May (I was Dom) but never got real far (I last posted in the RPG in October 2003). I did do some small research for it, though, and started making up a past for my Dom and wrote a piece that was never posted on the RPG journal about Dom's past working "undercover" within the Résistance. I came up with a mission to infiltrate the French Résistance at the benefit of Abwehr-2, something to test Dom in his training (as Walter Kappe, the man I had Dom work under was responsible for recruiting some men for an operation called "Operation Pastorius", so I thought it might be ok to have him recruit and train/test Dom) and which would have led Dom to running away from Germany and to England.
When the RPG was abandoned, my idea for Dom kept growing and drifted further away from what we'd had initially planned. It is now a story all on its own, which is why I thought I'd share it here. But the initial story idea does still belong toaelane, I guess. What I'm about to post, though, is entirely my own, none of what she wrote or suggested initially outside of the particular settings was kept.
About Walter Kappe:
This first foray into America was organized by long time party operative Lt. Walter Kappe. An early convert to Hitlerism, at 17 he was one of the first members of Hitler's Deutsche Freikorps (Free Corps), the precursor to the SS. After the failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1924, which derailed Hitler's quest for power and temporarily landed him in Lundberg Prison, Kappe emigrated to the US. He lived here for 13 years, first as a journalist for Chicago's German-American newspaper - the Abendpost, later working with others to build an American pro-Nazi party. By 1932 they had organized the Friends of the Hitler Movement, with Kappe as Press and Propaganda Chief. In January 1933 the swelling movement became the Amerikadeutscher Volksbund - the infamous German-American Bund. Kappe was appointed editor of their propaganda sheet, the Deutscher Weckruf und Beoebachter.
Kappe returned to Germany in 1937, and after a stint with the Propaganda Ministry, was transferred to the Abwehr group, Hitler's espionage and sabotage unit. Kappe's job was to select and train the recruits for Operation Pastorius. He hand picked men he believed trustworthy and able. Armed with detailed reports on Germans recently returned from extended stays in America, he looked for the following pre-requisites. They must be familiar with American culture and customs to blend in, they must speak English fluently, they must have high school diplomas at the least, they must be in good health and relatively young, and most importantly, they must have impeccable Nazi credentials.
By the beginning of 1942, Kappe had found 12 candidates, later reduced to eight. They were trained in a 4 week program at Quenz Farm, a pastoral country farm, near Brandernberg. Each learned the mechanics of espionage and sabotage. How to blow a bridge, assemble a bomb, write code, even use invisible ink! More importantly, they were drilled in American culture and customs. They memorized popular songs, slang, American sports, politics, news. They were groomed to be perfect Americans, perfect spies. By late May they were ready for action.
(from here.)
About Guillaume: The idea of Guillaume's character came to me while browsing through a gallery of gorgeous pics. Pics of French actor Guillaume Canet (he was in The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio, if that helps). And most particularly this one, here:
Though this one will give you a better idea of what he looks like without all the blood, lol:
Now, on to the good stuff...
aelane came up with a great idea for a possible RPG. The story would be set in London in 1941; some scientist would have just been found dead and a number of mysterious players would reveal themselves around that death. Billy would have been said scientist's protégé and so called to take up his work where he'd left it, Cate would have been evil or something, Dom would have been a former German spy now trying to escape his past... it was all very involved and well plotted. We started playing in May (I was Dom) but never got real far (I last posted in the RPG in October 2003). I did do some small research for it, though, and started making up a past for my Dom and wrote a piece that was never posted on the RPG journal about Dom's past working "undercover" within the Résistance. I came up with a mission to infiltrate the French Résistance at the benefit of Abwehr-2, something to test Dom in his training (as Walter Kappe, the man I had Dom work under was responsible for recruiting some men for an operation called "Operation Pastorius", so I thought it might be ok to have him recruit and train/test Dom) and which would have led Dom to running away from Germany and to England.When the RPG was abandoned, my idea for Dom kept growing and drifted further away from what we'd had initially planned. It is now a story all on its own, which is why I thought I'd share it here. But the initial story idea does still belong to
aelane, I guess. What I'm about to post, though, is entirely my own, none of what she wrote or suggested initially outside of the particular settings was kept.About Walter Kappe:
This first foray into America was organized by long time party operative Lt. Walter Kappe. An early convert to Hitlerism, at 17 he was one of the first members of Hitler's Deutsche Freikorps (Free Corps), the precursor to the SS. After the failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1924, which derailed Hitler's quest for power and temporarily landed him in Lundberg Prison, Kappe emigrated to the US. He lived here for 13 years, first as a journalist for Chicago's German-American newspaper - the Abendpost, later working with others to build an American pro-Nazi party. By 1932 they had organized the Friends of the Hitler Movement, with Kappe as Press and Propaganda Chief. In January 1933 the swelling movement became the Amerikadeutscher Volksbund - the infamous German-American Bund. Kappe was appointed editor of their propaganda sheet, the Deutscher Weckruf und Beoebachter.
Kappe returned to Germany in 1937, and after a stint with the Propaganda Ministry, was transferred to the Abwehr group, Hitler's espionage and sabotage unit. Kappe's job was to select and train the recruits for Operation Pastorius. He hand picked men he believed trustworthy and able. Armed with detailed reports on Germans recently returned from extended stays in America, he looked for the following pre-requisites. They must be familiar with American culture and customs to blend in, they must speak English fluently, they must have high school diplomas at the least, they must be in good health and relatively young, and most importantly, they must have impeccable Nazi credentials.
By the beginning of 1942, Kappe had found 12 candidates, later reduced to eight. They were trained in a 4 week program at Quenz Farm, a pastoral country farm, near Brandernberg. Each learned the mechanics of espionage and sabotage. How to blow a bridge, assemble a bomb, write code, even use invisible ink! More importantly, they were drilled in American culture and customs. They memorized popular songs, slang, American sports, politics, news. They were groomed to be perfect Americans, perfect spies. By late May they were ready for action.
(from here.)
About Guillaume: The idea of Guillaume's character came to me while browsing through a gallery of gorgeous pics. Pics of French actor Guillaume Canet (he was in The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio, if that helps). And most particularly this one, here:
Though this one will give you a better idea of what he looks like without all the blood, lol:
Now, on to the good stuff...
