Feldwebel Josef Hoffman, German Army

[CroakerDogBoy]

ST 11  (10 points)
DX 12 (20 points)
IQ 11 (10 points)
HT 11 (10 points)

Advantages
  Rank (Senior NCO - Feldwebel) 10 points
  Toughness 10
  High pain threshold 10 points
  Hard to Kill 1 5 points
  No hangover 5 points
  Collected - 5 points
 
 

Disadvantages
  Extremely Hazardous Duty -20 points
  Sense of Duty (Comrades in Arms) -10 points
  Fanaticism (Germany) -15 points
  Addiction -tobbacco 5 points
  Compulsive carousing 10 points
 
Skills: (total of 20 points worth)
Armoury               10
Brawling               12
Camouflage           11
Climb                   11
first aid                11
Knife                   12
diplomacy             9
fast talk               10
intimidation           10
leadership             10
Rifle                     13
Pistol                   13
LMG                     13
navigation              9
stealth                 11       
tactics                 10
throwing               10
Driving (wheeled)    11
Gunnery               13
Language- English  11


Quirks:
Chauvinistic
Proud
Impressive moustache (always grooms/combs/strokes his ample moustache)
Atheist
Wants to own his own tavern after the war.

History:

Josef was born in 1912 in Hamburg. His father Peter was a fisherman and his mother Manuella kept house on what money he brought home.
He has two brothers Alois and Christian (younger) and a sister Hilde (the youngest).
Peter and his siblings grew up playing in the shore districts and docklands of Hamburg and had a happy if spartan lifestyle.
Soon after Josef was born, the great war started. Peter was a strong patriot and supporter of the Kaiser and volunteered for the 33rd Hamburg Infantry brigade.

Peter survived the war but returned a changed man, he often drank and to excess.
His emotional trauma was not a thing for a man to show in Germany at that time and he was sullen and withdrawn.
Despite this, Peter was a good father to his children and worked hard at his fishing job.
Josef would often go down to the docks to meet his father on his return from netting a catch and enjoyed the camaraderie of his father and the trawler crew.

When the depression struck in the late '20s, Peter lost his job and the family was forced to do what they could to make ends meet. Josef, by this stage
was a teenager and spent a lot of his time in the Reeperbahn district of Hamburg. Here, even at the tender age of 16 he drank, smoked and working in a brothel.
First as a glassboy, then tending the brothel's well patroned bar. He quickly learnt how to take his liqour and was always qiuck with a joke or a wink at the ladies.
The Reeperbahn was a wild place and the drunk, teenage Josef often got into fights, but he proved to be able to take a punch just as well as a shot of whiskey.
 Bruises and black eyes were common place, and Josef had to break up more than one drunken brawl while tending bar. Despite the rough and tumble nature of the business, Josef loved the job. He grew to respect and idolise Heinz the Brothel/bar owner. Heinz was well liked and had a commanding presence and always sported an impressive moustache, something the working girls at the brothel always commented on. He also made sure he had a very good time...he drank, smoked, partied and swore with the best of them. He told Josef that owning a bar was the best thing he had ever done in his life.....and Josef agreed.

By 1932 as conditions declined and the hyperinflation grew worse, Josef was out of work and joined the growing throngs of people in the street calling for social change and a strong government to bring stability and pride back to Germany after years of crippling war reparations.
Josef, strongly believed in German nationalism and along with millions of others saw that strong leader in Adolf Hitler and voted for the NSDAP in the national elections.
When Hitler's overturned the treaty of Versailles and begun military rearmament, Josef saw an opportunity to get a job....to move out of the poverty he was living in and to get three square meals a day. He also believed in serving his country, as his father did.
 He joined the Reichswehr and was placed into the newly formed Panzer Battalion 88.