Minor Fictional Characters in The Man With the Iron Heart

This article lists the various minor fictional characters who appear in The Man With the Iron Heart. These characters are identified by name, but play at best a peripheral role in the novel. Most were simply mentioned or had a very brief, unimportant speaking role that did not impact the plot, and never appeared again.

Boris Antipov
Major General Boris Antipov was a member of the Soviet Red Army. In the aftermath of World War II, Antipov was a divisional commander in tthe German city of Dresden.

A German Freedom Front Werewolf named Gustav Fenstermacher attempted to blow himself and several Soviet soldiers up in the fall of 1945. For unclear reasons, his bomb didn't go off, and he was taken captive. Antipov informed the NKVD in Berlin, who sent Captain Vladimir Bokov to collect Fenstermacher.

Antipov had a German mistress named Trudi. Bokov very carefully (so as not to anger the general) asked as to whether or not she spoke Russian.

Arnold
Arnold was German Freedom Front operative. In late 1947, after the death of Reinhard Heydrich, Arnold and GFF agents Max, Konrad and Hermann seized a TWA airliner on a flight from Amsterdam to New York City. They forced the plane to Madrid. They also demanded all prisoners in American custody be released. When the Americans did not act, they killed one of the passengers, David Levinsky, the only Jew aboard the plane.

The group eventually set fire to the plane when their demands weren't met, and surrendered to Spanish custody. The U.S., Britain and Franceall demanded that they be turned over to face criminal charges in their respective countries, but Spain refused.

Art
Art was a citizen of Anderson, Indiana, and a supporter of Congressman Jerry Duncan. When a new veteran asked a series of questions about Duncan's opposition, and made critical statements against Diana McGraw, Art stepped in, and in his words, helped Duncan "whipsaw" the skeptical vet. Duncan wasn't pleased about that, as he wanted to logically debate the issue and earn the vet's vote.

Art's daughter had gone to high school with Pat McGraw.

Gil Atkins
Gil Atkins was a soldier who'd been stationed in Germany after World War II. He returned home to Sioux City, Iowa in 1947. He was briefly interviewed by Tom Schmidt in New York City. Atkins comments, which were generally anti-occupation, affirmed Schmidt's own position.

Rudolf Bauer
Rudolf Bauer was a Scharfuhrer of the Waffen-SS during World War II, and a member of the German Freedom Front after the war. He was part of an assault group that attacked a unit of American soldiers on the road between Nuremberg and Munich. The GFF had been outgunned and nearly wiped out. Bauer had received a severe leg wound and was taken prisoner. Under morphine, he was interrogated by Lt. Lou Weissberg, who convinced Bauer that he was in Soviet hands. Bauer gave up his immediate superior, Egon Steinbrecher.

R.R.R. Baxter
R.R.R. Baxter was a Brigadier General in the United States Army's Counter-Intelligence Corps. He informed Lou Weissberg and Howard Frank that the Soviet NKVD had contacted the CIC about turning over a person who might know where German Freedom Front leader Reinhard Heydrich was. Both agreed to a meeting.

Weissberg wondered just what the three r's stood for in Baxter's name.

Bernard
Bernard was an American journalist. At a press conference, Bernard asked President Harry Truman to at least consider the possibility that the Republican Party would win the Congress in 1946, and asked what he would do should they withhold financing the continued occupation of Germany.

Bruce
Bruce was a morale officer in the United States Army. He ran a movie projector for Captain Howard Frank and Lt. Lou Weissberg when they viewed a film produced by the German Freedom Front showing captive Ameerican solider Matthew Cunningham.

Like the two officers, Bruce was horrified. He also astutely pointed out that this was probably not the only copy of the film.

Douglas Catledge
Douglas Catledge was a twice-wounded veteran of World War II. He was Jerry Duncan's Democratic opponent in 1947. As Catledge was pro-war and pro-occupation of Germany, and Duncan was one of the key politicians leading opposition to the occupation, Duncan won handily. During his concession call, Catledge tried to convince Duncan that withdrawal was a mistake, but Duncan paid no heed.

Chuck Christman
Chuck Christman was a reporter for the Indianapolis News. He covered the first protest organized by Diana McGraw against the continued American occupation of Germany in Indianapolis. He defended the press's indifference to the German Freedom Front's uprising when Louise Rodgers chastised him.

Clifton
Clifton was an American soldier who was deployed to Germany after V-E Day. Like most of his comrades, he wasn't enthusiastic about being in Germany. In early 1946, when American forces had a tip that Reinhard Heydrich was in the American zone, Clifton was one of those mobilized under the command of Lou Weissberg to pursue Heydrich.

Clifton and one of his comrades were more interested in the rodents of the swamps outside Erlangenthan they were in hunting Heydrich.

Democratic Congressman from New York
A Democratic Congressman from New York had an argument with Jerry Duncan on the House floor in 1946, just prior to the German Freedom Front's radium-bomb attack on Frankfurt. The New Yorker insisted that pulling American troops out of Germany before the GFF was defeated would insure the rise of Nazism in the not to distant future.

Duncan argued that the cost in lives and treasure greatly outweighed a policy based solely on fears.

Jean Desroches
Jean Desroches was a captain in the French Army during and after World War II. When the United States received information that the German Freedom Front was planning some sort of event in Hechingen in the French zone of Occupied Germany, Lt. Lou Weissberg visited Desroches. Desroches noted the warning, but dismissed it because of its lack of specificity. Moreover Desroches had adopted the French policy of hostility towards the Americans, this despite the fact that Desroches was wearing an American uniform and carried American equipment.

The meeting did not go well, as Desroches was more interested in asserting French independence than cooperating with Weissberg.

Days later, Desroches returned and informed Weissberg, and then Weissberg's immediate superior, Captain Howard Frank, that the GFF had attacked a rubbish dump outside the building where ten German scientists had been captured after the war. When Frank followed up, he learned what the GFF had taken, but couldn't tell Desroches.

Diana McGraw's Mother
Diana McGraw's Mother (b 1868) was seventy-seven in 1945. She was frail and losing her memory.

When Diana McGraw began to cry upon receiving a telegram informing her of the death of her son Pat, her husband initially assumed the telegram carried news of the death of her mother. Diana reflected that, while she would indeed be very sad when she lost her mother, at least a child losing a parent would be in keeping with the natural order of things. For a parent to lose a child, on the other hand, was an inversion of the natural order and much more painful.

Betsy Duncan
Betsy Duncan was the wife of Congressman Jerry Duncan, (R-Indiana). She shared her husband's politics and supported him on the campaign trail. She was suspicious of Diana McGraw's close relationship with her husband. In fact, both Jerry and Diana were adulterous, but not with one another.

Ihor Eschenko
Ihor Eschenko was a major in the Soviet Red Army. In the aftermath of the assassination of Ivan Koniev, Eschenko ordered the round up of German POWs for execution and interrogation. He reported his findings to Vladimir Bokov of the NKVD, and then supervised a retaliatory mass execution.

To Bokov's surprise, Eschenko was indiscrete in sharing some of his opinions. While Eschenko actually outranked Bokov, Bokov wielded greater power. However, Bokov saw little harm in Eschenko's tactless utterings, and was far more interested in catching Koniev's assassin.

Gustav Fenstermacher
Gustav Fenstermacher was an Obergefreiter in the German Wehrmacht. After Germany surrendered in May, 1945, Fenstermacher joined the German Freedom Front. In the fall of 1945, he strapped explosives to his body and attempted to detonate himself in Soviet-occupied Dresden. His bomb did not detonate, however (either it was defective or Fenstermacher lost his nerve), and Fenstermacher was indentified and captured by Soviet troops. He was turned over to NKVD agent Vladimir Bokov.

Fenstermacher attempted to assert his rights as a POW under the Geneva Convention. Bokov quickly disabused Fenstermacher of this erroneous belief.

Fenstermacher was subjected to interrogation by the NKVD. His ultimate fate is unknown.

Fritzi
Fritzi was a veteran of the Eastern Front of World War II and a staunch Nazi. He lived in the swamps outside Erlangen, smuggling cigarettes. While in the presence of Americans, he spoke hatefully of Adolf Hitler, which lulled the Americans into a false sense of security. When Reinhard Heydrich and Johannes Klein were nearly captured by American troops, Fritzi found them and smuggled them to safety in his false-bottomed boat. They even passed an American checkpoint, but the troops knew Fritzi, and so didn't search Fritzi's boat.

Fyodor Furmanov
Fyodor Furmanov was a colonel in the Soviet Red Army. In July, 1945, he was leading a parade of troops through the streets of Berlin, when a German Freedom Front Werewolf drove up in a truck loaded with explosives. The Werewolf blew himself and the truck up, killing several Red Army soldiers and destroying half of a city block. Furmanov survived with minimal injuries--the explosion happened right behind him. Furmanov realized that the responsibility was his, and was forthright with Captain Vladimir Bokov of the NKVD when the latter investigated.

Furmanov wanted revenge, but he shared concerns that if the Soviet Union was too brutal in dealing with the GFF, it might simply drive more people into their camp.

Gabe
Gabe was a medic with the US Army. He helped carry the wounded Lt. Colonel Alexander Volchkov from the rubble of the Palace of Justice after the German Freedom Front destroyed it in December, 1945.

Father Gallagher
Father Gallagher was the McGraw family's priest. Diana McGraw turned to him when she learned that her son, Pat, had been killed in Germanyin September, 1945.

Gladys
Gladys was Jerry Duncan's secretary in Washington, DC. She served coffee when Duncan met with Diana McGrawfor the first time.

Nikolai Sergeyevich Golovko
Nikolai Sergeyevich Golovko (d. 1945) was a Superior Private in the Soviet Red Army. In December, 1945, he was kidnapped by the German Freedom Front. He was filmed reading the GFF's demands that the Soviet Union withdraw from Germany. Vladimir Bokov and Moisei Shteinberg quickly dismissed any thought of meeting those demands, knowing full well it meant Golovko would be killed.

Gorinovich
Gorinovich was Vladimir Bokov's driver in Dresden. Gorinovich was quite content Dresden (and by extension Germany) had gotten what it deserved. Bokov, while disturbed by the remains of Dresden, quickly agreed.

Tony Hawkins
Tony Hawkins was a major in the United States Army. He oversaw security at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg prior to the planned trials of several Nazi officials in December, 1945. He and Lou Weissberg were witness to the truck-bombing of the Palace just before the trials were scheduled to begin.

Heinz
Heinz was a member of Jochim Peiper's cell of the German Freedom Front. When Reinhard Heydrich was killed in 1947, Peiper took control. Heinz was somewhat skeptical of the regime change, but Peiper won him over.

Anton Herpolsheimer
Anton Herpolsheimer was the town councillor of Erlangen, Germany. A veteran of World War I, Herpolsheimer did not see action in World War II. He was present when a German Freedom Front Werewolf blew himself up in the midst of several American soldiers during a pick-up baseball game.

Lou Weissberg interviewed Herpolsheimer after the event. Herpolsheimer, while obviously not happy to be on the losing side of World War II, was thoroughly appalled by the Werewolf's action.

Weissberg was also surprised when Herpolsheimer tacitly admitted knowledge of the mass murder of the Jews, noting that his niece had had a Jewish husband who committed suicide before the War began.

Danny Holmquist
Danny Holmquist (d. 1945) was the son of Sven and Susan Holmquist. He was killed by the German Freedom Front at about the same time Pat McGraw was. His parents joined Diana McGraw's Mothers Against the Madness in Germany.

Susan Holmquist
Susan Holmquist was a member of the Mothers Against the Madness in Germany in Minneapolis. She and her husband Sven lost their son Danny about the same time Diana McGraw lost her son.

The Holmquists helped organize a war-protest rally in Minneapolis in the summer of 1946. While Diana was speaking, Mayor Hubert Humphreystepped onto the stage uninvited to plead that the audience change its opinion. Sven Holmquist reminded Humphrey that he had no business there, and Diana McGraw threatened to have Humphrey arrested.

Sven Holmquist
Sven Holmquist was a member of the Mothers Against the Madness in Germany in Minneapolis. He and his wife Susan lost their son Danny about the same time Diana McGraw lost her son.

The Holmquists helped organize a war-protest rally in Minneapolis in the summer of 1946. While Diana was speaking, Mayor Hubert Humphreystepped onto the stage uninvited to plead that the audience change its opinion. Sven Holmquist reminded Humphrey that he had no business there, and Diana McGraw threatened to have Humphrey arrested.

Rudyard Holmyard
Rudyard Holmyard was a bridagdier general in the United States Army. He was called to testify before Congress after the German Freedom Front was able to capture several prominent German physicists in 1946.

Holmyard was heavily grilled by Indiana Republican Jerry Duncan. Holmyard was able to derail Duncan when he shared the fact that General Leslie Groves (who'd overseen the Manhattan Project) was convinced that the GFF could not build an atomic bomb of its own.

Duncan felt a small amount of pity for Holmyard because of his name.

Hudgeons
Hudgeons was a major in the British Army. He was stationed in Cologne after World War II, acting as a liason between the Allies and Konrad Adenauer in early 1946. Hudgeons met with United States CIC Captain Lou Weissberg, introducing the American to Adenauer.

Ilse
Ilse was a young German woman who shared a sexual relationship with American journalist Tom Schmidt. She was given a film by a German Freedom Front Werewolf to pass on to Schmidt. She did not know the Werewolf, and did not know what the film was.

Ilse was fond of Schmidt, although if that was because he brought her money and food, or because she felt a romantic connection to him, Schmidt was never sure.

Izzy
Izzy was a soldier who'd served in the American occupation of Germany. He returned home in 1947, after the Truman Administration began withdrawing troops. Izzy encountered Diana McGraw, the leader of the anti-occupation forces in the U.S. Izzy cursed her in Yiddish, and attempted to argue with her, but a friend of his convinced him to move on.

Diana McGraw realized that Izzy was Jewish, and decided that "regular" Americans were plenty happy, even if the Jews weren't.

Jack
Jack was a photographer for the Indianapolis Times. He accompanied E.A. Stuart to and took photos of the first protest against continued American occupation of Germany. He also joked that Stuart was the only child in kindergarten to use his initials.

Abe Jacoby
Abe Jacoby was an accountant in Anderson, Indiana. Diana McGraw hired him to manage the business account for Mothers Against the Madness in Germany. He reduced his normal rates for McGraw; he had a nephew named Sheldon who was stationed in Munich.

Ed McGraw was relieved that Jacoby was the accountant, as Jacoby was a Jew.

Sheldon Jacoby
Sheldon Jacoby was a soldier stationed in Munich after World War II. His uncle, Abe Jacoby, was the accountant for Mothers Against the Madness in Germany.

Uwe Kupferstein
Uwe Kupferstein was the bartender at the Soviet New Year's Eve party in 1945. After the German Freedom Front poisoned the celebration liquor, killing several officials, Kupferstein was detained by NKVD officers Vladimir Bokov and Moisei Shteinberg. Kupferstein asserted that he wasn't a Werewolf and he wanted to get on with his life. The NKVD agents let him go.

Kupferstein had served in World War II. He'd lost his foot at Dunkirk.

Boris Aleksandrovich Kuznetsov
Boris Aleksandrovich Kuznetsov (d. 1947) was a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Red Army stationed in Berlin. As he was arguing with NKVD Captain Vladimir Bokov in February, 1947, a truck bomb exploded outside the building. When Kuznetsov, Bokov, and other inhabitants of the building went out to investigate, an ambulance arrived, and another truck bomb went off. The blast ripped off the top of Kuznetsov's head.

Walt Lefevre
Walt Lefevre was part of Bernie Cobb's squad. He and Cobb found themselves fighting the German Freedom Front in the immediate aftermath of World War II. This included a firefight with a GFF Werewolf in the forests of Erlangen in the winter of 1945.

Mack Leff
Mack Leff was an American soldier stationed in Erlangen, Germany after V-E Day. He and Bernie Cobb guarded a check point after Reinhard Heydrich kidnapped ten German scientists from British custody.

Leff and Cobb actually encountered Heydrich and his aide, Johnann Kleinoutside Erlangen, but didn't recognize them, and believed their forged documents.

Leszczynksi
Leszczynski was a captain in the Polish Army. Although he had received medals from the Soviet Red Army, Leszczynski was a Polish nationalist, a fact that NKVD Captain Vladimir Bokov quietly picked up on, and knew that meant that Leszczynski would eventually be eliminated.

Leszczynski was Bokov's contact in Wroclaw. After Wroclaw governor Pietruszka was assassinated by the German Freedom Front, the Polish Army rounded up every ethnic German in the city, until it found a Waffen-SS officer named Adrian Marwede. Bokov and Leszczynski interrogated Marwede, who confirmed two things that both men already knew: that Reinhard Heydrich had been hiding weapons, even as they were needed at the Front, and that lightly wounded men were kept by Heydrich rather than returned to battle after they healed. What Marwede revealed for the first time was that Heydrich had been doing this since summer 1943 (something Lesczynski hadn't heard, but didn't register much surprise upon hearing it).

David Levinsky
David Levinsky (d. 1947) was a passenger aboard a TWA flight hijacked by the German Freedom Front and redirected to Madrid, Spain. He was a Jew, which made him their first murder victim when their demands were not met.

Edna Lopatynski
Edna Lopatynski of Illinois was an early supporter and colleague of Diana McGraw. She was a staunch member of the group Mothers Against the Madness in Germany, and was present for the first substantial protest McGraw organized in Indianapolisin 1945.

Louise
Louise was a neighbor of Ed and Diana McGraw. She came over and comforted the whole McGraw family when they learned that their son, Pat, had been killed in Germany in September, 1945.

Luisa
Luisa was Anton Herpolsheimer's niece. She had been married to a Jew named Max, who committed suicide in 1939, fearing that he would eventually become a burden on his wife.

Ludwig
Ludwig was a German Freedom Front Werewolf captured by the US Army CIC in the fall of 1945. Under threat of castration, Ludwig revealed the location of a GFF storage bunker in the forests of Bavaria. Lou Weissberg led a squad to seize it.

Privately, Weissberg doubted that the CIC would have really castrated Ludwig. Weissberg was also disappointed that the bunker contained weapons and propaganda tools, but no better links to the GFF leadership.

Adrian Marwede
Adrian Marwede was a member of the German Waffen-SS and a veteran of World War II. He'd survived the Red Army's siege of Wroclaw, when it was still the German city of Breslau, but when the town surrendered in 1945, he tried to pass himself of as a mere Wehrmacht non-com. When the German Freedom Front assassinated Governor Pietruszka, Marwede was arrested by the Polish Army, along with all German veterans. Marwede was personally interrogated by Polish Army Captain Leszczynski and NKVD Captain Vladimir Bokov, who quickly determined that Marwede was in fact Waffen-SS.

Marwede was able to shed some light on the GFF. He explained that Reinhard Heydrich(for whom he had little use) had been routinely taking weapons and men from the front. Marwede's disclosure that Heydrich had been doing so since 1943 was quite upsetting to Bokov.

Max (GFF Agent)
Max was German Freedom Front operative. In late 1947, after the death of Reinhard Heydrich, Max and GFF agents Konrad, Arnold and Hermann seized a TWA airliner on a flight from Amsterdam to New York City. They forced the plane to Madrid. They also demanded all prisoners in American custody be released. When the Americans did not act, they killed one of the passengers, David Levinsky, the only Jew aboard the plane.

The group eventually set fire to the plane when their demands weren't met, and surrendered to Spanish custody. The U.S., Britain and Franceall demanded that they be turned over.

Max (Luisa's Husband)
Max (d. 1939) was the husband of Luisa, the niece of Anton Herpolsheimer. A Jew, Max saw the tide of Germany turning against the Jews. Unable to get a visa to another country, he hanged himself for fear of becoming a burden on his wife.

Mel
Mel was an American soldier in Germany after World War II. He drove Tom Schmidt to an interview with General Dwight Eisenhower in Munich in December, 1945. When they arrived in the city, Mel was relieved to have made it through "Injun Country" in one piece.

Mel also answered to "Horseface".

Mitzi
Mitzi (d. 1947) was a former Flakhiferin. She and former Luftwaffe Oberleutnant Ernst Neulen were members of the German Freedom Front. In July, 1947, the two seized an American C-47 with the purpose of crashing it into a Berlin courthouse, thus preventing the trial of several German officials for war crimes. Mitzi fully expected to parachute from the plane before the crash. However, Reinhard Heydrichordered that Mitzi's parachute be sabotaged, so when she jumped, it didn't open.

Max Müller
Max Müller was a member of the German Social Unity Party, and the Soviet-appointed burgomeister of Chemnitz. As the German Freedom Front had committed several assassinations in Chemnitz, Müller contacted the NKVD for help. Captain Vladimir Bokovarrived, but ultimately could provide no help.

Sandy Nagy
Second Lieutenant Sandor "Sandy" Nagy (d. 1947) was the co- pilot of a C-47. He and his pilot, Wes Adams, were murdered by two German Freedom Front Werewolves just prior to take-off. The Werewolves then crashed the C-47 into a courthouse in Berlin, preventing the Allies from putting Germanwar criminals on trial.

Offenbacher
Offenbacher was a lieutenant with the Indianapolis Police Department. He was in charge of crowd control at an anti-war rally organized by Diana McGraw on July 4, 1947. He witnessed the assassination of City Councilman Gus van Slyke, and quickly took charge of the crime scene, despite the panicked crowd.

Pietruszka
Pietruszka was the Soviet-appointed governor of Wroclaw, Poland in 1945. An advocate of the relocation of Germans from Poland, Pietruska was killed by German Freedom Front Werewolves.

The Polish Army responded by rounding up every German soldier and ethnic German it could find. It then called in the NKVD to investigate.

Pietruszka was seen as a solid communist.

Ezra Robertson
Ezra Robertson was a major in the United States Army. He was assigned to help prosecute the various German war criminals the Allies apprehended after World War II. Those plans had been derailed twice by the German Freedom Front by 1946.

While drinking in an officer's club in Nuremberg with Howard Frank and Lou Weissberg, Robertson warned Weissberg that suggestions that the US and the Soviet Union cooperate more would be bad for Weissberg's career.

Rocky
Rocky (d. 1946) was an American soldier stationed in Germany after World War II. While driving for Lt. Lou Weissberg, Rocky was killed by a roadside bomb that was connected to wires strung across the road, and detonated when the clippers mounted on the vehicle cut the wire.

Weissberg was injured, but survived.

Rojek
Rojek was a private in the United States Army. He was part of a squad of troops that went into the Bavarian woods to locate a German Freedom Front bunker. Sgt. Toby Benton ordered Rojek to begin digging for the entrance once the bunker was located. Rojek wasn't happy or enthusiastic in his digging.

Roscoe
Roscoe was part of the unit of American soldiers that unsuccessfully searched the base of the Alps for Reinhard Heydrich's hideout in the fall of 1946.

Keith Rosenthal
Lt. Colonel Keith Rosenthal was the senior US Army officer present when Konrad Adenauer made his fateful visit to Erlangen in 1946. Adenauer was killed by the German Freedom Front mortar attack while giving his speech. Rosenthal's hand was injured. Upon learning from Bernie Cobb that Adenauer was dead, Rosenthal, already in terrible physical pain, began to break down.

Before the speech, Cobb vaguely wondered how Adenauer felt about the Jewish Rosenthal being responsible for his safety. Cobb concluded that Rosenthal's status as an American was probably more important.

Sandy
Sandy was an American soldier. He accompanied Lt. Lou Weissberg to Pförring and helped arrest Egon Steinbrecher.

Egon Steinbrecher
Egon Steinbrecher was a Hauptsturmfuhrer in the Waffen-SS during World War II and a member of the German Freedom Front after. Professionally, he was a mechanic in Pförring. Steinbrecher planned a GFF attack on an American army unit on the road between Nuremberg and Munich in 1946. The attack was actually a disaster for the GFF men involved. One, Rudolf Bauer, was wounded and caputured. Believing he was in the custody of the Soviet Union, Bauer gave Steinbrecher's name to Lou Weissberg. Weissberg arrested Steinbrecher, interrogated him, and was able to get the names of a Pförring residents who were Werewolves. However, Steinbrecher was lying. He was immediately executed.

Surkov
Lt. Colonel Surkov of the Soviet Red Army was stationed in Berlin after World War II. In the aftermath of the German Freedom Front's attacks in Paris and London in 1946, Captain Vladimir Bokov conferred with Surkov about protecting Soviet monuments. Surkov even suggested the possibility that a GFF operative might use a Soviet tank to pull it off.

In 1947, Surkov had slacked off on protecting momuments, and the Red Army monument was destroyed by a GFF agent using a Soviet tank.

Surkov committed suicide.

Tortured Feldwebel
A German Feldwebel, after a long period of torture at the hands of the NKVD, finally tipped off Vladimir Bokov about the Werewolves.