Minor Fictional Characters in In the Presence of Mine Enemies

This article lists the various minor fictional characters who appear in the novel In the Presence of Mine Enemies. These characters play at best a peripheral role in the novel. Most were simply mentioned once, or had a very brief, unimportant speaking role that did not impact the plot, and never appeared again. While some were identified by at least one name, others were not.

Frau Abetz
Frau Abetz's daughter Liselotte was a patient of Dr. Martin Dambach. Lisolotte had an ear infection, and Frau Abetz brought her to Dr. Dambach for antibiotics.

Liselotte Abetz
Liselotte Abetz (born c. 2008) was a patient of Dr. Martin Dambach. Lisolotte had an ear infection, and her mother brought her to Dr. Dambach for antibiotics.

Adolf
Adolf was a guard at Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. He greeted Heinrich Gimpel when Gimpel returned to work after being imprisoned by the Security Police on suspicion of being a Jew. Adolf greeted Gimpel by stating that "the Security Police couldn't grab their ass with both hands."

Dietrich Baumgartner
Dietrich Baumgartner (b. ca 2010) was the infant patient of Dr. Martin Dambach. Dietrich was teething, and his mother hoped that Dr. Dambach had something to make her son more comfortable.

Frau Baumgartner
Frau Baumgartner's infant son Dietrich Baumgartner was a patient of Dr. Martin Dambach. Dietrich was teething, and FrauBaumgarnter hoped that Dr. Dambach had something to make her son more comfortable.

Frau Bauriedl
Frau Bauriedl was a regular in Dr. Martin Dambach's office. She often believed her daughter, Wilhelmina, had some sort of affliction, a fact that exhasperated Dambach and his employees, including Esther Stutzman. However, Frau Bauriedl always paid her bills promptly, and so her paranoia was tolerated. On one particularly busy day, however, Dambach ran out of patience, and Frau Bauriedl left, angrily announcing that she'd never return.

Wilhelmina Bauriedl
Wilhelmina Bauriedl (b. 2003) was the unfortunate daughter of Frau Bauriedl, a woman who was constantly convinced her daughter was being plagued by all manner of ailments. Thus, Wilhelmina was a frequent patient to Martin Dambach's office, a fact that irritated the doctor and his staff, Esther Stutzmanincluded.

Blinky Bill
"Blinky Bill" was a member of the BUF and a supporter of Charlie Lynton. He earned his nick-name because of his squint.

Horace Buckingham
Horace Buckingham was a British professor of Medieval English studies. He spoke at the annual Medieval English Association meeting in London in 2010. Susanna Weiss spoke with him briefly. He fled when she expressed an interest in the BUF meeting also being held in London. As Weiss was a German citizen, Buckingham probably believed her interest was less-than-innocent.

Erna Buckliger
Erna Buckliger was the wife of Heinz Buckliger, fourth Führer of the Greater German Reich. She was a skinny blond woman. She was held in captivity with her husband during the 2011 Putsch. Neither came to harm when the putsch was stopped.

Mathilde Burchert
Mathilde Burchert was an undergraduate student of Susanna Weiss's. She was enthusiastic about Gauleiter Rolf Stolle's speech calling for immediate reform within the Greater German Reich. Weiss feared that Burchert might be an agent provocateur, and so did not voice an opinion.

Charlie Cox
Charlie Cox was a member of the United States Treasury Department, living in the nation's capital, Omaha. He called Heinrich Gimpel, the American specialist at Oberkommando der Wehrmacht on several occasions to get his opinion of Führer Heinz Buckliger's professed desire for reformation of the Greater German Reich. After Buckliger brought a division of German troops home from the U.S., Cox became more openly critical of the German occupation of his country, making snide remarks under his breath while speaking to Gimpel.

Dahrendorf
Herr Doktor Professor Dahrendorf was a colleague of Susanna Weiss's. He specialized in the Nibelungenlied and played the stock market on the side. The fact that he gave a report focused on salaries and budgets at a faculty meeting suggested that his efforts to play the market weren't successful.

Dietrich
Dietrich was a colonel stationed at Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. Heinrich Gimpel and Willi Dorsch overheard him and another colonel, Paul, arguing about the First Edition of Mein Kampf. Dietrich described the idea of a democratically selected Führeras described in the First Edition as "clap-trap".

Hans Dirlewanger
Hans Dirlewanger was a classmate of Alicia Gimpel's. They were in Herr Kessler's class. The day after Führer Heinz Buckliger's televised speech, Hans admitted he hadn't watched to a wrathful Kessler. Hans explained that his father was on leave from occupation duty in the United States, and that the family had gone to dinner and the cinema and thus missed the speech.

Kessler was mollified by this answer.

Joseph Dorsch
Joseph Dorsch was the son of Willi and Erika Dorsch, and the brother of Magda Dorsch. Although the Dorsches had been unhappy together for some time, they stayed together for their children's sake.

Magda Dorsch
Magda Dorsch was the daughter of Willi and Erika Dorsch, and the sister of Joseph Dorsch. Although her parents had been unhappy together for some time, they stayed together for the sake of Magda and her brother.

Drumont
Drumont was a French professor who attended the Medieval English Association meeting in London. Susanna Weiss had a brief conversation with him as they prepared to register, during which Susanna used her rusty French. Two British fascists overheard her speaking, and made a derisive remark about foreigners. Susanna switched to German, and demanded to see their papers. While she had no right to them, the two Englishmen presented their papers based soley on her use of German. After she "examined" them, the two men fled.

Both Drumont and Susanna found the registration desk.

Maximilian Ebert
Maximilian Ebert worked for the Greater German Reich's Genealogical Office. He investigated the discrepency in Paul Klein's genealogical chart discovered by pediatrician Dr. Martin Dambach. The original chart suggested that the Kleins were purely Aryan, whereas a second chart suggested possible Jewish ancestors several generations back. This, coupled with Dambach's diagnosing Paul with Tay-Sachs disease led Ebert and Dambach to correctly suspect that the Kleins were secretly Jewish.

However, when it was learned that Reichsfuhrer-SS Lothar Prützmann had a nephew also diagnosed with Tay-Sachs, the investigation was dropped, and Ebert reprimanded. Ebert attempted to lay blame at Dambach's feet, who refused to accept it.

Ebert was scrupulous about his duty, clicking his heels at Dambach's receptionist, Esther Stutzman, herself a secret Jew, and the person unwittingly responsible for the discrepency in the charts. Ebert also came on to Esther, and saw no relevence in the fact that she was happily married with two children.

Ingeborg Fasold
Ingeborg Fasold was the principal of the Gimpel daughters' school. When the three girls were taken into custody as accused Mischlingen (half-Jews), the girls created such a fuss that Fasold appeared and castigated their captors for the level of force and the number of men brought to bear to detain the children. She did not believe they were Jews, and actually praised them for being excellent students (a fact that surprised Alicia Gimpel; Fasold never had a good word for any student).

Fasold then called Lise Gimpel and informed her that her children had been taken into custody. She actually wondered how a child, even a Mischlingen, could be a danger.

Käthe Franks
Katarina "Käthe" Franks was the younger sister of Lise Gimpel, and the favorite aunt of the Gimpel daughters. She was quite a bit younger than her sister. Like Lise and the Gimpel family, Käthe was a secret Jew living in Berlin.

Käthe and Lise's parents were killed in an automobile accident with a drunk driver some years before Alicia Gimpel turned ten.

Käthe frequently baby-sat the Gimpel girls. She was well loved by her nieces because of her lax, easy-going manner.

Klaus Frick
Klaus Frick (b. 2001) was a classmate of Francesca Gimpel. One day, when her motherasked her what she learned in school that day, Francesca announced that Klaus Frick ate bugs and that she had seen him do it.

Lotte Friedl
Lotte Friedl was a patient of Martin Dambach's.

Engelbert Hackmann
Engelbert Hackmann was a building contractor in Berlin, Greater German Reich. In 2011, he was the conservative opponent of Gauleiter Rolf Stolle for a seat in the Reichstag. Hackmann lost in a 6-1 margin.

Adela Handrick
Adela Handrick was the mother of Emma Handrick. When Heinrich Gimpel and his daughters were arrested by the Security Police the suspicion of being Jews. Emma was good friends with Alicia Gimpel. Adela Handrick visited Alicia's mother, Lise, after the arrest, and conveyed her families sympathies.

Lise Gimpel was touched by the gesture.

Emma Handrick
Emma Handrick (b. 2000) was a classmate of Alicia Gimpel's. She was not particularly bright or studious, often having to copy Alicia's math homework. She received many paddlings from her fourth-grade teacher, Herr Kessler, and developed a crush on her fifth-grade teacher, Herr Peukert.

Stefan Handrick
Stefan Handrick was the husband of Adela Handrick and the father of Emma Handrick. After Heinrich Gimpel and his daughters were arrested by the Security Police on suspicion of being Jews, Adela Handrick brought her and Stefan's condolences to Lise Gimpel.

Hans
Hans was one of several men who interrogated Alicia Gimpel about whether or not she, her sisters, and her father were Jews. He suggested that Heinrich Gimpel and Erika Dorsch (the person who denounced them) were playing more than just bridge.

Ilse
Ilse was a secretary at the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. When Willi Dorsch's marriage went bad, he initiated an affair with Ilse. Ilse was rather fickle, however. After Führer Heinz Buckliger consulted with Heinrich Gimpel about cutting monetary tribute from the United States, Ilse hinted at an attraction to the office's newest celebrity.

Ilse had one "lunch-date" with Berlin's Gauleiter, Rolf Stolle. When he didn't call her again, she went back to Willi.

Konrad Jahnke
Konrad Jahnke was a doctor from Breslau. In 2011, he "wrote" an op-ed piece entitled Enough is Enough, which was published in the Völkischer Beobachter. The op-ed was a rebuttal to Germany Führer Heinz Buckliger's call for reform, published while Buckliger was in Norway. Jahnke took issue with Buckliger's characterizations of the history of the Reich as being built on conquest and criminality.

In truth, Jahnke's article was probably published instigation of Lothar Prützmann, Reichsführer-SS, who was already showing his willingness to oppose the new führer.

Jewish Security Police Major
A major of the Security Police was directly responsible for the release of Heinrich Gimpel and his three daughters, as well as quashing the charges that they were Jews. The major met with Gimpel once, and strongly intimated that he was also a Jew, remarking that "You find us in the oddest places" before ushering Gimpel out the door.

Kallmeyer
Kallmeyer was the immediate supervisor of Heinrich Gimpel and Willi Dorsch at Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. Dorsch used the excuse that Kallmeyer wanted to explain depreciation to Dorsch as a way to hide his infidelity from Dorsch's wife, Erika.

Fräulein Knopp
Fräulein Knopp was a clerk at the Gimpel girls' school. She escorted Alicia Gimpel to the office so that she and her sisters could be taken into custody after their father was accused of being a Jew.

She stared at Alicia as they walked down the hall, and at one point cryptically asked the girl "Are you really?"

Trudi Krebs
Trudi Krebs (b. 2000) was a fellow student of Alicia Gimpel's in Herr Kessler's class. She inquired about the First Edition of Mein Kampf. When pressed by Kessler, she admitted that her parents had been talking about it. Kessler noted her name in his roll book, but did not answer her question. The whole class understood that the Krebs family would be in trouble with the authorities, and treated her as an outcast. However, as this incident coincided with the rise of Heinz Buckliger, the authorities did not take action, and Trudi quickly stopped being an outcast. She graduated to the next grade along with Alicia Gimpel.