Schutzstaffel
The SS ranks behind two of Indiana Jones's Nazi villains, Toht and Vogel.
In the Indiana Jones films the SS appears through individual officers rather than as an organisation. Arnold Ernst Toht, the secondary antagonist of Raiders of the Lost Ark, is an SS-Sturmbannführer, and Standartenführer Ernst Vogel, a brutal SS officer, aids Walter Donovan in finding the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Quick Facts
- Primary affiliation
- Nazi Germany (Third Reich)
- First appearance
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Lore & Background
Vogel commands Brunwald Castle in Austria, where Indy's father is held, and dies when his tank goes over a cliff in Hatay. In the Last Crusade's book-burning scene, Ronald Lacey, who played Toht, cameos as Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler.
Reader's Guide
The real SS chief Heinrich Himmler sponsored Otto Rahn's search for the Grail, an interest in the Grail within Nazi occultist circles that the Holy Grail article traces to Rahn's books.
More in Organizations & Rivals
Elsewhere in Indiana Jones
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