Helmut Schuldiger

SS-Standartenführer Helmut Björn Lindholm Schuldiger is a character in The Kremlin Chronicles. He was a former SS intelligence officer during the Second World War, and became a CIA asset during the Third World War. 
== Biography ==
He was born in 1906 in an agrarian village of Crimean Germans in the Russian Empire. Schuldiger lived a relatively peaceful life until 1924, when a mob of Russian Communists massacred Schuldiger's village after rumours of Germans conspiring against the fledgling Soviet state spread among the local peasantry. Unable to continue living in Crimea as a German, Schuldiger fled the Soviet Union by sailing the Black Sea, finding passage to Germany via Romania. Following this violent incident in his early life, Schuldiger became an avowed racist, developing an unjustified sense of racial superiority, and denouncing Slavs as a lesser people. 
Schuldiger finally settled in Munich, where he was first introduced to Nazi ideology. Enthralled by the Nazis' fervent German nationalism, and possessed by his deep hatred of Communism, Schuldiger joined the Nazi party in 1925 as a member of the newly-formed SS. In the years before the Second World War, Schuldiger rose through the ranks of the SS, spearheading raids against all resistance to National Socialist ideology, and proving himself to be a loyal Nazi to his superiors. 
At the start of the war, his fluency in German and Russian, years of experience in the SS, and unquestioning loyalty to the Nazi regime made him the prime candidate for directing intelligence operations in Eastern Europe. In 1939, Schuldiger was tasked with identifying and eliminating pockets of resistance across the occupied territories in Eastern Europe, where he gained a reputation for his persuasiveness in rallying foreigners to support the German cause, and for being ruthless in his treatment of suspected resistance fighters and Red Army prisoners. 
Despite a remarkable career as an intelligence officer, Schuldiger fell in disgrace in 1944 after his former Eastern European allies turned against him, which he claimed was due to their fear of being captured by the Red Army. Schuldiger returned to Germany in late 1944 and went rogue, trying to build an army to return to Eastern Europe and eventually kill the men who turned against him. After failing to exact revenge on his former comrades, he fled to Switzerland, adopted a fake name and found passage to Paraguay in June 1945, where he learned Spanish, and found work in the agricultural sector. In 1964 he migrated to Mexico, claiming he was pursuing a new business venture. 
== Personality and Traits ==
Despite having been defeated in 1945, Schuldiger is still unwavering in his support of Nazi ideology, boasting of his achievements as a Nazi official and proudly displaying his service medals in public. He also claims to be the last descendant of the Crimean Goths, adopting the name 'Theoderich' in honour of the 6th-century King of the Ostrogoths. 
Schuldiger sees the Third World War as the final battle between patriotic Germans like himself and Communist Slavs, which is why he treats his mission with the CIA as a continuation of the conflict from his days as an SS officer, and also why the CIA regards him as an extremely valuable asset in the war effort against the Soviets.