Captain Von Brauchitsch

Captain von Brauchitsch was a major villain in the novel Where Eagles Dare. He was renamed Major von Hapen in the film.

Biography
Von Brauchitsch was a cold, calculating Gestapo officer of the Hunter Battalion stationed at the Schloss Adler. In fact, he was in charge of all the Gestapo activity in the region surrounding the castle. He often butted heads with his SS superior, Paul Kramer, who disliked him and attempted to discredit him at every turn, or at least the paranoid von Brauchitsch thought. He was angry when Kramer didn't tell him that the captured American general being held at the Schloss Adler supposedly knew information about the Allies' planned second front, and even angrier when the "army deserters" picked up by Colonel Weissner were in fact suspected British spies.

Drowning his sorrows at the Zum Wilden Hirsch, von Brauchitsch met barmaid Heidi Schmidt and her cousin Maria Schenck. Enamored with the two, he accepted Heidi's request to get Maria a job at the Schloss Adler as a serving girl, and even personally escorted the two women by cable car up to the castle and turned them over to Anne-Marie Schwartz, the head of Kramer's personal staff. When Heidi returned to the inn, von Brauchitsch took Maria out on a date, but during their evening noticed some discrepancies in her story of how she grew up in Dusseldorf. After escorting her back to her room, he noticed the pilot of Rosemeyer's helicopter was missing, and found him tied up in a storeroom. After finding more evidence of a break-in, he went to find Kramer in the dining room and tell him he thought "Maria" was a spy and had assisted some intruders.

He arrived to find not only Kramer and Reichsmarschall Rosmeyer and the captive American general, but also several strangers. Maria was there, and von Brauchitsch took her by surprise. She was given to Anne-Marie, who took her into another room. Suddenly Maria reentered. She had overcome Anne-Marie, knocked her out and returned with a gun which she pointed at von Brauchitsch. The Gestapo captain was forced to surrender, and he along with the other Nazis present was injected with nembutal which made him fall asleep.