Ernst Tilbach (also known as Chaplain Reynolds or Major Ernst Tillbach) is the main antagonist of the 2000 spy television film Britannic.
He is voiced by Edward Atterton.
Biography[]
Ernst Tilbach tries to hide his real identity by calling himself Chaplain Reynolds, and soon discovers that the HMHS Britannic is secretly carrying a large amount of small arms and munitions bound for Cairo, Egypt. Under the articles of war, he considers his actions against Britannic to be legal and initiates a series of sabotage attempts to either take over or sink her, including inciting the Irish stokers, all members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, to mutiny.
Each sabotage attempt he makes onboard the Britannic was foiled by Vera Campbell with the eventual cooperation of the Britannic's crew. Unaware that Campbell is responsible, he finds himself growing attracted to her whilst the voyage continues following Britannic's stopover at Naples, Italy. Campbell and Reynolds soon bond a relationship until Campbell discovers his true identity. Campbell confronts him in the engine room where Reynolds reveals his real name, as Ernst Tilbach, and then he tells her he is going to sink the Britannic.
Ernst Tilbach then blows a hole in the Britannic's port side bow. The ship tries sailing for island of Kea seven miles away, but the beaching operation causes her to sink even faster. Campbell discovers that William Lewis, one of Lady Lewis's children, has disappeared. Ernst Tilbach helps her and they get William to a lifeboat before it is lowered. Another explosion in the ship causes Ernst Tilbach to be trapped in a flooding room. Campbell helps him escape and they make their way through the ship, swimming through flooded rooms, vents, grates, and corridors, eventually making it outside by swimming through a porthole and climbing aboard an empty lifeboat that has been lowered into the water, but is still attached by its ropes to the davits.
Ernst Tilbach on a lifeboat before his death
Campbell and Ernst Tilbach notice a lifeboat filled with people getting pulled into the still spinning propellers. They watch in horror as another lifeboat and its occupants are smashed to pieces by the spinning propeller blades. Ernst ties Vera Campbell to a line thrown to them from a nearby lifeboat.
Despite Campbell's protests that they both can be pulled to safety, he throws Vera Campbell into the sea after kissing her. Soon after, the lifeboat's ropes break and the lifeboat gets sucked towards the propellers, Ernst Tilbach sacrifices himself by staying aboard the lifeboat as it is smashed by the propeller blades as his method of committing suicide.