Captain Harald

Harald Strommueler is a major supporting character in the World War arc of Planty's backstory. Originally the son of a staff officer for Ludwig Hauptmann, he becomes close friends with both Otto and Franz, and upon his father's death at Passchendaele, becomes an adoptive sibling to them. He becomes Otto's confident during the Africa Campaign. He is the commander of the Skorpion- Max tank.

Appearance
Harald is a lean figure that is slightly taller than Otto. He has auburn hair that is combed in a pretty standard way with a part on the right side. On his left leg, he has some pretty extensive burn scars, as a result of their Marder III catching fire on time. Because of that, he has a slight limp that prevents him from running.

Through the series, he wears very crisply ironed clothing with shiny boots or shoes. This of course isn't really the case during the Africa Campaign due to their lack of supplies and the dessert sands kicking up.

He wears a field cap and a green scarf during the Africa Campaign- a gift from Otto's mother.

Personality
Harald is a very sociable and energetic person in general, having a hobby of wishing to meet people from each and every culture around the globe. Another hobby of his is cleaning and will go out of his way to clean other people's belongings and personal areas if they don't want to.

Even though he normally shows a friendly and energetic persona, he is still able to be cunning and brilliant tactician and acts extremely calm in stressful situations.

In the beginning, he is pretty stringent on regulations, but comes to disregard many of them being in Africa, often far away from actual support.

History
Harald, similar to Otto has reserved feelings for the Nazi party. For this reason, he maintained in Austria during the middle of the 1930s. He managed to be on holiday in Switzerland when the Anschluss happened and rather comically came home to find Nazi banners up everywhere. After being convinced by Franz and Otto to join the Heer, they manage to get him into an officer's school where he specialized in armour warfare. He graduated before the Invasion of Norway and Denmark, but was instead placed in a garrison on the French border.

During the Invasion of France, he lead a company of infantry through the Maginot Line under intense and brutal fighting. By the time they had reached their target, Verdun, all but five remained. These five would later accompany Harald to North Afrikaner. For their relentless assault, they were given numerous awards including Iron Cross 2nd Class. Shortly after the Fall of France a few weeks later, they were given tanks and ordered to go to North Africa. They were briefly trained on their way to Naples (via Marseilles) on how to use their tank, helped a lot by his training with armoured vehicles during officer training.

After arriving at Marseilles, they find Otto and his armoured car friends and the two drive to Naples, taking a train when available.

Vehicles used

 * Sdfk. 222 (command vehicle)- used briefly during the French Invasion


 * StugIII- destroyed in combat November 1940
 * Marder III- destroyed in combat June 1941
 * Skorpion Max- destroyed in combat April 1943

Abilities
Although Harald does not any obvious superhuman abilities, he has a few skills that set him apart from most. These include:
 * Cunning akin to a fox- being separated from the core of the division, taught him a few lessons about hunting down enemy tanks. With help from other battalions, he and Otto lay out extensive traps and do hit-and-runs.
 * Calm and Collected- due to the nature of being a tank destroyer commander, he developed a calm persona in order to properly send shells even when under fire in an practically unarmoured vehicle.
 * Improvise and Adapt- similar to Otto, he has excellent improvisational skills that have helped not only his tank crew, but the company as a whole survive dangerous encounters.

Trivia

 * The Skorpion Max is based heavily off of the German tank Dicker Max, even though it wasn't given to the Afrika Korps or implemented until the time of the fall of Tunisia