Goering and Thrawn

I was thinking what influences helped Timothy Zahn create one of the best EU characters, Grand Admiral Thrawn.

The Solution came right from my Western Civilization text book.

One possible influence would be a guy name Goering.

1. He was a great fighter pilot during WWI
2. He later became a good friend and ally of Adolf Hitler's.
3. He helped Hitler make many decisions.
4. He collected a lot of art work. It is said that his personal collection was worth 15 million dollars.
5. He was incharge of the German Secret Police. He was given special assignments by Hitler.


Lets look at Thrawn again shall we,
1. He was a great war mind and leader in the Chiss
2. He later met Palpatine
3. He helps Palpatine make many decisions.
4. He collected art work and studied art work to better understand his enemies.
5. Palpatine gave him special assignments like working in the Unknown regions.


______________________
That is one influence, what are others? I have heard that Sigmund Freud might have been an influence as well. Also what do you think of my Goering Thrawn Theory?

-Darth Seldon

 

Nice connection D- Seldon

I know my war stuff though and I don't believe Goering was a great pilot during WWI. Other than that,I think you make an interesting connection.

 

The art interest is a possible connection, but I was under the impression that Goering was an incompetent, very unlike Thrawn. He was a bombastic man, charmed by medals and pagentry, traits not associated with the fictional Grand Admiral.

Goering's policies lost Germany the Battle of Britian and, as I understand it, helped cause the failure of Operation Barbarossa on the Eastern Front. His suicide after the Nuremburg trials also piants a sour picture of cowardice.

I think it's more likely that Zahn thought the art interpretation would be a neat gimmick, something to differentiate his character. Although it's an interesting theory, I doubt there's any connection.

I don't believe Goering was a great pilot during WWI

Depends on how you define 'great'. He did pretty well for himself, garnering 22 kills and a couple of medals.

 

Acually, instead of Goering, I'd say Erwin Rommel would be a better match.

 

i had the rare privelidge of talking one on one about thrawn's creation with timothy zahn. he said he didn't really base thrawn on anyone. he just wanted to make a villain who's weapon was his intelligence.

 

I'd agree that Rommel is a better match than Goering. Rommel was not a Nazi, but he was one of the Third Reich's best military minds. He cared little for politics, and preferred just to go out and fight to the best of his ability.

 

He's also said that he based thrawn off of a compilation of several military leaders, mainly to make the best of the best.

 

Goering was an incompetent, overweight, self-serving egotist who was had an opium addiction. Thrawn was one of the greatest military geniuses the Galaxy has ever known, managing to secure the highest rank in the Imperial Navy. They are two very, very diferrent men.

 

Goering was a bad leader to be put in charge of the Luftwaffe or the other economic programs such as the Four Year Plans, but he was an able pilot and squadron commander. At the end of WWI he was the leader of the late Baron Manfred von Richtofen's Flying Circus.

 

As for Thrawn/Rommel, Rommel was a good tactician and general, and I say this as a man who has done multiple papers on Rommel and considers himself to be a fan of Der Wustenfuchs, but he wasn't the sort of master strategist that Thrawn was. Rommel was a competent commander, and a great leader, but Thrawn is the kind of ultimate master strategist/boogeyman that can't be personified.

 

Goering was an incompetent, overweight, self-serving egotist who was had an opium addiction. Thrawn was one of the greatest military geniuses the Galaxy has ever known, managing to secure the highest rank in the Imperial Navy. They are two very, very diferrent men.

Agreed.


I think that if there?s a real world comparison for Thrawn, the best is Napoleon. They were both brilliant commanders who knew a bit about how to lead and govern, but who both made some fatal mistakes along the way. I would say that Ackbar is most like Wellington ? he might not always be the most brilliant guy on the field by most peoples reckoning (how many people still make excuses for Napoleon losing at Waterloo? ), he might not use the most stunning and innovative tactics, but somehow it?s always Ackbar that comes out on top when the dust has settled.



If any member of the Nazi inner circle really needs a counterpart in Star Wars, it?s Joseph Goebbels. Every so often I get tempted to rewrite up some of his essays or speeches to make them sound like they?re from the GFFA and post them in the fan fiction forum. His writings and speeches are really interesting stuff in retrospect, and it?s fascinating to compare what he was saying about events to what Churchill was saying ? two of the greatest wordsmiths of the 20th century with completely different spins on the same events.

For anyone interested in reading some of what Goebbels had to say, try http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goebmain.htm . I think that his writings are must reads for anyone who is curious about propaganda, because Goebbels was one of the greatest spin-doctors and propaganda experts of the 20th century. The only man of his time that I think was better at motivating a people through words was Winston Churchill (his speeches and sayings are even more worth reading than Goebbels, but I can?t think of a decent collection online offhand ).

 

I think Rudolf Hess would correspond to Sate Pestage very nicely.

Goering was a drug addict, had pretensions to culture and was overweight. And no strategic genius, either.

I feel that Thrawn can best be compared to Casear, Hannibal, Napoleon, Rommel and a dash of Lee and Guderian.

Oh, and unlike Wellington, Ackbar wasn't a reactionary sob.

 

I think that Napoleon is whom Thrawn is most like, if ya had to pick someone

 

If you want to pick a Luftwaffe commander as an inspiration for Thrawn, go with Albert Kesselring. From what I've read, he had a combination of flamboyance, self-confidence, strategic and tactical skill and the respect of his troops. I remember reading a quote by Kesselring which is disgracefully paraphrased as "the Fuhrer has boasted about the secret weapons that will win the war for us. Here I am". I can imagine Thrawn saying something like that in a high level staff briefing shortly before HttE.

 

I think if Thrawn would be based on anybody in WW2 it would be Von Manstien with out doubt the best German general/Marshall of the war.

Manstien himself was also part jewish and yet fought for Hitler Thrawn was alien yet fought for Palpatine (personnal note the anti alien bias in the EU was one of the worst things thought up in JMO).

People keep talking about Rommel but though he was not a bad general he was n where near Manstiens level of skill.

 

"(personnal note the anti alien bias in the EU was one of the worst things thought up in JMO)"

Anti-alien bias in the Empire actually originated out of Lucasfilm movies first. It first showed up in the first star wars movie.

"OFFICER: Where are you taking this...thing?"

It also showed up in Lucasfilm Production's "Star Wars: Holiday Special", IIRC.

 

Rommel was a great tactical commander - that's where he made his reputation, and that's where he would have stayed given the chance. His strategic skills lay more in infantry planning, which had fallen by the wayside in WW2. Armour was the name of the game in 1939, and Rommel barely knew what a tank was at that point. Manstein and Guderian really came to the forefront here, even though both eventually fell out of favour with Hitler because even they could not do what he wanted when Hitler gave the orders.

I'd have to agree with the arguement Thrawn is a simulacrum of several different commanders of many different eras. I've picked up on elements of Monash and Napoleon in Thrawn's plans. John Monash was an Australian general who tailored a battle plan to the last detail, very rarely lost when he had sole tactical and strategic command, and he was known for heavy psychological warfare. Thrawn does that spectacularly on more than one occasion.

 

Wasn't Goering captured by the Allies and he then commited suicide shortly after? Or am I thinking of another Third Reich leader?

 

I would say the same about Admiral Ackbar.

Instead of basing him on one individual, Ackbar is the compilation of several great naval leaders.

--Adm. Nick

 

Goering went through the Nuremberg trials and was sentecned to be hanged, but he had secreted a cyanide capsule or someone provided him with one so he cheated the hangman's noose.

Himmler, on the other hand tried to hide his identity when he was caught, but someone recognized him and he bit down on a cynaide capsule he had secreted in a false tooth.

IIRC.

 

Yeah, that's kinda what I thought. Thrawn wasn't captured nor did he commit suicide.

 

Goering was the one who went and crashed a plane in Britain, claiming that he had come to offer a peace treaty, right? (Too lazy to google it right now)

 

No, that was Rudolph Hess, Hitler's deputy until 1941. Goering was head of the Luftwaffe and Reichsmarshall to the bitter end. He surrendered to the Allies, was tried and sentenced to death at Nuremburg and committed suicide to dodge the noose. Hess, on the other hand, spent the war in British custody, was tried at Nuremberg, and spent the rest of his life locked up in Spandau Prison in Berlin, where he died in the mid- to late 1980s.

 

I think that was Hess.

 

It was Hess. I wonder if he had a secret agenda of some sort (given Churchill's rather strange reaction to the news of Hess's arrival) or if he had just cracked or something.