Anton Gobler (1902 - 1936) was a German Heer Major who served as Colonel Herman Dietrich's personal assistant.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Anton Gobler was born in Dresde, Saxony in 1902. Gobler was too young for fighting in World War I, but he lied about his age and joined the Imperial German Army in 1917 at the age of 15. At the end of the war, Gobler joined the Freikorps and then the Nazi Party. As a SA brownshirt, Gobler met Herman Dietrich, his future boss and comrade.
In 1933, when Adolf Hitler took power, Gobler joined the Wehrmacht alongside Dietrich. There were rumors among their unit about Gobler having feelings for Dietrich, due to their close companionship, though this was unfounded.
Egypt[]
In 1936, Hitler sent him to Egypt with the mission to find the buried Ark of the Covenant. Gobler helped Dietrich, as well as the hired French archaeologist René Emile Belloq, oversee the dig site during the search for the ancient relic. When the Germans were not making progress on locating the Ark, Gobler and Dietrich suggested that they interrogate the captive American bar owner Marion Ravenwood who had been in possession of the Headpiece to the Staff of Ra, an artifact briefly used in the Nazis’ search, for years, and Gestapo intelligence agent Major Arnold Ernst Toht was brought in to question her.
However, at the exact time, American archaeologist Henry Jones, Egyptian excavator Sallah Mohammed Faisel el-Kahir and eleven hired Arabic diggers including Sallah’s brother-in-law Omar dug up the Ark from the Well of the Souls which they had discovered separately, but soon they were stopped, and the Nazis took the Ark for themselves, sealing the American archaeologist and Marion inside the Well and taking the native diggers captive.
Death[]
With the American threat neutralized and the Ark in their possession, the Nazis prepared to fly it to Berlin, Germany aboard the Flying Wing airplane. However, shortly after an inspection of the plane by Gobler, the plane was destroyed by an escaped Jones and Ravenwood, and the Ark was instead to be transported to Cairo by a Mercedes-Benz LG3000 cargo truck. Gobler, a Lieutenant and a gunner drove a Mercedes-Benz G5 troop car alongside the truck to protect the Ark, but when Jones showed up and hijacked the truck, Gobler’s car ended up going over a massive cliff, destroying the vehicle and killing everyone inside.