Wilhelm Schulte

Wilhelm Schulte was a German Tank Commander in the Wehrmacht during WW2.

Biography
Schulte was born in Prussia, 1898. He joined the Imperial German Army in 1916 and fought during the Battle of the Somme. In 1917, he would be assigned to an A7V German heavy tank crew as a gunner and fight in it in 1918, making him one of the first German tank crewman ever. After the war, Schulte would take command of a tank in Berlin and fight against Communist revolutionaries as part of a Freikorps unit, rather than the standard army. He would return to his home later, working in an oil refinery. He would re-join the army as an armour officer in 1933. He married in 1921 and had eight children. He would fight in WW2 during the invasion of France, in North Africa, the Eastern Front and later the Western Front during the Allied Invasion. He would die in 1945 during the Battle of The Bulge, trying to protect his tank from assaulting Americans, which had broken down in the cold.

Personality
Early in the war, Schulte enjoyed his career very much. When he first heard about the new armoured vehicles that were being created in the Great War, he instantly became obsessed with the idea and put all of his effort into joining one of their crews. He was not disappointed when he finally accomplished this and would learn everything there is to know about his tank while trying desperately to protect it. Schulte would lose multiple tanks in his career, but would each time almost sacrifice himself trying to save it, only being saved by his more sensible crew members, who grew resentful of his obsession, though they appreciated his enthusiasm for armoured warfare. Early in WW2, Schulte felt that he was at his peak, causing great damage to Germany's enemies with the effective Blitzkrieg tactics. As the war progressed and the number of tanks the Wehrmacht lost rose, Schulte became seriously disheartened as he had great faith in Panzer Divisions, but was seeing them lose constantly despite being the superior tank force. By the time of the Battle of the Bulge, he had completely lost hope, but was still willing to die for his country.