Markus Chemnitz is a Kindred of the Lasombra bloodline. A former agent of the East German Stasi, his skills will now be turned against the Sabbat, who are hunting him down and whom he believes killed his Sire.

With blonde hair and blue eyes, this young man appears to be in his mid to late twenties. He is passingly handsome, if a bit anemic, though his expression usually appears serious and devoid of charm. Whether this is German humourlessness or something darker remains to be seen.

Born in Karl-Marx-Stadt in 1961 Parents were well-connected in the local party and considered reliable by the Stasi. Second in his class in high school, he attended the EOS and spent 3 years in the reconnaissance company of the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guard Regiment.

He was recruited for intelligence work in the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (German: Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, or HVA), the foreign intelligence service of the GDR Ministry of State Security, commonly known as the Stasi.

After the Stasi was disbanded in 1990, its mode of operation was revealed to the public.

The primary mandate of the HVA was foreign reconnaissance (espionage), which included political, military, economic and technological intelligence-gathering. Among its other duties were activities against western intelligence agencies (by means of infiltrating their operations), preparing acts of sabotage. In particular: the early discovery of Western war preparations from the HVA, in light of the rising tensions between the two Cold War superpowers.

In the United States, on the contrary, the HVA was never able to break any ground, as the KGB operated there almost exclusively. (The significant inroads in the GDR's reconnaissance on, for example, the NSA originated from personnel stationed in West Berlin.)

In 1989 the HVA had 21 sections (Abteilungen) and 5 task forces (Arbeitsgruppen). In addition, there was the Headquarters of the HVA (Stab der HVA) and the Sector for Science and Technology (Sektor Wissenschaft und Technik) (SWT), responsible for technological espionage, whose responsibilities were spread across sections.

Leadership Sections VII, IX, X and task force S were directly subordinated to the head of the HVA, Colonel General Werner Großmann.

From 1968 on, it was called “Fachrichtung für Aufklärung der JHS” (“College of Reconnaissance of the JHS”), and was later renamed to “Sektion A” (“Section A”). The “Fremdsprachenschule des MfS” (“College of Foreign Languages of the Ministry for State Security”), also referred to as “Educational Department F”, was attached to it. In 1988, the HVA College, including the College of Foreign Languages, previously located in Dammsmühle bei Mühlenbeck, moved to Lake Seddin in Gosen near the Berlin city limits, approximately 4.5 miles (3 kilometers) south of the city of Erkner. The backup bunker for the headquarters of the HVA was also located there. It worked in close cooperation with “Dept. A XIX”, and was structured into three Educational Departments:

Educational Dept. A: Training for political operatives. 4 courses including Marxist–Leninist training, politics, and history. Educational Dept. B: “Special Operations” and methodology of service work. 5 courses, including Operative Psychology, Security and Law, as well as foreign residency training. Educational Dept. F: College of Foreign Languages. Responsible for the language training for missions abroad, as well as interpreter-training.

The HVA associates regarded themselves to be the elite of the Ministry of State Security. A high degree of personal engagement, flexibility, performance, and primarily absolute loyalty to the SED was expected of them. Qualified employees of other Stasi departments, such as those with secondary educational degrees, knowledge of foreign languages, etc., could, as a reward for “remarkable achievements”, be transferred to the HVA as needed, which was akin to a decoration. On the other hand, HVA personnel could, due to inadequate performance or following an investigation, be transferred to other departments of the Stasi, practically constituting a demotion.

The HVA was particularly interested in recruiting Western students who were visiting the GDR. These were young academics who were suitable for leadership roles and therefore particularly predestined for confidential information; they were developed over decades at a high financial and personnel cost, with the goal of placing them in high positions in the state and the economy, through which they gained access to secret information.

The actual sources of espionage operations in the West were not necessarily registered as IMs with the HVA (or the Ministry of State Security). In many cases, they were noted as Kontaktpersonen (KP) (contact persons), which reveals little about the degree of cooperation with the intelligence service.

* Prestigious Sire is Gabbriella di Firenzi, childer of Prince Gian Galeazzo Visconti, childer of the wise monk.

* Contacts and resources in green book.

Backgrounds Backgrounds beschrijven een relatie van je character tot de wereld (zelfs Generation doet dat via je Sire). Ik zou daarom graag de backgrounds die mensen kiezen verklaard willen zien in de character history (uitzondering hierop is de Clan background – deze is al verklaard door de keuze van Clan).
Character history Ik wil graag een paar paragraafjes aan character background zodat ik je character wat beter kan plaatsen in de wereld. Minimaal zou ik graag de volgende dingen in een character history en/of wiki pagina zien:

- Verklaringen voor de Backgrounds van je character, je Clan background dot hoeft niet verklaard te worden
- Verklaringen voor Specialities van je character: specialities zijn specifieke training en daarom is het relevant voor mij hoe je character die heeft verkregen
- Als nodig een stukje over je Sire, zeker van belang als je Generation neemt

Ik raad sterk aan (lees: “ik zou het heel fijn vinden als”) om ook in te gaan op de volgende zaken:

- Waar van toepassing is het handig om ook je Merits and Flaws mee te nemen in je character history
- Een paragraaf of twee over “During Life”: wat voor leven had je character voor de embrace, en wat voor dingen waren de normale situatie voor je character?
- Een kort paragraafje over de motivatie van je character: om als vampier weder te keren na je dood heb je wilskracht of een krachtige Sire nodig, en de meeste lui met veel wilskracht hebben een zekere “drive”. Wat is de drive van je character, en hoe ver zou deze gaan om dat te bereiken?

Contacts: -x, a former KGB spy whose employment has ceased. He cannot return to Russia and wishes for his status to remain covert. Not in the know about the supernatural but deeply able.

Accepted into clan Ventrue and given an apartment for a month.