Hans Gruber (Die Hard)

Hans Gruber is a male film character who features in Die Hard.

Biography

Hans Gruber

In his youth, he was noted to had enjoyed making models. He also claimed to have received a classical education; that claim being bolstered by an intellectual remark about Alexander the Great. Due to him and his brother, Simon, being bad guys, it's possible that they may have had bad childhoods, but it's unclear. At some point in his adult life, he fell in with the Volksfrei, a radical West German terrorist organization, but was later expelled from the movement, presumably for his overly-violent and extreme methods of getting things done. Another possibility that could have led to the group cutting their ties with Gruber is that he may have been engaging in robberies not to finance the group, but for personal gain. Yet another possibility behind his banishment is that he was defalcating terrorist funds. Two years after his expulsion, Gruber used his past affiliation with the Volksfrei as a means to further fuel his ruse of terrorist activities. Besides his reputation, he used his terrorist background to command his underlings to anticipate and repel the forthcoming counterattacks. Only when the Volksfrei leaders issued a statement to the U.S. government denying any complicity in the Nakatomi Plaza attack since Hans had been kicked out of the organization years ago did it start to become clear that another motive may be at work. Gruber was likely a sell-out to his own views, trading some of his extremist beliefs in order to retire in style from the ill-gotten gains of the bearer bonds.

Though a member of the German terrorist organization the Volksfrei movement, Gruber came to ultimately be expelled from them. Now only concerned with personal gain, he concocted an elaborate robbery scheme using a terrorist pretense as a cover to manipulate the authorities with his plan. He led his gang of 13 thieves to Los Angeles, California on Christmas Eve where a party of employees was being held to take control of the Nakatomi Plaza. Although protected by several code based lock mechanisms, Hans and his team were after the $640 million in negotiable Bearer Bonds that were being held in a high-security vault. In addition to the first six locks, the vault was protected by one last lock which was electromagnetically sealed, and could only be opened by a complete loss of power to the building, which Hans had also planned for. The prior is the main reason Hans had made the situation look like a terrorist plot rather than a straight robbery. If the authorities had known the team were after the contents of the vault, the power wouldn't have been cut, and the vault never would have been opened. Most of the team arrived in a Pacific Courier truck, while Karl Vreski and Theo took out the guards manning the main lobby. Theo then shut down all elevator motion from the 29th floor and down down using the security system as Hans locked the main entrance. Karl and his brother Tony then proceeded to cut all phone lines in the building while Hans and the rest of the group arrived at the party on the elevator. Making their presence known through gunfire, the team gathered everyone up and took them as hostages, and Hans began his trickery, posing as a radical freedom-fighter by making a short speech about "the Nakatomi Corporation's legacy of greed and deceit", which added to the belief the attack was terrorist-related. Hans then used his knowledge of the president of Nakatomi trading, Joseph Takagi, in order to draw him out. Once he had Takagi, he led the businessman to a board room where he then made his true intentions known.

Notes

• Hans Gruber was created by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza where he was portrayed by actor Alan Rickman in the setting of Die Hard.
• The character was based on Anton Gruber from the novel Nothing Lasts Forever written by Roderick Thorp.

Appearances

• Die Hard:

External Links

• Die Hard Wiki Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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