Siegfried’s real name is unknown. He was found by German soldiers on the Eastern Front of World War I in the autumn of 1917, in the village of Siedliska in south-eastern Poland. He was an accident in his family, and already had six older siblings - so, his parents abandoned him near the garbage dump outside the village. One year old and barely breathing, a group of twenty-year-old German soldiers pulled him out and fed him soup and biscuits.

They estimated him to be born in 1916, and the Oberleutnant named him Siegfried Herbst. Siegfried meant peace, while Herbst was German for autumn. Siegfried had no knowledge of his past, other than knowing vaguely that he was from Poland.

Little Siegfried followed the soldiers everywhere in World War I, and the platoon that found him was reluctant to let him go. He brought immense joy to the soldiers who missed their wives and children. Fähnrich Altendorf and Deffner read him poetry and told German folklore, and Oberleutnant Fehler played his harmonica.

On the Eastern Front, the Germans thrust deep into Russian territories following the collapse of the Russian Army in the October Revolution. Fehler’s platoon marched with their baby boy northward, into Belarus, to further secure their position and provide backup to the frontmost soldiers who threatened Petrograd in 1918. However, this did not continue for long, as the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in March and ended the war on the Eastern Front. Siegfried did not know much about the war, but still celebrated victory with the soldiers, before parting ways with most of them and getting stuffed on a train to Germany.

Fähnrich Ellenburg was dispatched from Belarus to Germany on 9 March 1918, and his sole task was to escort Siegfried safely to a military camp 20km west of the city of Stuttgart. Siegfried remained in the military base for the rest of his childhood, under the care of Generalleutnant Stuart. He rarely left the camp, but he was not forced to stay - the training cadets were fond of him, and Siegfried, too, enjoyed spending time with those men in uniform. As a result, even though he grew up in a social setting, he had only seen a tiny part of the world and barely interacted with women.

The German military underwent many changes after the loss of World War I. Generalleutnant Stuart initially planned to bring Siegfried out of the camp when he retired in 1922. However, the severe economic collapse caused by the Treaty of Versailles prompted him to keep Siegfried in the base protected for a while longer. The Generalleutnant legally adopted Siegfried in 1926, and the 10-year-old Siegfried was finally exposed to the world outside the military base.

The Generalleutnant was not pro-war though nationalistic, and this worldview greatly influenced Siegfried. He sent Siegfried to a public school and taught him the basics of sociology and politics. His teenage son, Leon, introduced Siegfried to mixology, even though the Generalleutnant prohibited alcohol in the house.

Siegfried picked up smoking, drinking, and clubbing when he was in school, and was expelled in 1931 alongside his best friend Kurt Lunes. Kurt was from a family of sailors from Hamburg, and suggested they go on a trans-Atlantic voyage. Afraid to reveal the news to the Generalleutnant, Siegfried agreed.

Although the journey was not as surreal as a trans-Atlantic voyage, they still sailed to Norway, Iceland, and Greenland. Siegfried picked up some Norwegian and Icelandic when they rested there for a few weeks and hung out with sailors throughout 1931. He also got a sailor-themed tattoo on his left forearm.

In February 1932, Siegfried and Kurt returned to Germany and parted ways. Kurt stayed in Hamburg with his family, and Siegfried went to Munich, wanting new adventures. He worked at a bar for two years and decided to open his own - Florian, in 1934, as the economy grew under the new Nazi regime. Siegfried’s business benefited greatly from the antisemitic policies in the 1930s, thus resulting in his generally positive attitude towards the government.

Initially, Florian was a small pub located on the corner of the street, until a young lady from an upper-class background, Joanna, visited. She offered to invest in Siegfried’s business, and he agreed. After some time of collaboration and string-pulling, Joanna helped Florian to get a better spot in the city and renovated it to fit the taste of the upper class. Many Germans benefited from Nazi policies during that period, and soonly enough, Florian became a popular rendezvous for businessmen, politicians, celebrities and even foreign spies. Although Joanna insisted on Siegfried keeping all of Florian’s profits, he still transferred the correct monthly amounts to Joanna’s family business.

In December 1937, the newly crowned world chess champion, Millan McKnight, visited Florian late at night. They became well-acquainted after several encounters and were engaged in a romantic relationship for roughly a year.

Shortly after Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, McKnight stopped coming to Florian and meeting Siegfried. In October, Siegfried could no longer overlook his doubts and visited McKnight’s residence, only to find it vacant, with a note pinned to the table by a white pawn. It said “1. P-K4”, a piece of rather useless information, and the word “England”.

Siegfried spoke heavily accented English and was fully aware that the UK was at war with Germany. Still, he trusted Joanna to manage Florian and packed a suitcase to go to England. He settled in Manchester because McKnight mentioned it being his hometown, and worked as a waiter to sustain himself. After a month of investigation, he concluded that McKnight must be working for a branch of the British intelligence department. Authorities suspected his activities, and he was arrested in February 1940 for espionage. He was sentenced to five years in jail. He bribed the jailer to keep his hair, and spent one and a half years imprisoned.

News of his imprisonment spread quickly to Bletchley Park, where McKnight indeed worked at. However, McKnight only heard about this as late as July 1941, and without a doubt, he paid a significant amount of prize money from previous tournaments to bribe Siegfried out of jail.

McKnight had a Xanax overdose on the second day of Siegfried’s release, and only then did Siegfried become aware of his partner’s hardships during the years of their separation. McKnight insisted on moving to Munich with Siegfried, saying he wanted to return to chess by participating in the Munich 1941 Chess Tournament.

Siegfried became increasingly concerned about McKnight’s Xanax addiction as the Tournament approached. On 7 September 1941, the day before the first match, McKnight had a dangerous overdose that nearly killed him. The two had a heated fight on the topic of McKnight’s addiction, with vulgar language exchanged, which resulted in McKnight’s departure to Norway after the Tournament - and during the Tournament, he no longer stayed with Siegfried.

Siegfried was only aware of McKnight’s departure in October, when the chess magazine reported McKnight’s return to challenge the current world champion after abdicating his crown in 1939. He followed the matches on the radio, and was consumed by bittersweetness as the commentator announced McKnight as the world champion. During the time of their separation, Siegfried also adopted a black kitten with blue eyes.

Life went on as usual for Siegfried in the winter of 1941 until a customer who always covered his face with a scarf and wore a thick bucket hat became a regular at Florian. He thought the customer was McKnight and challenged him to a game of chess - McKnight was cautious not to play too aggressively and reveal himself through his style, but he failed to notice that the way he moved his pieces gave him away. This tug-of-war of identity continued until New Year’s Day, as Siegfried showed his affection publicly and completely surprised McKnight.

As the tides turned against Germany, Siegfried faced mandatory conscription in December 1943. However, unfortunately, he was a pacifist, and politically speaking, his fondness for the Nazi regime was conflicted by the treatment of Poles, even though he was a German citizen that never visited Poland after he was brought back from the World War I Eastern Front.

He eventually found a more defensive position in the military that one of Florian’s regulars provided - assisting the RSHA counterintelligence operations. Munich was a stronghold of Nazi Germany, and Florian was a natural habitat for foreign spies.

At the time, Florian had four branches in Munich, two in Nuremberg and one in Augsburg. Siegfried was not the chief executive of Florian but the owner - so his job as a bartender could be entirely focused on counterintelligence surveillance.

Working for the RSHA under SS leadership did not go against his pacifist views, for it was defending his homeland rather than invading other countries. He reported countless individual suspects, uprooted two resistance groups within Munich, and helped destroy a Soviet network centred around the spy Svetlana Dunayevskaya in August 1944. He was awarded an Iron Cross.

He suspected the Dane Lucas Christiansen of working with the NKVD for a long time and discussed this with a fellow RSHA officer. Their discussion was leaked to Christiansen himself. Siegfried was silenced - Christiansen offered an escape route and settlement in Switzerland or Iceland of his choice in exchange for his silence and collaboration. Siegfried accepted this offer not because he wanted to stop defending his country, but because of McKnight, who might be considered a traitor if he fell into Allied hands.

However, he started providing false or irrelevant information as a means to damage Christiansen’s reputation in Moscow as a Soviet agent. This was done to destroy Christiansen’s credibility, which might result in his sacking or imprisonment, considering that Siegfried believed the USSR oppressed their own men.

His association with the RSHA and the SS remained a personal secret unbeknownst to McKnight. In October 1944, McKnight moved to Iceland via Christiansen’s route, and Siegfried stayed behind in Germany until the last moment. He died in the ruins of Berlin as the flag of the Soviet Union flew over the Reichstag, his black cat in his arms. The cat escaped and survived the war, away from all the chaos.

Historical fiction is always the best genre to write about. I wanted to make one of my characters have a unique upbringing rather than inserting a cliched “miserable background”, and World War I seemed the best choice. His character was inspired by my friend, who was working on her character that fought in World War I - and my entire base knowledge about this war is from her. I would say Siegfried is a complex individual background-wise, but his experiences are not as complicated as some of the other characters, and his decisions are somewhat naive.

The naming is another interesting thing about Siegfried. I rewatched Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake when I had a vague idea of Siegfried, so I just took the prince’s name. Herbst was an accident - my first intention was Hertz, because I am a physicist, but to make it less “random” I decided to change it up a little bit - and voila, it now fits the character’s experience perfectly.