Karl Gustav Kempff
From Gineipaedia, the Legend of Galactic Heroes wiki
 Admiral Kempff (798 UC (489 IC / 3598 CE)) | |
| Gender: | Male |
| Affiliation: | Galactic Empire |
| Rank: | High admiral (posthumous) |
| Flagship(s): | Jotunheim (OVA) Galdhøpiggen (DNT) |
| Status: | Deceased (killed in action) |
| Born: | 762 UC (453 IC / 3562 CE) |
| Died: | April 798 UC (489 IC / 3598 CE) |
| Played by: | Genda Tesshō (OVA) Yasumoto Hiroki (DNT) |
Karl Gustav Kempff (Japanese: カール・グスタフ・ケンプ) was an admiral of the Galactic Empire.
Kempff was born in 762 UC (453 IC / 3562 CE) and died in 798 UC (489 IC / 3598 CE) at the Eighth Battle of Iserlohn. He was described as being a tall and muscular figure. After the Eighth Battle of Iserlohn, he was posthumously promoted to High Admiral and awarded several medals. (LOGH: 'Portraits', 'The Return')
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Personal life
At the time of the Eighth Battle of Iserlohn in 798 UC (489 IC / 3598 CE), he had a wife and two sons aged five and eight.
Military service
In late 794 UC (485 IC / 3594 CE), Kempff participated in the Sixth Battle of Iserlohn as an Imperial Walküre ace and destroyed at least 2 Alliance Spartanian fighters as well as surviving a grazing hit to his fighter. (HBSHBL: 'A Hundred Billion Stars, One Ambition')
Lubitsch served as his aide after he obtained the rank of full admiral.
In 798 UC (489 IC / 3598 CE), Kempff was tasked by Reinhard von Lohengramm to oversee the conversion of Geiersburg Fortress into a mobile fortress based on the proposal of Anton Hilmer von Schaft, with Neidhart Müller assigned as the vice commander. The mobile Geiersburg Fortress would then be deployed to spearhead an invasion against Iserlohn Fortress to neutralise it. The conversion process went off without a hitch, allowing Kempff to proceed with the operation against Iserlohn. By April, Kempff's expeditionary force reached the Iserlohn Corridor, commencing the Eighth Battle of Iserlohn. (LOGH: 'Portraits', 'Lost Things', 'The Inquiry Committee')
During the Eighth Battle of Iserlohn, Kempff commanded his forces in a conservative fashion, and attempted to conquer Iserlohn via conventional means. Throughout the entire battle, he was able to keep the Alliance forces in Iserlohn on the defensive, but was unable to exploit it for any tangible gains. Worse, for most of its duration, he did not realise that Yang Wen-li, the commander of Iserlohn Fortress, was not actually present, and even chastised his vice commander Müller after the latter raised the possibility of Yang's absence. By the time he realised the truth, Yang had returned to the Iserlohn Corridor with a reinforcement fleet, which led to his defeat when his forces were caught in a pincer attack by the Iserlohn Garrison Fleet and the reinforcement fleet. When he realised that defeat was all but certain, he retreated to Geiersburg and ordered it to collide with Iserlohn in the hopes of destroying both. In the end, Yang's fleet succeeded in destroying one of the engines and unbalancing the vectored thrust which caused it to careen out of control. In the subsequent chaos, he was impaled by part of the ship's structure and was killed. (LOGH: 'Fortress vs Fortress', 'The Return')
Fusseneger, his chief of staff, was the last to see him alive. After acknowledging the order to abandon the fortress, Kempff told Fusseneger to "tell Müller I'm sorry". (LOGH: 'The Return')
Rank history
- Captain - HBSHBL: 'A Hundred Billion Stars, One Ambition'
- Vice admiral — LOGH: 'The Castrop Rebellion'
- Admiral — LOGH: 'Portraits'
- High admiral (posthumous) — LOGH: 'Determination and Ambition'
Appendices
Apocrypha
Karl Gustav is also the name of the current King of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustav (with the full name of Carl Gustav Folke Hubertus Bernadotte). The Karl-Gustav is also a rocket-launcher, mainly used by the German and Swiss army. Kempff (more commonly Kempf) is a surname of German origin derived from kämpf, which refers to fighting.
Appearances
- LOGH:
- 'Empire's Afterglow' (first appearance)
- 'Cool, Clear Artificial Eyes'
- 'When the Rain of Grief Comes...'
- 'Liberation of the Frontier Zone'
- 'The Battle of Amritsar Starzone'
- 'New Trends'
- 'The Lippstadt Conspiracy'
- 'The Day Before Destiny'
- 'Farewell, Distant Memories'
- 'First Battle' (flashback)
- 'Portraits'
- 'One Narrow Thread'
- 'Lost Things'
- 'War Without Weapons'
- 'Fortress vs Fortress'
- 'The Return' (death)
- DNT:
Name variations
- Karl Gustav Kempf (Novels)
- Karl Gustav Kempff (DVD subtitles)
- Karl Gustav Kempf (LD subtitles)
- カール・グスタフ・ケンプ (LD/DVD subtitles — Japanese)
