|
|
"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | My poor Dieter. The future is dark. You must try harder to become more like Johan. It's a pity. Why are you such a failure? Why can't you be more like Johan? Tell me why! | „ |
| ~ Hartmann to Dieter. |
Hartmann is a supporting antagonist from Naoki Urasawa's manga and anime series Monster. He is a corrupt government official who worked for the East German health ministry and was put in charge of overseeing the experiments at 511 Kinderheim, playing a critical role in Johan Liebert's backstory.
He was voiced in Japanese by Masaaki Yajima, and by John Snyder in the English dub.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- As the former director of 511 Kinderheim, he oversaw brutal, dehumanizing experiments on children, designed to break their sense of identity and turn them into emotionless super-soldiers.
- As a result of the psychological damage caused, even those who survived the orphanage were seriously damaged, such as Wolfgang Grimmer, who was unable to feel emotion at his own son's death, Roberto, who became a psychopathic assassin, and Stefan Joos, who snapped and became a serial killer.
- He subjected Johan to the same torture as the other children, and at one point drugged him to try to learn his worst fear.
- While Johan was already showing sociopathic traits before coming to the orphanage, it's clear that Hartmann's experiments made him much worse.
- He shows no remorse when Johan instigates a riot that leads to the children and instructors massacring each other. Instead he's pleased that Johan was able to do this, gloating that this proved Johan was beyond the program.
- After escaping and reinventing himself as a child psychologist, he adopted a new series of children to try to mold them into becoming like Johan, horrifically abusing each child and eventually having them adopted by powerful government officials, suggesting he was trying to use them to gain power.
- However as each child failed to meet his standards, he lost all interest in them and declared them "failures."
- He subjects Dieter, his latest victim, to horrific abuse, regularly beating him to the point of fracturing his ribs and dislocating his shoulder, as well as telling him the world is dark and he has no future.
- When Tenma discovers the abuse and takes Dieter to the hospital, Hartmann kidnaps him and takes him to the ruins of the orphanage, ordering him to "see what Johan saw."
- He denies responsibility for creating Johan when confronted by Tenma, gloating that Johan was a "masterpiece."
- He then threatens to shoot Dieter if he leaves with Tenma, relenting only when Tenma threatens to shoot him in turn.
- Though he claims to care for Dieter, this is only because he sees him as an experiment and it's not genuine love, and his breakdown when Dieter leaves is not because he cared about him but because the boy rejected his nihilistic views. Similarly, while he claims to admire Johan, this is merely fanaticism rather than caring for him as a person.
Trivia[]
- He is one of the two Monster villains to be Pure Evil, alongside with Professor Goedelitz. Ironically, both of them disappear from the story early on while the other important villains with even the smallest redeeming qualities stay safe until the Capek arc.
External Links[]
- Hartmann on the Villains Wiki
- Hartmann on the Monster Wiki
- Hartmann on the Hate Sink Wiki