Heinrich Amsel

"The mudak in the car is General Heinrich Amsel, architect of Stalingrad's misery."

- Sgt. Reznov

Major General Heinrich Amsel was a German officer in the Wehrmacht who was mainly responsible for the massacre of the Red Army soldiers and Russian civilians across Russia.

Biography
Major-General Amsel served as the commander of a German unit based in the area of Red Square in Stalingrad. Given his rank, he was most likely a divisional commander and given the area that his command building was located, the unit he was in charge of was probably the 79th Infantry Division.

During the Germans' occupation of Stalingrad, Amsel gained an infamous reputation for orchestrating brutal massacres towards Russian soldiers and civilians. His role in the occupation led to Sergeant Reznov spending days relentlessly stalking Amsel. It was not until September 17, 1942, after a massacre of soldiers from the 62nd Rifle Division took place, that Reznov enlisted the aid of Private Petrenko in helping him track down and assassinate Amsel.

Initially, Amsel treated the day as any other day - he went about his daily agenda of inspecting the men under his command, but it was not until Red Army soldiers (many of whom were survivors of the massacre earlier that day) made a daring push to his headquarters that alerted Amsel enough to cause him to attempt to withdraw to another location. Together with his personal bodyguards, Amsel tried to slip out of his headquarters unnoticed, but during his attempt, he was assassinated by Petrenko.

Achievements/Trophies
There are two P38s in the room where the player confronts the first enemy sniper. The first one is on a desk on the right after the player goes through the destroyed door upstairs, and the second one is on a desk in front of the building, facing the sniper's location. If Amsel is killed with a pistol, the player will get a 15 point gamerscore Achievement (Xbox 360) or Silver Trophy (PlayStation 3) called "Gunslinger." The player can also acquire a pistol by dropping an enemy into Second chance and taking his pistol.

Trivia



 * Amsel is tied with Call of Duty 4's Imran Zakhaev and Call of Duty: Black Ops' Nikita Dragovich as the second highest-ranking officer to be killed in a Call of Duty game; the highest being Lieutenant General Shepherd.
 * Richtofen's model is based on Amsel's.
 * A glitch can be used to kill him with a knife by glitching out of the map, see the Vendetta article for more.
 * When the player gets close to Amsel through the use of the aforementioned glitch, he tries to shoot at him with an invisible gun, alternating between shooting at the player (it does not harm the player) and ducking behind cover. It is not clear why he does this although it may be a default character animation. If the player throws a grenade at him while up close and personal, he may pull out an MP40 and he will be able to harm the player.
 * No matter how Amsel dies, he still has the same death animation.
 * He seems to give a lot of attention to his men; this is evident, as Reznov said that he inspects every German garrison every day. This is probably done to maintain order or to make sure there are no faults in their defenses.
 * When the player kills Amsel, the gameplay slows down to show him die. Note that he is immune to the anatomy-based damage effect, so he won't have body parts severed by damage even from the PTRS-41.
 * He has a Pistol Holster attached to his waist. This may contain the standard issue Walther P38, but it could just as easily contain a different firearm. (Luger P08)
 * Amsel's preferred mode of transport is the Horch 1a. In the level Vendetta, he can be seen arriving at Red Square in one. Also, at the end of the level, he attempts to escape in one.