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Gottfried Vanger is Harriet and Martin Vanger's father. He died a year prior to Harriet's disappearance by drowning (while drunk).
Physical Description[]
Gottfried Vanger was a sturdy man with thin brown hair and a large cylindrical moustache. He has curved eyebrows and brown small beady eyes. He appears in the photograph placed on Mikael Blomkvist's cabin wall with a fairly happy look and in a nice suit with a uncoloured tie.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo[]
Gottfried Vanger was the father of Harriet and Martin Vanger.
He's the only child of Richard Vanger, the oldest of Henrik brothers. As a teenager was forced to endure the blots of his father Richard, the "black sheep" of Vanger family (nevertheless the age, he was the oldest of his brothers), a nazist fool who were been exiled along with his wife (Margareta) and his son from the Vanger clan business because of his political position and his opposition against his father and brothers. Richard used to beat his wife Margareta and Gottfried repeatedly. He was 13 when his father died in the russo-finlandese war and, and about this fact, Henrik commented: "probably it was the happiest day of Gottfried's life". Friedrich (Richard and Henrik father) and his sons decided then to reintegrate the widow and Gottfried in the family deals. Margareta died in 1955. Gottfried we're unable to find himself a job and a position in the family business, so Henrik decided to take care of him (he was only 7 years younger than Henrik!) giving him a work as a broker in the companys' deals among the entire Sweden (his work give him the chances of travel cities like Stockolm, Kalmar, Uppsala, Ronneby, Goteborg, etc). Gottfried married Isabella Koenig and they had two children, Martin and Harriet. He died in 1965 in an accident caused by his drunkness.
Spoilers ahead!
Gottfried was an ex-Nazi greatly sharing Adolf Hitler's belief of the Jewish being animals in need of extermination and punishment for existing. He traveled to surrounding towns raping, degrading and killing young Jewish women. Following the Nazi-Bible Script he posed or killed the women in the practices described.
At some point his violent sexual urges were released on his daughter Harriet whom he raped, defiled and hurt many times at their summer cabin. Martin eventually accompanied him on his travels as he killed more women, including Lea Persson, Lena Andersson, and Liv Gustavsson.
Martin eventually also began defiling Harriet and hurting her. Eventually Harriet escaped one defilement and killed Gottfried by knocking him into the water surrounding the cabin's pier with an oar and keeping him under.
Martin continued Gottfried's work, however, by caging, torturing and sexually defiling them.
Relationships[]
- Henrik Vanger: Uncle
- Harriet Vanger: Daughter
- Martin Vanger: Son
- Isabella Vanger: Wife