| Date | Original Topic |
| 13th January 2005 | Schiess's first name
By Diana Blackwell
He was Fernand, according to this site. Yet the film "Zulu" refered to him as Frederick. Was this just sloppiness, or did Schiess go by Frederick as well? ( Wouldn't "Fernand" be anglicized as "Ferdinand"?) |
| Date | Replies |
| 13th January 2005 | Julian Whybra
His name was Ferdnand Christian Schiess.
Ferdnand is the Swiss German variant of Ferdinand and schiess was a Swiss. The film contains many errors - which you'd expect - even TWOTS got his name wrong. |
| 13th January 2005 | Paul Cubbin
Wot a bunch of twots. |
| 14th January 2005 | Derek C
I don't have my Rorke's Drift book handy, but I remember reading that he had a "preffered" name that he chose, to that of his real name. |
| 14th January 2005 | Sheldon Hall
I don't know that it's fair to describe the mis-identification of Schiess's first name in the film as 'sloppiness' (though you could say that of his being identified in the dialogue as belonging to the Natal Mounted Police - "a peeler, 716" - and in the closing voice over as the Natal Native Contingent). John Prebble worked with the sources that were available to him at the time, and if one or all of these got his name wrong, for whatever reason, Prebble should not be blamed. Morris probably used the same sources, as it's unlikely that two writers contemporary with one another would have made the same elementary 'mistake'. |
| 16th January 2005 | Robert B Morris
In Donald R Morris's (No relation) "The Washing of the Spears" he is referred to as FRIEDERICH. Morris also describes him as "A gigantic and improvident young Swiss".
This leads us to a question of the man's size. Was he supposed to be a large man?Anybody know of existing pictures or personal descriptions? |
| 16th January 2005 | Robert B Morris
In Donald R Morris's (No relation) "The Washing of the Spears" he is referred to as FRIEDERICH. Morris also describes him as "A gigantic and improvident young Swiss".
This leads us to a question of the man's size. Was he supposed to be a large man?Anybody know of existing pictures or personal descriptions? |
| 18th January 2005 | Julian whybra
Another Morris error as I said above (TWOTS). He was Swiss however. There is no known photo of Schiess though one of the defenders described him as 'big man'. |
| 19th January 2005 | Rafael von Waldburg Zeil
Julian Whybra is partly true in his opinion. "Ferdnand" is Swiss dialect of German "Ferdinand", but in Switzerland names in official documents are allways, sine ever, written in German o French, not in Swiss dialect. His name was surely "Ferdinand" tough the Imperial soldiers may most probably named him "Ferdnand". |
| 20th January 2005 | Lee Stevenson
Surely until we see something actually signed by the man himself we simply cannot say by what name he chose, or preferred to be known as... |
| 26th January 2005 | Rafael von Waldburg Zeil
Answering Mr. Stevenson, I think thats the point. Altough he was surely "Ferdinand" in his Swiss birth certificate, he may have enlisted in the Natal Native Contingent signing as "Ferdnand". It would be essential to check out his NNC unit roll to check that out. I still think he was known as "Ferdnand" to his comrades of arms. |
