Gertrud Barkhorn

Gertrud Barkhorn is a veteran witch of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, originating from Karlsland and attached with the Karlsland Air Force. Some call her by the pet name of Trudy. Behind Hartmann, she is Karlsland Airforce's (and, therefore humanity's) 2nd greatest ace. Her familiar is the German Shorthair Pointer.

Gertrud is one of the main characters of the Strike Witches series.

In the AWA fics, Gertrud is a student at the AWA Academy.

Appearance
She has a reddish brown hair tied in two small braids. She wears a dark green uniform jacket over a white shirt and black boots. Like most Strike Witches, she wears no pants.

Personality
A calm, cool and collected realist, Gertrud always tries to conduct herself in a rational manner. But since deep down she is a hot-blooded person, there are also times when her emotions get too worked up and she loses sight of her surroundings. She believes that a military member should abide by discipline and rules, but still doesn't seem to try to impose that much on anyone other than Flying Officer Hartmann.

She has a tendency to be too hard on herself as well as on others. Also, she always complains when someone is late and just loves rules and regulations. She's the kind of person who never lets her guard down. However to her friends Minna and Erica, whom she has known for a long time, she's slightly more open and friendly although she often yells at Erica for lacking discipline.

Gertrud has a serious siscon side, with a weakness for not only "little sisters" but also "little sister-like characters". The target of her affections are those who resembles her own little sister, Chris, in looks (like Sergeant Miyafuji) and those who she concludes that were "certainly raised by a gentle elder sister" (like Flying Officer Litvyak). Those like Pilot Officer Lucchini or Flying Officer Juutilainen are excluded.

Gertrud's cooking specialty is the Eisbein. She usually is not particular about taste, but that changes when she is cooking for her little sister. Also, she is bad at handling complex machines, with her driving skill being especially dangerous. Out of prudence, she often has Flying Officer Hartmann take the wheels when going out.

Abilities
Gertrud's inherent magic is called Superhuman Strength which is classified in telekinesis-lineage, it far exceeds the Body Strengthening - one of the basic abilities of a Witch - in capacity and sustainability. This kind of ability circulates the magic power inside the body and expenditure is low since there is no external diffusion, making possible to employ it for long periods of time. Because of that, Gertrud can hold heavy armaments that normal Witches cannot and, from the fact she can carry even more ammunition than others, this can be described as an ability suited for a drawn-out combats. It also allows her to tear off iron chains and lift up steel frames of a few tons for a short time.

Gertrud can perform for a long time in combat with heavy armaments thanks to the special qualities of her inherent magic and is a capable flying corps' combat leader. Still, she is also skilled in the drafting operation plans, arranging of equipment and human resources and desk work about thing such as management of supplies, making her a good fighter-wing's adjunct. Within the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, she is the archivist in charge.

Gertrud's Fw 109D-6 is a prototype model that exchanged the FW 190's standard air-cooled engine to a liquid-cooled one. This liquid-cooled engine variation of the Fw 190 would later be adopted as the Fw 190D-9. Also, as a peculiarity, her Fw 109D-6 has something like a radiator attached to its lower parts. Around the time the Fw 109D-6 was still undergoing testing, she also had a Bf 109G-6 prepared as a spare unit.

Gertrud once performed a practical test on a Me 262 V1 - a new model of Jet Striker developed in Neue Karlsland. However, a defect in the machine caused her to suffer from heavy magic power consumption and made her crash.

In regards to her weaponry, Gertrud's MG151/20 can fire a high-powered Minengeschoß. However, since this is a very unique shell, the supplies didn't make it in time and she is never seen using it on the Anime. The MK108 and the BK-5 were exclusively used when she was testing the Jet Striker.

Trivia

 * Gertrud is based on Gerhard Barkhorn, the #2 ranked flying ace of World War II.
 * Gertrud often compares Yoshika Miyafuji to her younger sister, Chris.