Franz is a grandson of Dieter of Germania, who was hard working dedicated but extremely unlucky. He botched up his first assignment in the Baravian War of Annexation to Germania. Dieter investigated and realized that Franz had not made any mistakes but seemed to attract the worst possible unluck when working under the Germania Banner.
Dieter had his soothsayers divine the runes and it meant that it would not have been advantageous to have Franz do a career as an officer in Germania. He was retired honourably but he had a bad reputation as a cockup and Artur Acker and Armand Becker, who Franz had considered heroes, heard rumours that he was drummed out of Germania.
As a retired officer, Artur was impacted by Franz’s unluck, and their only encounter was not as glowing as Franz hoped. This was disappointing for him, but his encounter just brushed Artur the wrong way, leading Artur to prounounce him to be “too stupid to live”.
A despondent Franz found other friends outside of Germania, including the acerbic Baylor and his friend Wolfram. Franz was captured with others when his plane was forced down by Lucius and Thrawn and, like many other high bloods, he was dragged off to join the IHBA.
Baylor rescued Franz and later came back and rescued another member of their group called Augie. Along with Wolfram, they formed the Quarto, with the aim of thwarting, without killing, and bust out conscripted high bloods from the IHBA or escaped high bloods from Imperial Truant Officers.
Franz still is in contact with Dieter who is kindly to him and gives him an allowance but he is discouraged from returning to Germania because of what Deiter can only call a “birth curse”.