Maximilian Kohler

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Maximilian Kohler is a fictional character in the 2000 novel Angels and Demons. Kohler is the executive director for CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland.

[edit] Background

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the novel, Maximilian Kohler is the executive director of CERN. As a child, he contacted an unspecified illness that caused him to become bound to a wheelchair. Tragically, Kohler could have been spared this fate, but was denied treatment by his extremely religious parents who considered the disease a test from God (Kohler only managed to survive after a doctor injected him with a cure without his parents knowledge). This granted Kohler a deep hatred of religion, and has presumably become a physicist to try to disprove all of religions teachings once and for all. In the beginning of the novel, Kohler stumbles upon Leonardo Vetra's body when giving him a visit. Kohler manages to quickly preserve the body by freezing it. He later manages to contact Robert Langdon by accessing his personal website which supposedly contained contact details. He manages to call up Langdon who is living in Boston, Massachusetts but is hung up on after Langdon commented to Kohler as being a prank caller because of Langdon commenting that he hadn't posted any contact details on his website. Kohler managed to convince Langdon after sending him a picture of Leonardo's dead body and branded Illuminati logo through the Fax.

When Langdon agreed to investigate the logo, Kohler sent the Lockheed Martin X-33 jet to Boston and to bring Langdon to CERN's headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. When Langdon arrived into CERN headquarters, both were met by Vittoria Vetra (Leonardo's daughter) and discussed his death and the theft of Leonardo's invention - a large sample of antimatter in Vetra's underground laboratory. When resurfacing back into the main lobby, Kohler received a phone call from the Vatican City regarding the missing antimatter. He urged that Langdon and Vittoria go as he was starting to feel ill. Kohler was hopitalised but hours later he secretly escaped back to CERN and ordered immediate preparation to fly to the Vatican City to complete his mission. Kohler later arrived at the Vatican in order to interrogate the Camerlengo (who he believed to be Janus). Langdon, Vittoria and the Swiss guards, however were led to believe that Kohler was Janus and after a rather extreme set-up by the camerlengo, was immediately shot dead.