Karl Stromberg is a fictional character in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. Stromberg was portrayed by Austrian actor Curt Jurgens.

The character Stromberg was created specifically for the film by writer Christopher Wood. The novel The Spy Who Loved Me, written by Ian Fleming wasn’t told from Bond’s perspective, but rather a Bond girl that is in love with him. The entire plot of the film has actually nothing to do at all with the plot of the novel. This was at Fleming’s request; when he sold the rights to his novel to EON Productions he requested only the title be used. Stromberg has the distinction, therefore, of being the very first major James Bond villain to be created specifically for the films. In Wood’s novelisation of the film, Stromberg is Swedish and his first name is Sigmund.

Karl Stromberg.

Biography: Stromberg is a successful self-employed businessman as head of his own shipping firm. Stromberg’s obsession and passion is the ocean where he lives in his palace, named Atlantis, that can submerge itself underwater so as not to be seen or detected. Located off of Sardinia, Italy, Atlantis has everything to support life above and below water for any length of time. In fact, Atlantis is more like a city, able to support dozens if not hundreds of people.

Stromberg also owns a huge tanker, named Liparus, that is his headquarters away from Atlantis. Aboard the tanker he has a small army of soldiers clad in orange jumpsuits.

Although Stromberg has a passion and love for the ocean and its various species, he despises the human race. He has a congenital condition in which his hands are webbed like those of aquatic birds or mammals. It is his personal mission to start over with a new civilisation underwater. After contracting two scientists to create the technology to track nuclear submarines, Stromberg takes this technology and uses it to acquire a Soviet nuclear submarine and a United Kingdom submarine. By tracking the subs, Stromberg’s tanker, the Liparus, sneaks up on the subs and captures them inside the tanker. His plan calls for the use of firing nuclear weapons from these subs at Moscow and New York City, thus framing each other’s government and starting a nuclear war, which would wipe out every last human being on Earth.

This scheme is a recycled plot from a previous film, You Only Live Twice, which was similar in that by stealing space capsules it would start a war between the Soviets and the Americans. The scheme in which the villain wishes to destroy mankind to create a new race or new civilisation was also used in Moonraker, the sequel to The Spy Who Loved Me. In Moonraker, the villain Hugo Drax had an obsession with starting human civilisation over in space. The film Moonraker was also written by Christopher Wood. Both featured Jaws as a henchman.

Austrian actor Curt Jurgens as Karl Stromberg.

Stromberg’s scheme is prevented after Bond sneaks aboard the Liparus as a prisoner from a recently captured American submarine. With Bond’s help, the crews of the other submarines escape and take over the tanker. With the tanker in their control, Bond is able to order the stolen submarines to fire their nuclear warheads at each other. Prior to this, however, Stromberg abducts Bond’s partner, Anya Amasova, and escapes to his city-ship, Atlantis.

Bond pursues Stromberg, and after two failed attempts by Stromberg to kill Bond, Bond exercises his licence to kill, executing Stromberg with multiple gunshots to the chest. Afterwards, Atlantis is scuttled by the remaining American submarine while Bond and Anya escape.

In early drafts of the screenplay, the villain of The Spy Who Loved Me was going to be Ernst Stavro Blofeld, head of SPECTRE and Bond’s mortal enemy from previous films, but legal wrangling over the rights to the character required the creation of a new villain. A passing reference in the film to the death of Bond’s wife (killed in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in a drive-by shooting conducted by Blofeld himself) could be a remnant of this earlier script. Indeed Stromberg and Blofeld have many similarities, both in terms of characterisation, and in the fact that they have small armies of thugs at their disposal. Stromberg’s plan to end civilisation is also similar to Blofeld’s plan to start a Third World War in You Only Live Twice.

See also:

• Bond villains