Johan Drossel

Dr  was the proprietor of Marionettenburg, one of the attractions at Vienna Exposition in Vienna, Austria in 1873. He liked the sound of his voice and had a predilection to theatrical effects.

Before that, he bought two Cybermen from a forester. The Eighth Doctor thought that Drossel cut off their legs to prevent them from escaping.

At first he repaired the Cybermen with Alfred Stahlbaum, until the latter stole one of the Cybermen, whom he dabbed The Silver Turk, to perform at the Vienna Exposition.

He fell under the influence of Cyber-ethics and became obsessed with the idea of creating a new world where people are replaced with wooden puppet copies. This obsession caused him to replace vital parts of his body with cyber inlays, which allowed him to withstand two bullets to the chest without any harm and even without bleeding.

Having told the second Cyberman, whom he called his dog, that his companion is dead, Drossel was using him to make wooden puppets that could move without strings and obeyed Drossel's commands, including Columbinetta, Brighella and Pierrot. With his puppets, on 11 September 1873, he set up his own attraction at the Vienna Exposition, which he vainly called Doctor Drossel's Grand Theatre of Puppetry.

Under Drossel's instructions, his dog also made puppet copies of several people, sometimes using the eyes dug from graveyards Drossel had shown him and sometimes, for better likeness, using the gouged out eyes of the prototype. Drossel is obsessed with human eyes. He studies the eye colour of his future victims and believes that eyes give his puppets soul. Drossel's dog also made puppet black horses using blue human eyes for them. These horses were sometimes seen around Vienna driving a cab without a cabman, scaring people.

In order to return the Silver Turk, Drossel used his dog to hunt and kill Dieter Wallmann and Leopold Krauss, two of Stahlbaum's patrons. When his first attempt to murder another patron, Count Rolf Wittenmeier, failed, he ordered his puppets to abduct the Count's wife, Countess Mitzi Wittenmeier. But the puppets by mistake took the Doctor's companion Mary Shelley instead. Drossel is perceptive enough to easily see through the pretenses of Mary to be the Countess.

After his dog, having learned about the Silver Turk, abandoned him, Drossel murdered Count Wittenmeier and moved the Marionettenburg from the Exposition to Count Wittenmeier's house. The puppets continued producing new puppets even in the absence of his dog.

Using his puppets he abducted Stahlbaum, Mary and the Doctor. When Stahlbaum told Drossel that he believed both his dog and the Silver Turk had died struck by lightning, Drossel tried to persuade Stahlbaum to work with him again, but in vain.

When his dog returned, Drossel has learned his true identity as a Cyberman from Mondas named Gramm and realised that he can speak and that he and not Drossel controls all the puppets. At first, Drossel tried to be useful, but then rebelled and killed Gramm. However, without Gramm, all cybertechnology, including inlays in Drossel's body stopped functioning, causing his own death on 12 September 1873.

The Doctor destroyed the inlays leaving the rest of Drossel's remains for the police. (AUDIO: The Silver Turk)