Karl is one of Dr. Pretorius' assistants in the 1935 Bride of Frankenstein. He is played by Dwight Frye. He and Ludwig assisted Pretorius in robbing graves to get the parts needed to create the Bride of Frankenstein. When a fresh heart was needed for the Bride, Pretorius had Karl go out and murder a young woman and take her heart. When the Bride was being brought to life, the thunderstorm agitated the Frankenstein Monster, and Karl tried to cow the creature with a lit torch. This had the opposite effect, as the Monster threw Karl from the laboratory roof and killed him.
There was an abandoned subplot in Bride of Frankenstein that fleshed out Karl's character a bit more, in which he murdered his aunt and uncle, the Glutzes, and blamed their deaths on the Monster. This would've given the Monster a more sufficient reason for tossing Karl off the roof, but ultimately it was cut for time.
Read more about this topic: Minor Characters In Universal Monsters
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—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)