Wilhelm Reichmann (Earth-1)

**Wilhelm Reichmann**, also known as **Blitzkrieg** and later **Übermensch**, was a supervillain who served the Axis during World War II. He was also the leader of the superhuman group Axis Elite.

## Powers and Abilities

Having got his powers, among other things, from the radioactive element Hyperium, most of his powers were nearly identical to those of Paladin. He could fly, was invulnerable, had super senses and super strenght. He was also cabable of shooting energy blasts.

As Übermensch, Wilhelm's powers were vastly increased, making him one of the most powerful beings in the Universe.

## Personality

Wilhelm was the embodiment of the Nazi Party: proud, arrogant and pretentious. He was obsessed with Germanic culture, particularly the work of Richard Wagner, and despised every artform not produced by "Aryan ideals". His racial supremacy views were slowly replaced by metahuman supremacy, as he viewed every non-powered human as lower than him, even those with nordic ancestry.

## Biography

### Early Life

Wilhelm was born in Nuremberg, in the German state of Bavaria. He was fascinated with his country's culture, particularly classical music, which led him to join the Nuremberg Academy of Fine Arts. There he met members of the National Socialist Party and immediately adhered to their ideals of racial purity and supremacy. As the party rose to power in 1933, he joined the Army and rose through the ranks until he became a general and close friends with Adolf Hitler.

### Projekt Aesir

In 1940, Wilhelm was the only volunteer of Projekt Aesir, a scientific military project spearheaded by Dr. Dieter Ungeheuer to create supersoldiers to serve the Third Reich. Using a combination of genetic engineering, mystical powers and Hyperium radiation, Wilhelm got superpowers that rivaled those of American superhero Paladin, besides others such as energy manipulation.

### The Axis Elite

Wilhelm, now known as Blitzkrieg, became one of the founding members of the Axis Elite, alongside Panzer, Schadenfreude and Steel Samurai, becoming its de-facto leader. Together, the team performed multiple special missions for the Reich, including eliminating political opponents, destroying Allied bases and even finding and killing Jewish refugees.

### Facing Allied Superheroes

In 1941, during the London Blitz, Blitzkrieg and the Axis Elite faced off against the Hypermen in an aircarrier the Nazis boarded near Liverpool. It wouldn't be the last time the two groups would cross paths. Later, other villains of the Hypermen that served Germany and Japan, such as Faust and Amaterasu, would join the team.

### Projekt Wünderwaffe

In 1944, Wilhelm joined Projekt Wünderwaffe, a secret Nazi project to develop a weapon that would crush the Allied forces for good. In 1945, as the Hypermen found out about the project, Blitzkrieg planted a red herring that lead them to the Axis Elite's base, a castle in the Bavarian Alps that belonged to Faust. It was a trap, and the team was kidnapped and taken to a secret location, where Wünderwaffe would be activated.

### Übermensch

As Adolf Hitler himself turned on Wünderwaffe, the Hypermen realized the true purpose of the machine: to boost Blitzkrieg's powers to insane levels, turning him into a living, breathing mass destruction weapon. As the Führer commanded him to eliminate the Hypermen, the villain instead turned against the dictator, vaporizing him with a blast of energy. He then titled himself Übermensch and named himself the Führer of the world, with Schadenfreude as his second in command and the rest of the Elite as his new generals. He released the Hypermen, offering them the choice to join him or be executed. As they predictably refused, they started a battle that killed half of the American heroes until Blackwatch bravely ran to the machine and overloaded it, causing an explosion that destroyed both him and the Nazi supervillain.

## See Also

* Schadenfreude

* Faust (Nexus-1)

* Paladin