Nightfall Program

The **Nightfall Program**, also known as **Operation Twilight** (German: **Operation Dämmerung**), was a top secret project created by Nazi Germany during World War II, intended to gain an advantage over the Allied Powers. After World War II, the United States government reverse engineered the program, thanks to Nazi defectors recruited by the US government via Operation Paperclip, and used against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

## History

### World War II

During World War II, following the rapid victories the Soviet Union was scoring against Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler realized he needed a way to gain an advantage over the Allies, lest they capture Berlin and end the war in defeat for the Nazis. To that end, he turned to top Nazi scientist Herman Gore, who had been secretly experimenting with Nazi war criminals and turning them into superhuman soldiers through genetic manipulation and physical enhancement. Gore agreed to share his research with Hitler, under the condition that Hitler allow him to use German military personnel as test subjects and to field test his superhuman soldiers by deploying them alongside regular soldiers on the Eastern Front, having grown tired of using violent criminals detained by German law enforcement as lab rats. Hitler agreed, but made Gore take an oath of secrecy in order to prevent the Allies from finding out about the secret project.

The first volunteer for Operation Twilight following Hitler allowing the project to continue under his supervision that wasn't a German criminal was Greta Keller, a German teenager who was a former Hitler Youth member. Greta was talked into volunteering by Gore himself, who claimed that her contributions to the war effort would be a "gift to mankind". Her early missions involved aiding Gestapo officers in sending Jews to the gas chambers as part of the Jewish Holocaust.

In early 1943, Gore, decided to send his superhuman soldiers to Stalingrad to aid regular German footsoldiers in fighting the Soviet Union there, and Greta was called up to be its principal agent in this effort. Under the leadership of Greta, codenamed Winter's Bite, Nightfall soldiers proved to be devastating against the Soviet military forces.

However, the project fell apart during Operation Düsterer Wolf (English: Dire Wolf), a Nazi plot to assassinate Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev. Posing as a Russian sniper, Winter's Bite was tasked with seducing Vasily Zaitsev before killing him. The mission failed, however, when a stray bullet from a Nazi German sniper, mistaking her for a Soviet sniper (thanks to the top secret nature of the Nightfall Program and the cover story Greta invented).

Unable to remember anything about her former life, the now-amnesiac Winter's Bite roamed across Europe attempting to recover her memory. However, her erratic wandering was interpreted by her handlers as going rogue, leading Gore to send assets to assassinate her before she could potentially defect to the Allies. Unbeknownst to Gore, the asset known as Winter's Bite was found by a Soviet medic and was being nursed back to health. After recovering, the amnesiac German girl set off to find clues to her past. Upon reaching France, several Nazi soldiers attempted to kill her but she was able to fend them off.

Upon reaching a small village in France, the amnesiac German girl found a piece of information that finally led her to remember volunteering for the Nightfall Program, though this revelation also caused her to return to her senses regarding the true nature of what she had been told to do by the Nazi leadership. Horrified, she decided to defect to the Allies for real, killing her former comrades in a rage at being duped. She was later found by US military soldiers during D-Day. During a debriefing, Greta told the Americans everything; how she had joined a supersoldier program believing she would benefit the Axis powers, only to be brainwashed into committing horrible atrocities against the Jews and other enemies of the Nazis. She also offered to spill the beans on Nightfall in exchange for asylum in the United States.

Now a US government asset, Greta conducted acts of sabotage against Nightfall. Her intel regarding Nightfall persuaded the US military leaders to focus on liberating anyone who was in Nightfall. In 1945, Greta was recruited by the US government as part of Operation Paperclip.

### Reverse engineered

Following World War II, the US, now fighting a Cold War against the Soviet Union, sought to reverse engineer Nightfall in order to gain an edge against the Soviet Union.