Arnim Zola

HYDRA

* Winter Soldier Program
* Project Insight

 S.H.I.E.L.D. (formerly, undercover)

 American

*"After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded, and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew, a beautiful parasite, inside S.H.I.E.L.D."*
―Arnim Zola
Doctor **Arnim Zola** was a scientist working for HYDRA before, during, and after World War II. Originally an employee of the Sturmabteilung, Zola was recruited in 1934 by Johann Schmidt to become a lead scientist for HYDRA. During the war, he designed many advanced weapons to aid HYDRA in its quest for world domination. During the early days of World War II, Zola was assigned by Schmidt to study the Tesseract to build powered advanced weapons, which Schmidt intended to use to overthrow Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. However, as the war came to an end, Captain America and the Howling Commandos tracked down Zola to his train, eventually succeeding in capturing him.

Following his capture by the Strategic Scientific Reserve, Zola was recruited in a highly controversial Operation called Operation Paperclip, the recruiting of former Nazi HYDRA scientists, as well as other German scientists, to work for the newly founded S.H.I.E.L.D., the new Strategic Scientific Reserve in the United States. As a member of S.H.I.E.L.D., Zola was the one responsible for the HYDRA Uprising, which was the takeover of S.H.I.E.L.D. undercover by HYDRA agents, all because of Operation Paperclip. Under the operation, the former HYDRA scientists began having former HYDRA agents for S.H.I.E.L.D., without the good faction of the agency knowing. After nearly 70 years, HYDRA took over the agency starting at the Battle at the Triskelion, in which HYDRA used Project Insight Helicarriers in an attempt to wipe out all possible threats to HYDRA, though failed and S.H.I.E.L.D. was later rebuilt.

Through Zola's Algorithm, HYDRA agents successfully were recruited into the agency over a course of 70 years, without the good factions in S.H.I.E.L.D. knowing. Following his death in 1972 after a diagnosis, his brain was removed and installed into a new, 1970's computer system. It was placed in a secret room within a S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker at Camp Lehigh. Only HYDRA agents working as undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had access to the room, allowing them to keep in contact often with the Doctor.

In 2014 during the HYDRA Uprising, S.H.I.E.L.D. fell to the new HYDRA built within it. Zola was working directly with Secretary Alexander Pierce, without anyone else knowing besides the HYDRA agents. While on the run from the corrupted S.H.I.E.L.D. under HYDRA's control, Captain America and Black Widow received a USB from Director Nick Fury, giving them a location to travel to Camp Lehigh. Unknown to Fury, once Captain America and Black Widow arrived at the abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D. camp, Zola was still there, in the secret room, waiting for the two to come. Once arrived, he went over the history of the Nazi HYDRA, Operation Paperclip, and they were in S.H.I.E.L.D. During the confrontation, STRIKE, a S.H.I.E.L.D. team containing undercover HYDRA agents, fired multiple missiles at the base in New Jersey, compromising it. Zola's A.I. was destroyed due to the blast, but Captain America and Black Widow survived, going on to release to secrets to the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D., resulting in Secretary Pierce's death, and the fall of the corrupted S.H.I.E.L.D. It was later rebuilt a few years later, free from HYDRA's control.