Adolf Hitler

*"Hitler speaks of a thousand year Reich, but he cannot feed his army for a month. His troops spill their blood across every field in Europe. But he is still no closer to achieving his goals."*
―Johann Schmidt[src]
**Adolf Hitler** was a German politician and dictator who served as the *Führer und Reichskanzler* of the Third Reich from 1933 to 1945, before and during World War II. He started the war with the intention to create the German Empire that would dominate Europe. He was responsible for the Holocaust, a genocide in which about six million European Jews and other people were murdered.

## Biography

### Rise to Power

*"So many people forget that the first country the Nazis invaded was their own. You know, after the last war, my people struggled. They... they felt weak. They felt small. And then Hitler comes along with the marching and the big show and the flags."*
―Abraham Erskine to Steve Rogers[src]
In the chaotic situation after the German defeat in World War I, Hitler formed the Nazi Party and began his slow rise to power, during which he was assisted by the Sturmabteilung. He gained popular support by promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism. After his appointment as Chancellor in 1933, he transformed Germany into a single-party state based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism.

### Meeting Schmidt

*"Intriguing. Kaufman, arrange a lunch between myself and the professor where there's an opening in my schedule."
"Ja, mein Führer!"*
―Adolf Hitler and Ernst Kaufmann[src]

In February 1934 Hitler was at the Deutsches Opernhaus in Berlin. With him was Ernst Kaufmann, head of the Sturmabteilung's Special Weapons Division. There, he met Johann Schmidt, the German physicist who revealed them his theory that Norse gods and their magic could be more than a myth. Hitler was intrigued by Schmidt's ideas, but Kaufmann was less impressed. Though Hitler ordered Kaufman to arrange a meeting between him and Schmidt, when Hitler left the scene, Kaufman threatened Schmidt that he would kill him if he approached Hitler again.

A few months later, to gain support from the Wehrmacht for his regime, Hitler ordered the assassinations of all higher officers of the Sturmabteilung, including Kaufmann, who was killed by Schmidt, who in the meantime became an officer of the Schutzstaffel. That purge later became known as the Night of the Long Knives. Hitler also approved the formation of HYDRA, the deep science division led by Schmidt.

### Search for Erskine

*"He hears of me, and my work, and he finds me, and he says 'You'... He says 'You will make us strong.' Well, I am not interested. So he sends the head of HYDRA, his research division, a brilliant scientist by the name of Johann Schmidt."*
―Abraham Erskine[src]
When Hitler learned of Doctor Abraham Erskine's work on the Super Soldier Serum, he asked him to use the serum to turn the Germans into a race of superhumans, the superior men. Erskine rejected the offer and, knowing very well what Hitler intended to do with Jews, he attempted to escape from Germany. But Hitler sent Johann Schmidt to stop him. Schmidt captured Erskine on the Germany/Switzerland border, and sent his family to a concentration camp in Dachau.

### World War II

*"You serve at his pleasure. He gave you this facility as a reward for your injuries."
"Reward? Call it what it is. Exile. I no longer reflect his image of Aryan perfection."*
―Schneider and Johann Schmidt[src]
In 1939, Hitler started World War II, intending to conquer the whole Europe and create the German Empire that would last for a thousand years. When Johann Schmidt's face became disfigured after he injected himself with the unstable version of the Super Soldier Serum, Hitler gave him a military base in the Alps, and funded his research. Schmidt turned the base into the headquarters of HYDRA, where his scientists worked on developing new weapons for the Third Reich. However, Schmidt saw his new post more as an exile than the reward.

Hitler's luck on the battlefield ran out when the United States of America entered World War II in 1941. Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan, one of the Axis powers, Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that the United States would be building fifty thousand planes to fight not only Hirohito's army, but also Hitler's. This led to Howard Stark to mass-produce all the ordered planes and allow the United States to proceed with the war, striking fiercely at the Third Reich.

By 1943, Hitler's armies were beginning to retreat on all fronts in Europe, with supply shortages being common. Hitler then sent three SS officers Schneider, Hutter and Roeder to Schmidt's base to question him about HYDRA's failure to deliver promised weapons to the German Army. Hitler, via Schneider, also made clear his decreasing patience towards Schmidt's seeming delays in HYDRA's weapons research by telling the latter that he has been indulged long enough while also referring to him by Schmidt's hated nickname of "Red Skull". Schmidt in response showed them his Tesseract-powered laser cannon, but when they discovered that Schmidt intended to attack Berlin and overthrow Hitler as HYDRA couldn't grow any further in Hitler's shadow, Schmidt vaporized them.

At the beginning of 1945, Hitler's Reich finally crumbled under the joint offensives of the Allied armies. On April 30, 1945, in Berlin, Hitler appointed Karl Dönitz as his successor. Hitler then committed suicide in order to evade capture after Nazi Germany's defeat.

### Legacy

*"Had Ammit been free, she would have prevented Hitler and the destruction he wrought."*
―Arthur Harrow to Steven Grant[src]
The Nazi propaganda attempted to present Hitler's death as a heroic fall in the struggle against Bolshevism. However, most people in the world, feeling relief for Hitler's death, disregarded this propaganda, which went to be eventually discarded or burned.

In large part because of Hitler's brutal reign in Germany, and especially his attempted genocide of the Jewish people, he ultimately went down in history as one of the worst dictators and war criminals to ever live. By the 21st century, several documentaries about Hitler and his role in World War II had been released.

## Personality

*"The Führer is not accustomed to being ignored, Herr Schmidt. He funds your research because you promised him weapons."*
―Roeder to Johann Schmidt[src]
Adolf Hitler was a megalomaniacal politician who firmly believed in the Nazis' misinterpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche's *Übermensch* (Superman) concept where a race of superhuman beings are destined to rule the normal ones. Believing the Germans were such a race, he wanted to bring almost all European countries under German rule. Being an anti-Semite, he despised Jews and considered them inferior to the Germans.

A military leader, Hitler was willing to reward all those who followed his orders. When Johann Schmidt became horribly disfigured upon testing an unstable version of the Super Soldier Serum, Hitler relocated him to a new post on the Alps and funded his weapons research. However, when Schmidt started to present delays, Hitler had to send Schneider, Hutter and Roeder to check Schmidt's situation, demonstrating that he wasn't accustomed of being ignored. However, as the time passed, Schmidt came to see Hitler as a beachcomber because while he spoke about a thousand-year Reich, he couldn't feed his army for a month, believing that while his troops spilled their blood across every field in Europe, Hitler was still no closer to achieving his goals.

He was also interested in Norse mythology and the occult power. As stated by Johann Schmidt, Hitler sent several expeditions to search for occult relics in the desert, which Schmidt dismissed as "trinkets". Ironically, both of them shared a passion for the occult and the Teutonic myth as noted by Abraham Erskine, but while Schmidt believed them to be quite real, Hitler only used them as fantasies to inspire his followers.

## Relationships

	+ Ernst Kaufmann †
* Schutzstaffel - Subordinates
	+ Heinrich Himmler †
	+ Roeder †
	+ Schneider †
	+ Hutter †
* Wehrmacht - Subordinates
	+ Karl Dönitz † - Successor
* Italian Armed Forces
	+ Benito Mussolini †
* Empire of Japan
	+ Hirohito †
	+ Franklin D. Roosevelt †
	+ Steve Rogers/Captain America
* British Armed Forces
	+ Winston Churchill †
* Soviet Armed Forces
	+ Joseph Stalin †
* Strategic Scientific Reserve
	+ Howard Stark †
* HYDRA
	+ Johann Schmidt/Red Skull - Former Subordinate

## Appearances

* *Captain America: First Vengeance*
* *Captain America: The First Avenger* (mentioned)
	+ *Captain America: The First Avenger Adaptation* (mentioned)
* *Iron Man* (newspaper)
* *Iron Man 2* (newspaper)
* *The Avengers* (footage; deleted scence)
* *Captain America: The Winter Soldier* (footage)
* *Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.*
	+ *Season Three*
		- *The Inside Man* (footage)
* *The Falcon and The Winter Soldier*
	+ *Season One*
		- *New World Order* (art)
		- *One World, One People* (art)
* *Moon Knight*
	+ *Season One*
		- *The Goldfish Problem* (mentioned)

## Trivia

* In the comics, Hitler was killed in 1945 by Human Torch. His mind was transferred to a cloned body by Arnim Zola which eventually became known as the **Hate-Monger**.

## Behind the Scenes

* One of the concept artworks for *Captain America: The First Avenger* shows Captain America standing near the unconscious Hitler.

## References

The Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki has a collection of images and media related to **Adolf Hitler**.

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 *Captain America: The Winter Soldier*
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 *Captain America: The First Avenger*
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 *Captain America: First Vengeance*
4. ↑ The text on the HYDRA stamp says: *Hydra Abteilung, durch Verabredung des Führers - HYDRA division by appointment of the Führer*
5. ↑ *Iron Man*
6. ↑ *Daily Mail* - The hater of Britain now rules
7. ↑ *The Avengers*
8. ↑ *The Avengers* Deleted Scene

## External Links

* Adolf Hitler on Wikipedia
* Adolf Hitler on Marvel Database