Attack on HYDRA Research Facility Number 4

"Guten tag, boys. All right, nice and calm. No sudden moves, or we'll tie a blasting cap to your... Hey, Dugan, what's the German word for "nuts"?" "I don't know, Jim. But tie a blasting cap to them, I'll bet we'll hear it."

- Jim Morita and Dum Dum Dugan

The Attack on HYDRA Research Facility Number 4 was a battle between HYDRA forces and the Strategic Scientific Reserve, who captured the last known HYDRA base at the end of World War II.

Background
Captain America and Strategic Scientific Reserve launched an attack on HYDRA Headquarters. As the Red Skull escaped in the Valkyrie, Rogers gained access to the plane and a fight ensued. Red Skull handled the Tesseract, which activated and sent him through a portal, while Captain America was forced to crash-land the plane in the Arctic, leading to his disappearance. In a HYDRA Fortress in Austria, Werner Reinhardt tested the Obelisk's power on several of the Chinese villagers until he learned about Schmidt's demise on the Valkyrie and the approach of the Allies. He decided to move the Obelisk to a more secure location.

Attack
"These assets are now under the protection of the Strategic Scientific Reserve. They'll be relocated and hidden out of sight, indefinitely as will you." "Cut off one head, two more shall grow in its place." "Then I guess we'll keep cutting them off."

- Peggy Carter and Werner Reinhardt

Werner Reinhardt ordered the evacuation of HYDRA Research Facility Number 4 and all the numerous mysterious artifacts that HYDRA collected over the years. Reinhardt ordered a HYDRA Officer to carefully bring the Obelisk to him. The base was attacked by a group of Strategic Scientific Reserve troops led by Peggy Carter, Dum Dum Dugan, and Jim Morita. Reinhardt and his men were arrested, but Reinhardt warned Carter that if one of HYDRA's heads was cut off, two more would grow in its place. Carter promised to keep cutting them off.

Under Carter's orders, the SSR troops collected and tagged all the artifacts including a Kree corpse. The Obelisk was photographed and labeled 0-8-4.

Aftermath
Werner Reinhardt was given a life sentence in a Strategic Scientific Reserve prison called the Rat. In 1989, Undersecretary Alexander Pierce, one of the leaders of S.H.I.E.L.D. and secretly a HYDRA operative, granted him medical parole.

After being released, Reinhardt was taken back to his old base in Austria where he was presented with the elders of the Chinese village; among them was a young woman who had not only survived the Obelisk's effects but who also had not aged a day after forty-four years.

For a week, Reinhardt performed experiments on the woman which resulted in her death. Taking her bodily fluids and DNA, Reinhardt used them to get a transfusion that physically regress himself back to his middle-age. With his youth restored, Reinhardt rejoined the ranks of HYDRA and by the next year, he had taken up the identity of Doctor Daniel Whitehall.