HYDRA Headquarters

"The Führer is not accustomed to being ignored, Herr Schmidt. He funds your research because you promised him weapons." "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."

- Roeder, Schneider, and Johann Schmidt

HYDRA Headquarters was an important military base, carved out deep within one of the mountains of the Swiss Alps, which served as HYDRA's foremost stronghold during World War II.

History
"HYDRA's last base is here, in the Alps, five hundred feet below the surface."

- Chester Phillips

It is unknown when this base was built, but it was at some point after the rise of Nazism in Germany. Located five hundred feet below the surface, this was an almost impregnable fortress.

In 1940, Johann Schmidt, the commanding officer of the SS research division HYDRA, tested Abraham Erskine's Super Soldier Serum on himself. The serum made him stronger, but it also disfigured his face as the result, and he became known as the Red Skull. As a small reward for his injuries, the Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler gave the base to Schmidt, who turned it into the headquarters of HYDRA. In the base, HYDRA's best scientists worked on developing new weapons for the Third Reich. However, Schmidt saw his new post more as an exile than the reward. In 1942, Schmidt brought the Tesseract, an object of unlimited power which he found in Norway, into the base. HYDRA's top scientist Arnim Zola harnessed the power of the Tesseract, and with it powered all his advanced scientific designs.

Some time later, Schmidt was in the base, posing for a painting while the artist drew his portrait. When Zola came to ask him what he planned to do with Erskine, whose whereabouts he finally discovered, Schmidt answered that he intends to kill Erskine, because without him, and his serum, the Americans could do nothing to stop HYDRA's war machine.

In 1943, three SS officers came to base to question Schmidt about HYDRA's failure to deliver promised weapons to the German armies. Schmidt showed them his Tesseract-powered laser cannon. However when they discovered that Schmidt intended to nuke Berlin and overthrow Hitler, Schmidt vaporized them all to silence them.

An airfield runway was soon built in the base. The parts of the Valkyrie, the gigantic super bomber whose parts were built in HYDRA's factories all over Europe, were brought to the base where the plane was finally finished.

In May 1945, the Howling Commandos, led by Captain America, infiltrated the base, attacking the guards. This was just a prelude to the full scale attack by the US Army led by Colonel Chester Phillips. The base was eventually captured, but not before Schmidt managed to escape in the Valkyrie, intending to destroy New York City and all other bigger cities on the east coast of the United States. What later happened with the base is unknown.