HYDRA

"Tomorrow, HYDRA will stand master of the world. Born to victory on the wings of the Valkyrie. Our enemies weapons will be powerless against us. If they shoot down one plane, hundreds more will rain fire upon them! If they cut off one head, two more shall take its place. Hail HYDRA!"

- Red Skull HYDRA is the branch of the Nazi Schutzstaffel under the command of Johann Schmidt. Its main purpose was to create advanced weaponry for the German armies. In 1943, Schmidt separated HYDRA from Nazi Germany to start his own global conquest.

1930s
"Howard, the footage you're about the see was just smuggled out of Nazi Germany by "Agent 13", an undercover operative the British have planted deep within HYDRA, Hitler's advanced weapons program."

- Chester Phillips HYDRA was founded by the SS officer Johann Schmidt after the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. It was the SS division charged with deep science experiments and the investigation of the occult. It was named after the mythological creature and had used its original phrase: "cut off one head, two more will take its place". Thanks to the German scientists like Arnim Zola, HYDRA developed several extremely advanced weapons.

When the Spanish Civil War started in 1936, the leaders of the Third Reich decided to support the Nationalists led by Generalissimo Franco. HYDRA was among the German units sent by Adolf Hitler to assist the Nationalists on the battlefield. In April 1937, HYDRA's armored vehicles and soldiers equipped with powerful exo-skeleton battle suits have destroyed the city of Guernica. At the time it was believed the German air force, the Luftwaffe, was responsible for the destruction of the city. However, the footage of the slaughter was smuggled out of Germany by the British agent Margaret Carter and handed over to the US military in January 1940.

1940s
"HYDRA is assembling an arsenal to destroy my enemies in one stroke, wherever they are, regardless of how many forces they possess, all in a matter of hours."

- Red Skull In 1940, a group of HYDRA assassins attempted to kill the American industrialist Howard Stark. With the help of Colonel Chester Phillips, Stark was able to defeat all attackers. After the attack, Stark decided to join the Strategic Scientific Reserve.

The same years, at Castle Kaufmann in the Bavarian Alps, the HYDRA leader Schmidt injected himself with Professor Abraham Erskine's Super Soldier Serum. He expected to become the superior man, but the unstable serum disfigured his face and turned him into a super strong megalomaniac villain. Erskine escaped with the help of Agent Carter, Colonel Phillips, and Howard Stark. Hitler gave Schmidt a military base in the Alps, which he turned into a headquarters of HYDRA. Over the time, members of HYDRA became more loyal to Schmidt than to the Third Reich. Immediately after the start of World War II, HYDRA began building several factories across the Nazi-occupied Europe. By 1942, they had factories in Germany, Austria, France, Greece, Polland, and Czechoslovakia. They used the captured Allied soldiers to work in factories. They even had a U-boat base somewhere on the Mediterranean.

In 1942, HYDRA stormed a castle in Tønsberg, Norway where the mystical object known as the Tesseract was buried for hundreds of years. Schmidt personally saw to it that the Tesseract would be used to it's full potential by Dr. Arnim Zola. Zola's outlandish designs of robotic power armor, massive vehicles and energy weapons and armor could find a functional use thanks to the Tesseract's power, and with the most advanced tech in the World, HYDRA could begin to plan their conquest — a conquest that Nazi guards would soon find out, counted Berlin amongst it's targets.

In 1943, HYDRA's goals would be challenged by America's own super-soldier, Captain America. In December 1943, Rogers attacked the HYDRA factory in Austria, and managed to free all Allied soldiers who were imprisoned there. This was the first direct conflict between Rogers and Schmidt, who activated self destruct mode and escaped in the experimental plane. Aided by his best friend, Bucky and the Howling Commandos, Captain America began a massive assault on HYDRA forces across the Axis lines, destroying numerous bases. In 1944, the scientists of HYDRA developed the thunder lance torpedoes. The HYDRA submarine Leviathan destroyed the Allied merchant freighter in the Mediterranean with the torpedo, but Captain America, who was traveling on the sunken ship, boarded the submarine and captured it. Cap and Commandos infiltrated the HYDRA U-base where they discovered that the mysterious "Hydra serum" merged the entire base's staff into one octopus-like creature. Cap decided to take the creature to Howard Stark to separate it back into individual men.

In April, Rogers and the Howling Commandos invaded the HYDRA castle in the Nazi occupied Danish Straits. Schmidt attempted to destroy them but they survived. Shortly after the Allied invasion of Normandy, in Baron Zemo's castle in Bavaria, Johann Schmidt attempted to activate the Sleeper, a giant robot powered by the Tesseract, but the machine was destroyed by Captain America. Captain America's actions against HYDRA were crowned when he succeeded in capturing Arnim Zola. In May 1945, Schmidt was ready to launch the offensive that would change the face of the planet. However, his base was attacked by the US Army detachment led by Captain America and Colonel Chester Phillips. Outnumbered, Schmidt's men were defeated, but not before he flew away in his Tesseract-powered bomber, the Valkyrie. He intended to nuke all bigger cities in America.

Captain America managed to board the plane and came face to face with Schmidt. When it became clear that Rogers was gaining the upper hand in the fight, Schmidt attempted to use the power of the Tesseract with his bare hands. This only resulted in a beam of light, similar in design to the Bifrost Bridge, which caused Schmidt to disappear without a trace, and forcing Rogers to put the bomber down in the freezing waters below, freezing himself solid and causing the Tesseract to be lost to the seas.

When the war ended, HYDRA was dissolved and its advanced technology was studied by Stark Industries.

21st century
Though HYDRA had long since been disbanded, their weapons and technology still existed. What was left was kept by S.H.I.E.L.D. for their program "Phase 2," which involved reactivating the HYDRA weapons with the Tesseract for use against super-powered or other-worldly forces. Steve Rogers discovered several cases of HYDRA weapons aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.

Rogers also mentioned during a meeting that Bruce Banner should study Loki's Staff while hunting for the Tesseract, as it functioned similarly to HYDRA's weapons.

Weapons
At first, the soldiers of HYDRA were armed with standard weapons of the German armed forces of World War II. Many HYDRA troopers were armed with the MP 40 submachine guns. Johann Schmidt himself used the Luger P08. HYDRA's assassins like Heinz Kruger were armed with the Walther P38s. HYDRA's sharpshooters were armed with Mauser Karabiners.

Even before they harnessed the power of the Tesseract, the scientists of HYDRA developed several advanced weapons, like the big flamethrowers. But with the power of the Tesseract, the HYDRA scientists invented the laser rifles, laser pistols, and laser cannons. These weapons were able to vaporize HYDRA's enemies in a single shot.

Equipment
HYDRA used a variety of advanced vehicles. Thanks to the scientists like Arnim Zola, members of HYDRA could rely on armored vehicles equipped with flamethrowers, armored personnel carriers, experimental planes, futuristic exo-skeleton battle suits, submarines, gigantic tanks, flying bombs, motorbikes, and super bombers like the Valkyrie.

Uniforms
As the SS divison, HYDRA mostly used the standard grey and black uniforms of the Schutzstaffel. They also used the standard German Stahlhelm helmets. Their ranks insignia was identical to that of the SS. However, to distinct themselves from other SS units, they wore HYDRA badges on their caps and collars, instead of the SS rune patches and Totenkopf badges. They also had HYDRA patches on the upper parts of their sleeves. Some members of HYDRA also used armbands similar to those of the Nazi party. However, their armbands had the HYDRA logo instead of the swastika. Some HYDRA helmets had no insignia, but others had German Imperial tricolor shield decals and HYDRA shield decals. Over the time, HYDRA adopted another type of uniforms. The new uniforms were green, and of completely unique design. The new uniform also had HYDRA patches on sleeves.

Notable members

 * Red Skull
 * Arnim Zola
 * Baron Wolfgang von Strucker
 * Madame Hydra
 * Iron Cross
 * Heinz Kruger
 * Colonel Lohmer
 * Lt. Kleiber
 * HYDRA lieutenant

Trivia

 * HYDRA's abandonment of the Nazi cause is more elaborated in a deleted scene from Captain America: The First Avenger where HYDRA tank fires at regular German troops before it captures the future Howling Commandos. However, that scene contradicts the events of Captain America: First Vengeance, Volume 6 where HYDRA still works for the Nazis after the imprisonment of the Howling Commandos.
 * In Marvel Comics, HYDRA was organized by Baron Wolfgang von Strucker in the Japanese-occupied territory in the final days of World War II.