HYDRA

"HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize is that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. 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 to Captain America and Black Widow

HYDRA is a terrorist-military organization bent on world domination. It was founded shortly after the rise of Nazism in Germany by Johann Schmidt as the scientific branch of the Nazi Schutzstaffel. Its main purpose was to create advanced weaponry for the German armies, but over the years, members of HYDRA became loyal only to Schmidt himself. At the beginning of World War II, HYDRA still fought for the Nazi cause, but in 1943, Schmidt separated HYDRA from Nazi Germany to start his own conquest of the world.

After its defeat at the hands of Captain America in 1945 and the subsequent disappearance of Johann Schmidt, HYDRA was secretly rebuilt inside S.H.I.E.L.D. by Schmidt's top scientist Arnim Zola who was recruited into the agency during Operation Paperclip. After Zola's death in 1972, HYDRA was taken over by Baron von Strucker who continued to lead the organization into the 21st century. Under his leadership, the agents of HYDRA managed to infiltrate many important organizations, including the United States Senate.

Foundation and first actions
"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 has its roots in the special weapons division of the Nazi Sturmabteilung. Led by Ernst Kaufmann, the division was charged with developing advanced weapons for the German army.

In June 1934, during the Night of the Long Knives, Kaufmann was killed by the SS officer Johann Schmidt. Schmidt and his men eliminated Kaufmann's entire unit, except one man, Dr. Arnim Zola. Schmidt took over Kaufmann's weapons program and formed his own SS division, naming it HYDRA.

HYDRA was named after the mythological creature and used its original phrase: "cut off one head, two more will take its place". It was soon charged with science experiments and deep investigation of the occult. Due to contributions from 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 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.

The Nazi science division
"HYDRA is the Nazi deep science division. It's led by Johann Schmidt. But he has much bigger ambitions." "HYDRA's practically a cult. They worship Schmidt, they think he's invincible."

- Peggy Carter and Chester Phillips to Senator Brandt In 1939, World War II broke out. HYDRA's leader Johann Schmidt actively participated in the Nazi conquest of Europe. Though the United States of America weren't yet involved in the war, Schmidt knew that was only temporary. In 1940, HYDRA assassins attempted to kill the American industrialist Howard Stark, but with the help of Colonel Chester Phillips, Stark was able to defeat the attackers, and decided to join the Strategic Scientific Reserve.

That November, at Castle Kaufmann in the Alps, Schmidt injected himself with 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 time, HYDRA members became more loyal to Schmidt than the Third Reich.

Immediately after the start of the war, HYDRA began building several factories across the Nazi-occupied Europe. By 1942, they had factories in Germany, Austria, France, Greece, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. They used captured Allied soldiers to work in factories. They even had a U-boat base somewhere on the Mediterranean.

The rise of HYDRA
"My apologies, Doctor, but we both knew HYDRA could grow no further in Hitler's shadow. Hail HYDRA!"

- Johann Schmidt to Arnim Zola

In March 1942, HYDRA stormed a castle in Tønsberg, Norway where the mystical object known as the Tesseract was buried 531 years ago by Odin. Schmidt saw to it that the Tesseract would be used to its full potential by 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 technology in the world, HYDRA began their conquest that counted Berlin in its targets.

Soon, HYDRA's goals would be challenged by America's own super-soldier, Captain America. In November 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 Barnes and the Howling Commandos, Captain America began a massive assault on HYDRA forces across the Axis lines, destroying numerous bases.

During the first months of 1944, when the German air force launched the last "Blitz", Schmidt sent a group of HYDRA agents to London to steal some blueprints from the SSR. The agents were successful, but they were soon discovered and chased by Captain America who managed to capture all of them.

In May 1944, the HYDRA submarine Leviathan destroyed an Allied merchant freighter in the Mediterranean with HYDRA's thunder lance 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 took the creature to Howard Stark to separate it back into individual men.

In April 1944, HYDRA took possession of an old castle on an island in the Nazi-occupied Danish Straits. Schmidt was interested in that castle because of an ancient Viking rune stone that was hidden there. The same month, Captain Rogers and the Howling Commandos invaded the castle. Schmidt attempted to destroy them through his "vita batteries" 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.



Defeat
"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!"

- Johann Schmidt 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, and forcing Rogers to put the bomber plane down in the freezing waters below, freezing himself solid and causing the Tesseract to be lost to the seas.

After The War
"HYDRA died with the Red Skull." "Cut off one head, two more shall take its place."

- Captain America and Arnim Zola

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States started Operation Paperclip, a program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States and deny their scientific expertise and knowledge to the Soviet Union. As part of the operation, Zola was recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D., the newly formed peacekeeping organization.

Many other former Nazis and HYDRA scientists escaped to South America, hoping to hide from justice. Several of them were employed by the government of Peru to make the new Tesseract-powered weapon. The government wanted to use the weapon against the rebels, but due to the temporal instability of the Tesseract energy, the weapon ended up stuck in the undiscovered Incan temple.

Various HYDRA operatives who escaped justice after World War II infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. shortly after the agency was formed, working secretly in their ranks. Over the next decades, HYDRA worked from the shadows, directing their agents to complete the tasks that were assigned.

Toward the New World Order
"HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's New World Order will arise."

- Arnim Zola

Shortly after the war, Zola found Sergeant James Barnes, Captain America's war-time partner who was presumed deceased after falling to an icy death from Zola's train in 1945. Zola and other scientists took Barnes to one of HYDRA's secret bases, presumably in the territory held by the Soviet Union, where they replaced his lost left arm with the new cybernetic limb. They brainwashed him, and since he was already injected with another version of the Super Soldier Serum, they turned him into the new fist of HYDRA. Though he was wearing the communist red star on his new limb, Barnes never fought for the Soviet ideals, instead becoming HYDRA's best assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Over the next decades, he did much on creating chaos in the world, assassinating those who could pose a threat to HYDRA's goals, and spending time between missions in cryogenic sleep. With S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources, Zola managed to build an entire computer system which his mind was uploaded into as an artificially intelligent user interface. Though Zola's body died in 1972, his mind continued to live in cyberspace, from which he was able to provide easy passage into the agency for more HYDRA sleeper agents.

HYDRA also oversaw the Deathlock Project in 1990, using one of their sleeper agents, John Garrett, as the first test subject. He was the first Deathlok. However, only the cybernectic components worked. The organs were severely effected, leading Garret to look for a solution to perfect Deathlok and to prevent his slowcoming death.

The HYDRA weapons and technology captured by the SSR during the war were studied by S.H.I.E.L.D.. In 2011, S.H.I.E.L.D. started a program called "Phase 2". The program involved reactivating the HYDRA weapons with the Tesseract for use against super-powered or other-worldly forces. Several cases of HYDRA weapons were stored aboard the Helicarrier. However, the weapons weren't needed, because when the Chitauri led by Loki invaded New York City, the aliens were defeated by the Avengers.

The "Clairvoyant"
"HYDRA always comes back."

- John Garrett

Following the Battle of New York, one of HYDRA's sleeper agents within S.H.I.E.L.D., John Garrett, going under the alias, the Clairvoyant,, recruited and funded the Centipede Project to provide them with super-soldiers and to help keep himself from dying. One of the first was Mike Peterson. In his Clairvoyant persona, Garret made people like Ian Quinn and Raina believe that he could see everything such as what the President dreams about. Garret also had another sleeper agent, Grant Ward, recruited by Phil Coulson for his team. Ward's mission was to find out about Coulson's revival. Garret then had Coulson captured and interrogated for three days to find the secrets behind his revival in Tahiti. Garrett then ordered Quinn to shoot Skye. He then made sure that he would be the one to take Quinn in, and to have Coulson lead him to where he was revived. After getting inside, unbeknownst to Coulson and Fitz, he took a few of the drugs and hid them in his vest before the place was destroyed. He then had Mike Peterson, going under the codename "Deathlok", turned into a cybernetic super soldier.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Civil War
"Out of the Shadows Into the Light HYDRA"

- Coded message for HYDRA sleeper agents within S.H.I.E.L.D.

Project Insight
"S.H.I.E.L.D. is not what we thought it was. It's been taken over by HYDRA."

- Captain America

Two years after the Battle of New York, the HYDRA infiltration was finally exposed when corrupted senior official Alexander Pierce attempted to activate Project Insight early. The operation was thwarted by the combined efforts of Captain America, Black Widow, Falcon, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury and Deputy Director Maria Hill but the event left S.H.I.E.L.D. in shambles and resulted in the deaths of many HYDRA agents.

The Age of Miracles
"There are other facilities doing HYDRA's good work around the world. We'll feed them to Captain America and his colorful friends, keep them off our scent." "What about the volunteers?" "The dead will be buried so deep, their ghosts won't be able to find them.""

- Wolfgang von Strucker and a HYDRA Doctor Despite the failure of Project Insight, HYDRA continued with its operations, with figure leader Wolfgang von Strucker placing his attention on superpowered twins Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.

John Garrett, after escaping agent Victoria Hand's custody with the aid of fellow HYDRA agent Grant Ward, continued to work on the Centipede Project at the HYDRA base in Havana, Cuba. Garrett then raided the Fridge, stealing many items such the 0-8-4 weapon, the Berserker Staff, and the Gravitonium. They also freed a number of prisoners.

Weapons
"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 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 flamethrower. But with the power of the Tesseract, the HYDRA scientists invented the advanced rifles, pistols, and cannons. These weapons were able to vaporize HYDRA's enemies in a single shot in battle.

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 giant vehicles like the Leviathan submarine or the Valkyrie bomber.

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 distinguish 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 the sleeves.

Trivia

 * HYDRA's abandonment of the Nazi cause is more elaborated in a Deleted scene from Captain America: The First Avenger where a 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 the Marvel Comics, HYDRA was organized by Baron Wolfgang von Strucker in the Japanese-occupied territory in the final days of World War II.
 * HYDRA appears briefly in X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Official Game.
 * In the animated series of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, HYDRA was led by Baron Zemo during World War II. After the war, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker took command of the organization.