I have spent seven years in prison, part of seven lifetime sentences, for crimes I never committed. My name is Baron Heinrich Zemo and my name has been slandered by the winners. Who are the winners, you may be wondering, but that should be the easiest of your questions for me to answer. The winners are the United States of America, France, England, Canada, China, Russia, and of course SHIELD. You probably hear me complain about SHIELD and think that I, of course, am HYDRA. You would be right... actually you technically are right, but you are also so wrong. Obviously. They don't still call me Baron Zemo for nothing. I will admit to you, young one, that yes, I have done things that I shouldn't have. But I never did them by choice. SHIELD has lied about me; I am not bitter and insane; I am not evil. Actually, quite the opposite. My story has been so obscured though because of the bad reputation they wanted to pin to me. I beg you, entertain my musings for one story. Just one. Will it hurt you? No? Good, then pull up a chair to this laser shield and have a listen and this "Nazi" will give you the truth of the story of my slander and then maybe you will stick around. And I promise, by my sword, you will hear the truth about World War 2 and the truth of my relationship with Captain America.... err... Steve Rogers. Sorry, I always had to be so formal before.
This was the height of the war. They told you I committed atrocities with a death ray in France, I never hurt a soul in France. I had gone there to test out my latest project. Was it dangerous? Yes, actually. But not deadly. What I wanted to develop.... what I dedicated my life to was a project to save lives. Ever hear of Draterra? Of course not, Draterra is a disease that by global standards doesn't exist. I made sure it was eradicated. Permanently. So how did the people in that French village die. Little did I know at the time that when my experiment was proven effective, HYDRA swooped in under the leadership of the Red Skull himself with a "more permanent" solution. They turned one of my stun weapons into something awful. They turned my non lethal solution to the American destruction of Germany into an awful warped version with the power to destroy. An evil weapon that massacred that entire French village. And guess who was the only one witnessed being there; that's right, me. The Americans assumed I must have caused the deaths. My sentence, one life sentence. You may not believe me, but Steve did. Red Skull "conveniently" got Steve "out of the way" before the Nuremberg trials. The only man who could prove my innocence "suddenly" disappears; it was Skull's way of ensuring I would take the fall for his crimes against humanity. So how did I get the other six, rather than death? Well, cruel and usual hardly counts in my case, according to "what I've done".
So most likely, I will sit here.... I will be punished for things that were not my fault. The other six life sentences are tied to my involvement with Adolf Hitler and Johann Schmidt. Neither of which I chose to do. My life started off problematic.... my father and I didn't get along to a major degree.... what you call abuse back then was just discipline. My father was a cruel man, who felt that "discipline" was absolutely necessary to shape a young man. I guess that's why I couldn't consent to cruelty in any form. Not even for the peoples I never cared for. As German and Prussian history goes, I have a bias against the French and the Russians. I may curse them under my breath... I often do, actually, but I would never treat them any different than I would a man of Prussian descent. Everyone is equal in my eyes. Besides, true science does not recognize a difference between types of men and as you have to understand, I am a man of science. What we had, back in the 40's, that was not all science... it was more pseudoscience than true science. While I do not agree with the beliefs of all men, who am I to judge them? The only people I was ever due to judge were the men and women, who live in my city. Was I judge and jury? No, never. I simply appointed those people to carry out the city laws as they saw fit. My family was given the Barony by God. I much believe this. The Zemos were born to rule, born to lead... born to be the example. But that does not mean that we have God's judgment. Rather, I am a servant of God. The twelfth man of my family chosen by the Lord to lead my people to victory.
Now you may say this is the second half of the equation of Nazism, but you are wrong. You may say that the Red Skull was a religious zealot. He definitely was not. To call him a religious zealot would be to call ice a warm substance. He was absolutely obsessed with mythology and gaining power from it. He never cared for the worship of it; actually, he considered himself a god. And that... I also disregard as madness. Johann Schmidt was crueler than even Hitler. Hitler was a man who wanted power; it was never about the people or making the government work again or even the debts we owed France. Adolf Hitler was a man who saw ruling as a right rather than a God-given duty. He immediately turned to me when he came to power and he told me all the good he'd do for Germany; I never thought of him as a genocidal maniac. Even if I had seen it back then, no way.... no way could I have ever not submitted to him. The people loved his speeches. He was a psychological genius. Even though the Barons sway the government, there was no way to talk them out of this one. He was a charasmatic man, one who even I got along with. He was a man who knew what he wanted and just how to get it. So I trusted him when he introduced me to his protegee, Johann Schmidt. That is a mistake I will forever regret. In the end, they both showed their true colors and let me tell you, those were the colors of insanity. Hitler, Hitler was just insane with power and with bitterness. A bitterness that left him with a hatred for Jews. And back to Johann Schmidt, I knew the man well... he was my puppetteer. He was sadistic, egotistical, obsessed with power, and an absolute maniac who believed the legends of ancient peoples. In the last regard, he wasn't entirely wrong, but Johann Schmidt left me with way too many scars. He'd torture me endlessly for being Hitler's favorite, until he got tired... tired of being complacent tired of being second-best... at least when he was still vying for Hitler's favoritism he'd tend the wounds so Hitler wouldn't find out what he'd done.... but once he no longer cared it was free game... that's when true wounds began appearing... the scars. Some of these still hurt.
That's my story, I don't particularly like to tell it because there is so much pain in it. Physical, emotional, mental. I won't tell you what my father did to me specifically... it's left some demons for me to overcome... Schmidt... if I see him I swear to God he's dead... But only Captain America can set me free from this Hell. He has the journal... but he's gone. So I don't know what I'm going to do quite yet.
