Seen as a precursor to Project Rebirth and the wider Weapon Plus, Project Nietzsche later dubbed Weapon 0) was a failed Nazi super soldier program. One of the main scientists, Abraham Erskine, who was made to work against his will, later defected to the U.S. after being rescued by Nick Fury. There he would lead Project: Rebirth, succeed in creating Super Soldier Serum. Project Rebirth would eventually lead to the creation of Weapon Plus. Project Nietzsche was retroactively named Weapon 0 as an homage to it’s influence on later projects.
Project Nietzsche History
During World War I, John Steele, a man with superhuman physical abilities, was captured and held in stasis at a laboratory in Frankfurt, Germany. This facility became the center of Projekt John Steele, an early Nazi initiative to unlock the secrets behind superhuman power.
By February 1941, Nazi scientists including Dr. Abraham Erskine, Professor Hans Bruder, and Professor Eric Schmitt sought to replicate Steele’s abilities for their own agenda, launching Project: Nietzsche. Their aim was to engineer a superior Aryan super-soldier. They also planned to utilise DNA from Homo Mermanus but failed when their mission to retrieve a sample ended in disaster.
Dr. Erskine, who had been held against his will up until this point, eventually defected to the United States after a rescue mission conducted by Nick Fury. Taking his research with him, he began work under the codename Professor Reinstein as part of the U.S. government’s top-secret Project Rebirth.
Meanwhile, back in Germany, the Red Skull discovered Professor Schmitt’s Jewish ancestry and ordered Professor Schmitt to be imprisoned in a concentration camp.
Dying in captivity, Schmitt entrusted a concealed vial of his formula to fellow prisoner Brian Falsworth, instructing him to keep it out of Nazi hands. Falsworth drank the serum and was immediately enhanced, gaining superhuman abilities. He escaped and began fighting the Nazis from within Germany as the costumed hero The Destroyer.
Elsewhere, the Nazis continued their efforts. Dr. Raymond Koch succeeded Erskine’s work in Germany, conducting brutal experiments on Jewish prisoners at the Schwarzebitte concentration camp.
In October 1942, Isaiah Bradley, one of the earliest test subjects of the U.S. Super-Soldier program, was deployed to the camp in his first mission as Captain America. Upon discovering Koch’s atrocities, Bradley killed the doctor with his bare hands.
Who Was Weapon 0?
While we don’t know who the subjects of were planned to be we do know that the Nazis sought to create a serum using the DNA of John Steele. He was an American soldier with super powers including bulletproof skin and superhuman strength.
He was captured at some point during World War I and kept in stasis. During WWII the Nazis sought to unlock the secret to his abilities but they failed. To this day nobody knows the origin of these powers.
Steele was freed the same time as Abraham Erskine and immediately returned to action freeing a small German town from Nazi forces.
See Also
- Super Soldier Serum
