Abraham Erskine
Dr Abraham Joseph Erskine
Dr Abraham Erskine was a brilliant Jewish German chemist, responsible for the original Super-Soldier Serum, who defected from Germany to The United States of America during World War II, where he was appointed head of Project Rebirth.
He was assassinated by HYDRA in 1943, only minutes after Steve Rogers became humanity's first Super-Soldier.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Early Life
Erskine was born in Augsburg, Germany, in 1879, the son of a shoemaker. He excelled in school, and won a scholarship that enabled him to attend Heidelberg University. He remained in school after recieving his undergraduate degree, eventually graduating with a doctorate in organic chemistry in 1905.
He moved to Munich a few months later, taking a possition as a researcher at the University. He began assisting with lectures, eventually becoming a senior lecturer, though he was never offered a tenured professorship.
In 1907, he married Greta Cohn. The couple had two children, Marlene and Klaus.
The Rise of Nazism
While working at Munich University, he was instrumental in the developement of a serum which was originally intended to increase muscle growth in those recovering from long illnesses, or suffering from wasting diseases. However, it was found that when injected into a healthy subject, it could temporarily grant them super-human strength.
The Nazi regime, in particular Johann Schmidt, a senior SS officer, believed this serum could be the key to the development of a true ubermensch, and attempted to recruit Erskine, but he repeatedly refused their offers.
When he was first from the university in 1935, as a result of the first wave of anti-Jewish discriminatory employment legislation introduced by the Nazis, Erskine correctly predicted that Schmidt would use this as an excuse to force him to work for them. He therefore attempted to escape to Switzerland with his family before Schmidt could catch up with him.
Tragically, this attempt was unsuccessful, and they were captured by HYDRA , then the research arm of the SS, at the German border. Erskine's family were sent to the Dachau concentration camp, where they died only a year later of typhus.
Imprisonment and Rescue
Erskine was sent to Castle Kaufmann, where he was forced to work on refining his serum to provide more consistent and longer-lasting result.
Against Erskine's repeated protestations, Schmidt insisted on personally testing what was intended to be the first permanent version of the serum. Although the serum did succeed in granting Schmidt super-human abilities, it had devestating side-effects. Over the weeks that followed, Schmidt's hair, including eyebrows and lashes, fell out. His skin began peeling, and grew back scarlet, while damage to his cartiledge, especially in his face, gave him a sunked skull-like appearance, especially around his nose.
Rumours of this transformation quickly spread amoung the SS, and later the Germany army, bringing it to the attention of British spies. In response, MI14 (the German-focussed branch of British Military Intelligence) sent Peggy Carter, code-name Agent 13, to rescue him.
Carter gained employment at the Castle as a maid, which allowed her to locate Erskine, who had been imprisoned in the dungeons awaiting trail for what Schmidt believed to be deliberate sabotage. She was able to smuggle him out of the Castle to France, and thence to England.
Project Rebirth
After several months in London, while the various political factions in the UK and her allies debated the best use for Erskine's tallents, it was agreed that a joint British-American scientific enterprise would be set up. The British agreed to this in large part becauseit allowed Erskine to carry out his research in the USA, as it was believed at the time that a German invasion of the UK was highly likely.
As a rescult, the Strategic Scientific Reserve was sent up, and Peggy Carter was officially assigned to accompany Erskine to the States.
A facility for the project was purchased in Brooklyn, and a number of respected scientific and engineering minds where recruited, including Howard Stark.
Recruiting Steve Rogers
Although he believed he had, or was close to, perfecting the serum, Erskine's experiences with Schmidt lead him to believe that the serum modified not only the body, but also the mind of the recipient. Specifically, he believed dominent personality traits would become amplified, as Schmidt's greed and cruelty had been.
(This theory has been the subject of continuous passionate debate among psychologists, biologists, and chemists, ever since the first public appearance of Captain America, but no consensus has been reached as to whether this is a true side-effect of the Serum, or whether what he observed in Schmidt, and what as record in Steve Rogers were simply differing trauma responses).
As a result of this belief, he development extremely specific criteria for the subject who would be the gineau pig for the completed serum, and he rejected out of hand the individuals suggested by The US Army as too prone to violence.
While reviewing potential candidates from among those who enlisted during the Stark Expo, Erskine met Steve Rogers, who the army had rejected on medical grounds. Erskine was attracted both by his poor health - since the original intention behind the serum had been to provide relief for individuals with medical histories such as Steve's - and by his upstanding moral character. He therefore recommended Steve for the test process, against the wishes of the Army Doctor.
Success and Assassination
Steve proved a farsighted choice, excelling in the tests of character administered during the training, and he was eventually selected to be the first candidate to test the serum.
The serum was administered at the Strategic Scientific Reserve Brooklyn Facility, under the control of Erskine and Stark, with Agent Carter acting as the representative of the UK's interests.
The test was a resounding success, transforming Steve's sickly undersized body into the first successful Super-Soldiers ever produced by human ingenuity, and the first Terran super-soldier since the Kree Primagen experiments almost 7,000 years ago.
Tragically however, Erskine was unable to fully appreciate the fruits of his genius, as Project Rebirth had been infiltrated by Heinz Kruger, a HYDRA opperative, who used the distraction to detonate a bomb, killing Erskine, and giving Kruger time to steal a sample of the serum.
Education
Erskine attended Heidelberg University, graduating in 1905 with a doctorate in organic chemistry.
Employment
Prior to the war, Erskine was employed at the University of Munich, as a lecturer in Chemistry and senior researcher. He was fired from the University in 1935, as a result of the increasing amounts of anti-Jewish discriminatory employment legislation.
After several years of imprisonment by the Nazi regime, he was rescued by the SSR in 1940, and recruited to Project Rebirth, first as a senior researcher, and later as the head of the entire project.
Accomplishments & Achievements
Erskine is regarded was one of the greatest genuises humanity has ever produced, and one of the most influential minds of the 20th century.
Species
Ethnicity
Other Ethnicities/Cultures
Date of Birth
14th September 1879
Date of Death
22nd June 1943
Life
1879 CE
1943 CE
64 years old
Circumstances of Death
Assassinated by HYDRA <WIP>
Birthplace
Augsburg, Germany
Place of Death
Children
Pronouns
He/Him
Sex
Cisman
Aligned Organization