Vengeance Red Skull WWII flashbacks

[Leoparis]

Note: I spent countless hours on this, at least twenty but could be double or triple that. This includes checking all referenced stories, looking at the day to day advances of WWII fronts in 1944 and 1945, looking at maps and locations, looking at the original WWII comics, watching documentaries on concentration and exterminations camps. This was in order to determine a chronology for the Red Skull between July 1944 and April 1945. However I find I will need to make at least two separate posts on the subject due to information load considerations. This one will deal with the flashbacks in the mini-series Vengeance. My apologies if it is hard to follow. I don't mean to say it is perfect.

Vengeance 1-5 tells of a secret mission by the Red Skull: the building of extermination camps for two generations of Russian "perfect warriors" from their secret eugenics program to create supersoldiers like Captain America. The flashbacks occur in the sequence 1, 2, 3, 5, 4, with 5 taking place between 3 and 4. While flashbacks 1 to 4 tell of a single moment, 5 spreads over several months and reveals the whole picture.
In 1 Hitler informs Red Skull of the mission.
In 2 the Russian eugenicist becomes the first victim of a new type of extermination chamber.
In 3 all chambers have been built and will be operational the next day and the Russian families are already held in the camps.
In 4 the camp is shown deserted and the triumphant Red Skull is ordered to return to Germany.
In 5 the adult prisoner population is seen to dwindle and then children are led to the chambers.

Clear dates can be inferred only for the first and last chronological flashbacks: 22 July 1944 and April 1945.
The April 1945 date is derived from the mention that Allies are closing in on Berlin and the Red Skull must return to activate "Der Tag" (the Sleepers program mentioned in ToS 72).

I made a mistake when evaluating the placement for 2-FB, 3-FB and 5-FB when I first analysed this in July 2011: http://www.chronologyproject.com/phpbb2 ... f=2&t=5938 . On 22 July 44 a camp (Majdanek) was closed due to the advance of the Red Army, so I put all these flashbacks except the last one in 1944 on the rationale that all Eastern camps would be liberated by Jan 1945. But the series explains why the advance of the Red Army should not be taken into account: The camps are in "isolated regions of Northern Poland" "No communiqués will be sent from within these camps. Nothing that would betray their locations." A panel shows one in the middle of a pine forest. We are told the camps are only discovered by a Soviet Tank Brigade on 16 June 1945, abandoned. Based on this fictional premise, the camps can operate until April 1945 although their construction should be complete before the Eastern front in Poland is overrun on the third week of January 1945.

Here's a video showing the front lines. The part concerning the Eastern front starts at 11:23. This is very useful to date placement of troops to the day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AUdP-QVEKA

Two sentences give us a timeframe for the events: "Adult prisoner population: -96% within eighty days..." "child population suffered identical fate."
Supposing the child population is as big as the adult population the extermination operation lasts 167 days, so from late Oct 1944 to mid-April 1945. This gives an approximate date for the flashback in 2 when the chambers become operational and for 5 when they complete exterminating the second generation.

The flashback in 5 is told on pages 7-9 and covers a 1944-1947 timeframe. It is told through the character Ultimate Nullifier reading an old report. The Red Skull appears at a time when the camp is full of adult prisoners in only 4 panels, which can be lumped together at the start of the extermination process. He also appears in 9:1-FB in reference to his Berlin encounter with Captain America although the panel does not fit the story in ToS 72 or its retelling in CA annual 13. I will review the April 1945 chronology later to see if this panel should be included or simply dismissed as an "imagined reconstruction" from someone who was not there.

The breakdown is as follows:
7 - 8:1 Red Skull supervising (circa Oct 44 per my timetable)
8:2 - 8:4 adult prisoner population dwindling in the course of "80 days"
8:5 extermination of children starts (circa Feb 45 per my timetable)
8:6 camps are found on "June 1945"
9:1 Cap vs Red Skull (Berlin) rehashback to Apr 45
9:2 "13 Jan 46", interrogation of camp scientist by Allies
9:3 "inspection of camp via secret airdrop" (in Communist territory)
9:4 allegorical image of Red Skull
9:5 - 9:6 "16 Nov 47" tribunal decision to seal reports and hide existence of these camps

Current listing
RED SKULL/JOHANN SHMIDT
VENGEANCE 1-FB (July 22, 1944, Berlin)
VENGEANCE 2-FB
CA '01-FB (2 Aug 1944, Pacific)
VENGEANCE 3-FB delete from here
CA5 37-FB (25 Aug 1944, Paris)
CA5 12-FB-BTS (Sept 1944, France)
CA5 15 (1 - 4)-FB undated
CA/NF:OWW 1 (Oct 1944, next Cap mission is Zemo)
CA 600/2 (32:2)-FB-FB Apr 45
F 1-FB Skull sends Strucker to Hydra (in 1943 per Sgt Fury 29) circa 1944 or 1945 (per Fury 1)
CA 616/3-FB-BTS (March 45) (There might be a problem with the numbering of stories, I count eight stories, the MCP seven https://www.chronologyproject.com/phpbb ... b7f1002832)
VENGEANCE 4-FB (April 45)
VENGEANCE 5-FB delete from here
TWELVE:SH

There are problems with Fury 1. This needs a review on its own and I might advocate that it be deemed noncanon.

His chronology would read like this:
July 44 Red Skull is given his new mission in Berlin, gets a prototype extermination chamber built in Poland, kills the Russian eugenicist; goes to the Pacific looking for Atlantis; goes to Paris at the time of its liberation late Aug 44; gets sent to the Dark Dimension; starts the extermination of Russian super-soldiers in Poland circa Oct 44; is in Liege circa Jan 45; has an agent in the US in March 45; fights Cap in the Black Forest in early April shortly before US troops free Buchenwald and its 132 sub-camps (some liberated by Cap & Invaders); triumphs at the completion of his project in Poland, is told to return; meets Cap on 11 April at Kohnstein; and then a few days later in Berlin.

RED SKULL/Johann Schmidt
VENGEANCE 1-FB
VENGEANCE 2-FB
CA '01-FB
VENGEANCE 3-FB delete from here
CA5 37-FB
CA5 12-FB-BTS
CA5 15 (1 - 4)-FB
CA/NF:OWW 1
VENGEANCE 3-FB move to here
VENGEANCE 5-FB move to here
Invaders (2019) 7-FB add
CA 616/4-FB-BTS move to here and change number
CA 600/2 (32:2)-FB-FB
F 1-FB remove from here
CA 616/3-FB-BTS
VENGEANCE 4-FB
VENGEANCE 5-FB delete from here
TWELVE:SH

Corrected Harz mountains to Kohnstein.

[michel]

That's a very hard job you're doing here, I'm really impressed

[Russ Chappell]

Yep. Nice work.

[dimadick]

meets Cap on 11 April in the Harz mountains in North Germany; and then a few days later in Berlin.

The Harz Mountains were historically one of the last strongholds of Nazi Germany.:
*"In the last weeks of the Second World War, the so-called Harz Fortress (''Harzfestung'') is worth mentioning. In February/March 1945 the SS Reichsführer, Heinrich Himmler, established the Harz Fortress to defend central Germany from the western allies. Its headquarters was at Blankenburg. Amongst the formations mobilised were divisions belonging to the 11th Army, divisions of the Waffen SS and the ''Volkssturm''. When the United States First Army reached Nordhausen in the southern Harz, and went to advance northwards, it met with resistance, especially in the hills around the towns of Ilfeld and Ellrich. Not until 7 May 1945 did the last formations of the 11th Army and Waffen SS in the Harz surrender. Several units of ''Volkssturm'' troops fought on against the Americans during May."

[Leoparis]

My apologies, the Harz action in The Twelve: Spearhead does not involve the Red Skull nor Cap.
The action with them takes place at Kohnstein. I think you will find this fits the 11 April date given in the story.

Thanks for reviewing my post and pointing this mistake.