Karl Ruprecht Kroenen
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Karl Ruprecht Kroenen is a fictional villain character in the Hellboy series of comics books, created by Mike Mignola, and its 2004 film adaptation, written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. The film and comic incarnations of Kroenen are quite different.
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[edit] Appearances
[edit] Early Life
In his early life, Kroenen was a relatively unremarkable SS scientist (other than always wearing a gas mask and protective bodysuit, possibly due to severe obsessive-compulsive disorder and fear of bacteria).
[edit] Hellboy
Kroenen is frozen inside a secret Nazi base, along with his companions (Ilsa Haupstein and Leopod Kurtz) during the Ragna Rok project. However, industrialist Roderick Zinco, aided by the resurrected monk Grigori Rasputin wakes them from their long sleep. During the creation of the Apocalypse Army, he is killed after an argument between Kurtz and Herman von Klempt when Zinco, blinded by an enraged Rasputin, accidentally presses a 'self-destruct' button.
In his life, Kroenen's origins are scarcely mentioned, other than his birthplace and his surgical addiction. Most of the following backstory is from the extra features that come with the DVD of the film.
Karl Ruprecht Kroenen was born in Munich, Germany in 1897. A musical prodigy with angelic features and blonde hair, young Kroenen toured the capitals of Europe singing opera until his voice deepened with the onset of puberty, thereby ending his career. From a very early age, he demonstrated symptoms of masochism, whipping himself with a fresh branch of oak each day, and finding pleasure in the pain.
As a teenager, he loathed his awkwardness and may have developed an extreme form of body dysmorphic disorder. He conducted a series of brutal experiments due to his surgical addiction, in which he surgically removed his own eyelids and lips. He later designed a tight-fitting gas mask to filter out germs and hide his disfigured face.
In 1930, he met the resurrected monk Grigori Rasputin for the first time. Obsessed with purity, Kroenen quickly became Rasputin’s most loyal disciple. He subsequently joined the Nazi Party, and rose quickly through the ranks, joining the Schutzstaffel in 1933 and achieving the rank of Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel). He was awarded the Iron Cross for services to the Third Reich. Kroenen became head of the Thule Society, a group of German aristocrats obsessed with the occult. He helped them to spearhead Project Ragna Rok, engineering the portal generator that would conjure the Scarlet Beast, Hellboy, in October 1944.
When Allied Forces stormed the island off the coast of Scotland where Project Ragna Rok took place, Kroenen lost his left hand trying to retrieve an active grenade thrown by a young Professor Trevor Bruttenholm. The grenade landed right beside the portal generator, and the spinning blades of the mechanism sever Kroenen’s left hand. When the grenade exploded, a length of shrapnel impaled Kroenen through the chest. Shortly thereafter, he disappeared.
After Kroenen's disappearance, records were found of his experiments on fusing steel to bone. This is further evidence of Kroenen's philosophy that humanity’s future lay in the marriage of flesh and machine. In 1956, an unmarked grave in Romania was found. Dental records identified the remains as those of Kroenen. However, Kroenen reappeared in 2004.
Using a mixture of occult magic and clockwork, Kroenen created a prosthetic heart and left hand. By cranking the key-like mechanism where his heart should be, he effectively was able to wind up his wrists, allowing him to wield his tonfa swords with superhuman skill and precision. He could also turn the key to "switch off" his body (literally), remaining in a dormant state and appearing dead, until his masters, the Ogdru Jahad, reanimated him. He used this deceptive technique to infiltrate the BPRD headquarters.
A ruthless and cunning assassin, Kroenen was responsible for the deaths of countless people, including scores of Allied Troops, as well as Hellboy’s father figure, Trevor Bruttenholm. He also critically wounded Agent Clay of the BPRD. In Kroenen’s lair beneath Rasputin’s mausoleum in Moscow, Hellboy seemingly avenged Bruttenholm's death by throwing Kroenen into his own trap — a spiked pit hidden beneath a trapdoor. Skewered on the stakes, the undead Kroenen then watched helplessly as Hellboy dropped a giant cog on top of him. However, considering the number of wounds he's sustained over his many years, he could have likely survived. It's never made clear if he was killed in the Hellboy movie, but if he was, he's very capable of being revived, which he's done many times before...
[edit] Weapons and equipment
Kroenen is seen wielding multiple weapons and wearing different equipment throughout his life. wearing a black trench coat, covering a black uniform of the Schutzstaffel, and his trademark gas mask. In the initial film battle, in which he kills several American soldiers, he uses a German Luger P08 handgun, and large katar-like daggers which spring from his sleeves. Later in the film he sports a tight-fitting, dark-colored fighting suit and mask that differs slightly from the equipment in the opening scene. His suit also includes the clockwork mechanism which he uses to remain animated since many of the systems of his body no longer work. He fights with two bladed tonfa swords. Kroenen is also briefly seen in his workshop, which includes a whole array of disturbing gadgets, along with several different versions of his gas mask.
In the comic adaptation, Kroenen is not seen fighting in the manner of the film version, but is able to wield a knife. When Kroenen grabs a scalpel to stop Leopold Kurtz from brutally beating Herman Von Klempt (killing Kurtz in the process), scissors, as well as many different knives (most with different blades), may be seen on the shelf from which Kroenen takes the scalpel.
Kroenen also has an affinity for all mechanical things, leading to the hobby of designing clocks, toys, and complex automata.
[edit] Portrayals
Czech actor Ladislav Beran portrayed Kroenen in the film adaptation of Hellboy.
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