Karl Ruprect Kroenen

Did You Know?

• German film historian Florian Evers devotes a whole chapter of his book on National Socialism in modern pop culture to Kroenen, calling him an incarnation of the Holocaust.
• Kroenen may have been based on the real Karl Ruprecht, an Austrian born in Gratkorn on June 19, 1910, who became a Nazi official and folklorist in 1934.
• Kroenen appears on a variety of merchandise, with his larger appearance in the 2004 film spawning various merchandise as well.

Fictional character biography

Karl Ruprecht Kroenen’s origins are a blank slate. Drawn to science, he showed strong surgical skills and carried out questionable experiments. In 1930, an experimental power source badly hurt him; his friend Herman von Klempt performed lifesaving surgery, after which Kroenen always wore full protective gear. He repaid von Klempt in 1936: when an explosion nearly killed him, Kroenen and Leopold Kurtz preserved von Klempt’s head in a jar. Kroenen entered the Nazi Party’s German Occult Bureau in 1935, and in 1937 Rasputin brought him into Project Ragna Rok. On December 23, 1944, Kroenen’s mechanical devices helped Rasputin attempt to summon the Ogdru Jahad, monsters meant to secure Nazi victory. Nothing obvious happened, though a red demonic child appeared miles away. Kroenen then followed Rasputin’s orders to a cryogenic chamber in Norway, where he, Kurtz, and Ilsa Haupstein stayed frozen for decades. In May 1994, the moment Rasputin died, the chamber began thawing them. By 1995, industrialist Roderick Zinco funded their work, and Kroenen and Kurtz built an apocalypse army of 666 reanimated soldiers. Zinco gave Kroenen von Klempt’s head, which Kroenen revived. Von Klempt tried to sway Kroenen away from Rasputin; Kurtz attacked von Klempt, and in the fight Kroenen killed Kurtz. Rasputin’s spirit cursed Zinco, who stumbled into a self-destruct switch. The resulting explosion presumably destroyed Kroenen and everyone else present.

In other media

Czech actor Ladislav Beran played Karl Ruprecht Kroenen in the 2004 Hellboy movie. The film version differs sharply from the comics: Kroenen remains a masked Nazi follower of Rasputin, but here he becomes a silent clockwork cyborg killer. Comic creator Mike Mignola called it fascinating to see his character turned into something he never imagined, and said it was great. Guillermo del Toro, the writer-director, gave this Kroenen a much more detailed backstory. He was born in Munich in 1897 and showed early talent for fencing and clockwork. His obsession with purity and perfection, along with a masochistic urge to punish himself, drove him to perform self-surgery: he removed his own eyelids and lips, then wore a tight mask that also kept out germs. In 1930 he met Rasputin and devoted himself to him. He joined the Nazi Party and the Schutzstaffel in 1933, later serving as commandant of Auschwitz. The film opens in 1944 with Allied troops breaking up a Nazi ritual. Kroenen is named as Hitler’s top assassin and head of the Thule Society. He helps Rasputin with a techno-magical ritual meant to summon the Ogdru Jahad, but American soldiers attack the camp. Kroenen uses blades attached to his forearms to kill many soldiers, ignoring bullet wounds. He is stopped when he tries to remove a grenade from the portal device; the machinery crushes his hand, and the explosion sends large metal shrapnel through his body. He vanishes, and a grave found years later turns out to be a fake.