| Magneto |  August Hirt. Director of Anatomy at Strasbourg University in the 1940s.  |
| Rogue | You knew him? |
| Magneto | Not well. And not for long. Just long enough to murder him. |
History
Origin and ascension[]
August Hirt was a member of the Faculty of Biology. In 1936, Adolf Hitler ascends and three of Hirt's superiors, Jews, were dismissed, leaving Hirt to take the directorship and to membership in the Ahnenerbe (Ahnenerbe Forschungs und Lehrgemeinschaft, the Nazi brain trust). At some point after France was invaded, he became the Director of Anatomy at Strasbourg University.
The skeleton collection[]
As a Nazi scientist, Hirt worried that once the extermination of what his ideology called "inferior races" was achieved, there would be no more proof from their inferiority. In 1941, he presented his project to Heinrich Himmler: Bringing a hundred of Jewish people, proceeded on full physiological measurement, and ultimately killed and their organs and skeletons preserved.
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Hirt meeting with Himmler
The Reich Fuhrer-SS loved the idea, and he had to receive every courtesy from the Nazis. In 1942, he came to Auschwitz-Birkenau to select his specimens. Seeing the young Max Eisenhardt, he asked for him, but the camp warden refused, as he was a Sonderkommando, a worker. Hirt mocked the future Magneto before leaving.
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Hirt asking for Eisenhardt
At last, he had assembled 115 subjects, including Asians, Romanies and Polishes among others, in order to don't forget any "inferior peoples". The measurements were taken at Narzweuker-Struthof, the only French concentration camp, and killed using potassium cyanide and oxalic acid. This whole operation was under his direct supervision. The bodies were then sent to Strasbourg Faculty of Biology.
Soon, the personal was overwhelmed by the corpses, where they were fated to rot, as an administration error had stopped in Dortmund the chemicals necessary for rendering the bodies.
Death[]
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Controlled by the French
In April 1945, the Allies were heading on Berlin and the Reich was sinking. Hirt fled across the French Border, to Germany, presenting himself as August Bremer, a salesman, but was although stopped by French soldiers there. He was held for the curfew and was joined during the night by Max Eisenhardt, now a young Nazi-hunter, who delivered to him a rope. Threatening to kill members of his family, Eisenhardt forced him to suicide. He was found hanged in the morning by the French soldiers.
Years later, his portrait was part of Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust exposition, and Magneto came their to talk with Rogue, telling his story to her.[1]Attributes
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Trivia
This version of August Hirt have numerous differences with his Earth-1218 counterpart, notably on the time-scale and on his death circumstances:
- Hirt didn't looked like Adolf Hitler.
- Over the 115 subjects of various groups, only 87 Jews arrived to Narzweuker-Struthof.
- Hirt seemingly didn't met Himmler, and the project wasn't that advanced in 1941. It was in October 1942 that Himmler give his assent to the project
- Hirt came to Auschwitz-Birkenau in June and July 1943 and not in April 1942. At this point, Josef Mengele was already there.
- The death of his "subjects" was "induced" by gas chamber and not by aqueous mixture of potassium cyanide and oxalic acid.
- His son was killed during Strasbourg bombing.
- He wasn't captured by the French but was hiding in the south Germany with his daughter, until the French occupation. At this point, he went to hide in the Black Forest, and eventually suicide by gun-firing.