Written by Mr. Mouseburger 28th Feb 2006

Kindly submitted by Mr. Briggs Inc.

Karl Ruprecht Kroenen was Hitler's former top assassin before becoming a servant of the resurrected Rasputin. He is a man with a masochistic compulsion, known as surgical addiction, and his obsession led him to disfigure his face and remove various areas of his body replacing them with clockwork parts (although how he replaced his own heart with a wind-up crank is one of the many "supernatural" mysteries of the movie). As such, his blood dried up years ago and all that is left is sand.

Now all that remains for Hellboy is to kill this mechanical man. After Hellboy and Tom Manning brave countless obstacles through Rasputin's mausoleum, they find Kroenen sitting down in his lair, listening to excerpts from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde.

Manning, clumsily squeezing past Hellboy to get into the room, cuts himself and yelps which attracts Kroenen's attention, and he slinks away to get a better attack position.

Displaying some fancy, but utterly useless swordplay with his small baton-swords, Kroenen attacks Hellboy, and scores a few minor hits. These only serve to enrage Hellboy, who grabs the twin swords, throws Kroenen with great force into a wall, and repeatedly punches him, destroying his mask and revealing Kroenen's grotesque face.

Hellboy tells Kroenan "you killed my father, your ass is mine!". The response to this is not what Hellboy was expecting, as instead of fear, the former Nazi officer rears his head back and laughs the cruellest, deep, throaty cackle I believe I have ever heard. Hellboy is understandably confused by this, remarking "what are you laughing at, you nazi, son-of-a...". Before he can complete his sentence, Kroenen pulls a lever off to his side, causing the floor underneath Hellboy to open up, revealing a floor full of long sharp pointy things...

This leaves Hellboy at the mercy of Kroenen, who is about to loosen Hellboy's grip on the only handhold he has, when help comes from the unlikeliest of sources, Tom Manning. He distracts Kroenen from his task by throwing small gears at the cyborg-cadaver, which serve to irritate Kroenen rather than cause him injury. This distraction though gives Hellboy the time he needs though and, pulling himself up from the pit of spikes, he appears behind Kroenen, grabs him and throws him into the spike-lined pit.

Kroenen has, of course, survived impalement along with several gunshots before. However, this time Hellboy takes hold of an unusually large and heavy gear from the room and throws it directly on top of the still grunting and slowly convulsing figure, and in so doing, he avenges his adoptive father, Professor Broom.