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Our American Stories

Captain America and the Hitler Punch That Shocked the World

Our American Stories

iHeartPodcasts

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6817 Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2026

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1941, Captain America Comics No. 1 hit newsstands with an unforgettable image: Captain America punching Adolf Hitler. The cover appeared nearly a year before Pearl Harbor, at a time when much of the country was still divided over entering World War II.

Joe Parrott of Ohio State University explains how Captain America’s first appearance reflected the mood of the moment, the character’s Jewish roots, and why that single punch became one of the most important images in comic book history.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

This is an I-Heart podcast.

0:02.6

Guaranteed human.

0:14.0

And we return to our American stories.

0:17.9

Up next, the origin story of America's superhero, Captain America. You to tell the story

0:24.1

of how he came to be is R. Joseph Parrott. But first, a clip from a rare interview given by

0:30.9

Jack Kirby, one of Captain America's creators. Let's take a listen. I've always tried to do the

0:37.1

timely thing. The timely thing I think is what people understand.

0:42.0

Captain America is a product of his time.

0:47.2

If you're talking about Captain America, I mean, the first place you have to start is with that origin story.

0:53.8

Look, up in the sky.

0:55.3

Bird, it's a plane.

0:56.7

It's Superman!

0:57.7

You had an explosion after the appearance of Superman in the late 1930s of these superheroes

1:07.7

who were selling really well.

1:09.6

And so you had a lot of new heroes popping up.

1:12.8

And you had a number of mostly young guys concentrated in New York trying to create these new

1:18.0

heroes. And one of these guys was somebody named Joe Simon. And Joe Simon was working with

1:22.6

another guy named Jack Kirby. His name was Jacob Kurtzberg at the time. But Joe Simon's trying to come up with

1:28.0

one of these heroes. And the first thing, he kind of thinks to himself one day. I mean, there are a

1:32.0

bunch of stories about this, but if we listen to Joe Simon's version, which I think is pretty good.

1:36.4

Here's Captain America's co-creator Joe Simon in the 2011 documentary, Captain America,

1:41.8

the first Avenger. I was 24 when we first created Captain America.

...

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