"Still unwilling to make sacrifices. That's what makes you weak."

---

Erik was born in Düsseldorf, Germany, to a comfortably well-off Jewish family. He was the second of two children, his sister, Ruth, was two years older than him. His father, Jakob, was a decorated WWI veteran. His mother, Edie, was from Poland. After Kristallnacht, the Lehnsherr family fled Germany to Warsaw. Traveling with them was Erik's uncle, Max. They lived in the Warsaw Ghetto until they were transferred to Auschwitz. Jakob, Edie, Max, and Ruth all died there. Erik survived, his powers having caught the eye of Sebastian Shaw née Dr. Klaus Schmidt.

Shaw submitted Erik to medical and psychological torture in an attempt to draw out his powers. After the defeat of Germany and the liberation of the camps, Shaw disappeared.

A fifteen year old stateless refugee and orphan, Erik first went to Paris. He spent a few years there trying to catch up on all the education he had missed, working whatever odd job he could find, and learning how to exist in freedom. For a time, it was almost as if he could forget that any of it had happened at all. Once Israel was established as a sovereign nation in 1948, he emigrated. There he could no longer pretend. In talking with other survivors, he started putting together a plan to have his revenge on Shaw.

His path to revenge first took him through Eastern Europe and then America. There, he met Natalya Maximoff. They entered a relationship that was as intense as it was brief. The final straw for Natalya was Erik's plan to steal a huge cache of Nazi gold. He left to continue his mission, unaware that Natalya was pregnant with his eldest child, Peter.

After recovering the gold, Erik's hunt took him back and forth across the globe until in 1962 he nearly drowned trying to raise Shaw's submarine and was saved by Charles Xavier.

Despite their philosophical differences, Erik and Charles quickly fell into a passionate love affair that would shape the rest of both of their lives. Erik helped Charles begin his school and the X-Men. But the dream was not to last, and fell apart in Cuba; when Erik finally took his revenge on Shaw and Charles realized the validity of Erik's dire warnings when the U.S. and U.S.S.R. navies launched simultaneous missile attacks on them.

After leaving Charles paralyzed on the beach, Erik took over the Brotherhood of Mutants. His leadership was brief and tumultuous, both interpersonally and in what they were able to accomplish and Erik was soon falsely convicted of the assassination of JFK and imprisoned beneath the Pentagon.

In 1973 he was broken out of jail by Logan Howlett, Charles Xavier, and Peter Maximoff in an effort by the time traveling Logan to change the past. By the end of this misadventure, Erik had threatened Richard Nixon, and was narrowly prevented from assassinating him by Raven Darkholme. Dejected and defeated, Erik fled to Poland. There, he met and married Magda Eisenhardt. They had a daughter, Nina, who soon displayed mutant powers of her own. Erik's peace was not to last, and after saving one of his fellow steel mill workers during an earthquake he was confronted by the local police. In the ensuing conflict, Nina attacked the police and she and Magda were killed. In his rage and despair, Erik slaughtered the police and was recruited by Apocalypse to be his first horseman.

Under Apocalypse's direction, Erik reached the full destructive potential of his powers and nearly ripped the mantel off of the Earth's crust, slaughtering all of mankind. Reminding Erik of the love they shared, Charles was able to fight through Apocalypse's control, and convince Erik to turn on his master. Working with the rest of the X-Men, Erik was able to assist in Apocalypse's defeat.

He returned to Westchester with the X-Men, and remained there for a few months. He helped rebuild the mansion and began to heal from his latest grief. But eventually, his mission called him away and he had to leave once more.