sherloques:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Audio Commentary:

“There was some debate whether to have this moment of memory loss but it just works so well in terms of everything  being taken from Steve. Even his one friend is ceasing to exist before his eyes. For us that was the most interesting component of him as a character: when do you get to see a character who has lost everything? Everything in his life is being stripped away from him. 
You could look at that Rip Van Winkle idea and play into the fantasy aspect of it all, “Oh isn’t it fun to go to the future and experience something you never would have?” But you equally have to appreciate the tragedy of it, the loss of it, the cost of it. At the end of the day, all great superheroes have something very tragic in their experience. And this is part of Steve’s tragedy.”