Revision as of 10:44, 31 December 2007 editMaester mensch (talk | contribs)1,790 edits Revert to earlier version by User:Marktreut, too much unsourced statements about his death. As far as I know anthropology is another field of science.← Previous edit | Latest revision as of 15:56, 2 January 2025 edit undoFishy-Finns (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users661 edits Undid revision 1266865638 by 216.162.91.101 (talk)Tags: Undo Mobile edit Mobile web edit Advanced mobile edit | ||
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{{Short description|Nazi SS doctor at Auschwitz (1911–1979)}} | |||
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'''Dr. Josef Mengele''' (] ]– ], ]), was a German ] and a ] in the German ] ]. He gained notoriety chiefly for being one of the SS physicians who supervised the selection of arriving transports of prisoners, determining who was to be killed and who was to become a ], and for performing ] on camp inmates, amongst whom Mengele was known as the ''Angel of Death.'' | |||
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2024}} | |||
{{Use American English|date=January 2024}} | |||
{{Infobox military person | |||
| name = Josef Mengele | |||
| birth_date = {{birth date|1911|03|16|df=yes}} | |||
| death_date = {{death date and age|1979|2|7|1911|3|16|df=yes}} | |||
| birth_place = ], German Empire | |||
| death_place = ], São Paulo, Brazil | |||
| image = Josef Mengele, Auschwitz. Album Höcker (cropped).jpg | |||
| caption = Mengele at ] in 1944 | |||
| signature = Josef Mengele Signature.svg | |||
| birth_name = Josef Rudolf Mengele | |||
| nickname = {{plainlist | | |||
* Angel of Death ({{langx|de|link=no|Todesengel}}){{sfn|Levy|2006|p=242}} | |||
* White Angel ({{langx|de|link=no|der weiße Engel}} or {{lang|de|weißer Engel}}){{sfn|USHMM: Josef Mengele}} | |||
* Wolfgang Gerhard (burial name){{sfn|USHMM: Josef Mengele}} | |||
}} | |||
| allegiance = ] | |||
| branch = ] | |||
| serviceyears = 1938–1945 | |||
| rank = '']''-'']'' (captain) | |||
| servicenumber = {{plainlist | | |||
* ] #5,574,974 | |||
* SS #317,885 | |||
}} | |||
| battles = | |||
| unit = | |||
| awards = {{plainlist | | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* Medal for the Care of the German People | |||
}} | |||
| commands = | |||
| spouse = {{plainlist | | |||
* {{marriage|Irene Schönbein|1939|1954|reason=divorced}} | |||
* {{marriage|Martha Mengele|1958|<!--Per template docs, don't put "his death"-->}} | |||
}} | |||
| children = Rolf Mengele | |||
| alma_mater = {{plainlist | | |||
* ] | |||
* ] (]) | |||
* ] (]) | |||
}} | |||
}} | |||
'''Josef Rudolf Mengele''' ({{IPA|de|ˈjoːzɛf ˈmɛŋələ|lang|Josef_Rudolf_Mengele.ogg}}; 16 March 1911{{spaced ndash}}7 February 1979) was a German {{lang|de|]}} (SS) officer and physician during ] at the Russian front and then at Auschwitz during ], where he was nicknamed the "Angel of Death" ({{langx|de|link=no|Todesengel}}).{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=242}} He performed ] at the ] concentration camp, where he was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be murdered in the ],{{efn|New arrivals that were judged able to work were admitted into the camp, while those deemed unsuitable for labor were sent to the gas chambers.}} and was one of the doctors who administered the gas. | |||
After the war, he first hid in ] under an assumed name, then escaped and lived in ], first in ] (until 1959) and finally in ], in the cities of ], ], and then died in ], where he drowned in the sea after suffering a stroke. His identity was confirmed by forensic experts from ] (] University) using ] on his remains.{{Fact|date=October 2007}} | |||
Before the war, Mengele received doctorates in ] and medicine, and began a career as a researcher. He joined the ] in 1937 and the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World War II, then transferred to the ] service in early 1943 and assigned to Auschwitz, where he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments focused primarily on twins, with no regard for the health or safety of the victims.{{sfn|Kubica|1998|p=320}}{{sfn|Astor|1985|p=102}} With ] troops sweeping through ], Mengele was transferred {{convert|280|km|miles|abbr=off}} from Auschwitz to the ] on 17 January 1945, ten days before the arrival of the ] at Auschwitz. | |||
== Early years and career == | |||
Mengele was born in ], ], eldest of three sons of Karl Mengele. He had two younger brothers, Karl (1912–1949) and Alois (1914–1974). | |||
In 1930, Mengele left Günzburg ] (high school). He studied ] and ] at the ], earning a ] in ] (]), supervised by Prof. Theodor Mollison, in 1935 with a ] on racial differences in the structure of the lower jaw. He worked as an assistant to ] at the ] Institute of Hereditary Biology and ]. In 1938 he obtained a doctorate in ] (]) with a dissertation called "Familial Research on ] and ]." His belief in the Nazi racial ideology was already evident in his academic research.<ref name="history project"></ref> The Universities of Munich and Frankfurt revoked his degrees in 1964. | |||
After the war, Mengele fled to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by a ]. He initially lived in and around ], then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960, all while being sought by ], Israel, and ]s such as ], who wanted to bring him to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by the West German government and ]s by the Israeli intelligence agency ]. He drowned in 1979 after suffering a heart attack while swimming off the coast of ], and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard.{{sfn|USHMM: Josef Mengele}} His remains were disinterred and positively identified by forensic examination in 1985. | |||
In 1931, at the age of 20, Mengele joined the ], a paramilitary organization, which was incorporated into the ] in 1933. He resigned shortly thereafter, alluding to health problems. He applied for ] party membership in 1937 and in 1938 joined the ].<ref></ref> In 1939, Mengele married his first wife, Irene Schönbein, with whom he had one child, a son named Rolf. | |||
==Early life== | |||
In 1940 he was placed in the ] medical corps, following which he served with the ]. In 1942 he was wounded at the Russian front and was pronounced medically unfit for combat, and promoted to the rank of SS-] (]). During his service on the ] during 1941-1942, Mengele received the ], both first class and second class, the ] in black, and the ]. | |||
Mengele was born into a Catholic family{{sfn|Gopnik|2020}} in ], ], on 16 March 1911, the eldest of three sons of Walburga ({{née}} Hupfauer) and Karl Mengele.{{sfn|Astor|1985|p=12}} His two younger brothers were Karl Jr. and Alois. Their father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company (later renamed {{ill|Mengele Agrartechnik|de}}), which produced farming machinery.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=4–5}} Mengele was successful at school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=6–7}} He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study philosophy in ],{{sfn|Kubica|1998|p=318}} where the headquarters of the ] were located.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=81}} He attended the ], where he took his medical preliminary examination.{{sfn|US Justice Department|1992}} In 1931, he joined {{lang|de|]}}, a ] organization that was absorbed into the Nazi {{lang|de|]}} ('Storm Detachment'; SA) in 1934.{{sfn|Kubica|1998|p=318}}{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=8, 10}} In 1935, Mengele earned a ] in anthropology from the ].{{sfn|Kubica|1998|p=318}} In January 1937, he joined the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in ], where he worked for ], a German ] with a particular interest in researching twins.{{sfn|Kubica|1998|p=318}} | |||
As Von Verschuer's assistant, Mengele focused on the genetic factors that result in a ], or a ].{{sfn|Weindling|2002|p=53}} His ] on the subject earned him a {{lang|la|]}} doctorate in medicine (]) from the ] in 1938.{{sfn|Allison|2011|p=52}} (Both of his degrees were revoked by the issuing universities in the 1960s.){{sfn|Levy|2006|p=234 (footnote)}} In a letter of recommendation, Von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=340}} The American author ] notes that Mengele's published works were in keeping with the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside ].{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=340}} On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schönbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in ].{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=11}} Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=54}} | |||
==Military career== | |||
The ideology of ] brought together elements of ], ], and ], and combined them with ] and territorial ] with the goal of obtaining more {{lang|de|]}} ("living space") for the Germanic people.{{sfn|Evans|2008|p=7}} Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or murder the ] and ] living there, who were considered by the Nazis to be inferior to the putative "] ]".{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=132}} | |||
Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the {{lang|de|]}} (SS) in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the {{lang|de|]}} (mountain light infantry) and was called up for service in the {{lang|de|]}} (Nazi armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the {{lang|de|]}}, the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS-{{lang|de|]}} (second lieutenant) in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the ] in ], evaluating candidates for ].{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=16}}{{sfn|Kubica|1998|pp=318–319}} | |||
In June 1941, Mengele was posted to ], where he was awarded the ] 2nd Class. In January 1942, he joined the ] as a battalion medical officer. After rescuing two German soldiers from a burning tank, he was decorated with the Iron Cross 1st Class, the ] in Black, and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was declared unfit for further active service in mid-1942, when he was seriously wounded in action near ]. Following his recovery, he was transferred to the headquarters of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office in ], at which point he resumed his association with Von Verschuer, who had become director of the ]. Mengele was promoted to the rank of {{lang|de|SS-]}} (]) in April 1943.{{sfn|Kubica|1998|p=319}}{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=16–18}}{{sfn|Astor|1985|p=27}} | |||
==Auschwitz== | ==Auschwitz== | ||
] | |||
In 1942, ], originally intended to house slave laborers, began to be used instead as a combined ] and ].{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=282–283}}{{sfn|Steinbacher|2005|pp=94, 96}} Prisoners were transported there by rail from all over Nazi-controlled Europe, arriving in daily convoys.{{sfn|Steinbacher|2005|pp=104–105}} By July 1942, SS doctors were conducting ] where incoming Jews were segregated, and those considered able to work were admitted into the camp while those deemed unfit for labor were immediately murdered in the gas chambers.{{sfn|Rees|2005|p=100}} Those selected to be killed, about three-quarters of the total,{{efn|name=Hungarians|Of the Hungarians who arrived in mid-1944, 85 percent were murdered immediately.{{sfn|Steinbacher|2005|p=109}} }} included almost all children, women with small children, pregnant women, all the elderly, and all of those who appeared (in a brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor) to be not completely fit and healthy.{{sfn|Levy|2006|pp=235–237}}{{sfn|Astor|1985|p=80}} | |||
In 1943 Mengele replaced another doctor who had fallen ill at the ] ]. On ] 1943, he became medical officer of Auschwitz-Birkenau's "] camp." In August 1944, this camp was liquidated and all its inmates gassed. Subsequently Mengele became Chief Medical Officer of the main ] camp at Birkenau. He was not, though, the Chief Medical Officer of Auschwitz — superior to him was SS-Standortarzt (garrison physician) ]. | |||
In early 1943, Von Verschuer encouraged Mengele to apply for a transfer to the ] service.{{sfn|Kubica|1998|p=319}}{{sfn|Allison|2011|p=53}} Mengele's application was accepted and he was posted to Auschwitz, where he was appointed by SS-{{lang|de|Standortarzt}} ], chief medical officer at Auschwitz, to the position of chief physician of the {{lang|de|Zigeunerfamilienlager}} (] family camp) at Birkenau,{{sfn|Kubica|1998|p=319}}{{sfn|Allison|2011|p=53}} a subcamp located on the main Auschwitz complex. The SS doctors did not administer treatment to the Auschwitz inmates but supervised the activities of inmate doctors who had been forced to work in the camp medical service.{{sfn|Lifton|1985}} As part of his duties, Mengele made weekly visits to the hospital ] and ordered any prisoners who had not recovered after two weeks in bed to be sent to the gas chambers.{{sfn|Astor|1985|p=78}} | |||
It was during his 21-month stay at Auschwitz that Mengele achieved infamy, and it is for this period that he is referred to as the "Angel of Death." Mengele took turns with the other SS physicians at Auschwitz in meeting incoming prisoners at the ramp, determining who would be retained for work and who would be sent to the ]s immediately.<ref></ref> | |||
Mengele's work also involved carrying out selections, a task that he chose to perform even when he was not assigned to do so, in the hope of finding subjects for his experiments,{{sfn|Levy|2006|pp=248–249}} with a particular interest in locating sets of twins.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=29}} In contrast to most of the other SS doctors, who viewed selections as one of their most stressful and unpleasant duties, he undertook the task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=27}}{{sfn|Lifton|1985}} He was one of the SS doctors responsible for supervising the administration of ], the ]-based pesticide that was used for the mass killings in the Birkenau gas chambers. He served in this capacity at the gas chambers located in crematoria IV and V.{{sfn|Piper|1998|pp=170, 172}} | |||
When an outbreak of ]—a ] bacterial disease of the mouth and face—struck the Romani camp in 1943, Mengele initiated a study to determine the cause of the disease and develop a treatment. He enlisted the assistance of prisoner ], a Jewish ] and professor at ]. The patients were isolated in separate barracks and several afflicted children were killed so that their preserved heads and organs could be sent to the SS Medical Academy in ] and other facilities for study. This research was still ongoing when the Romani camp was liquidated and its remaining occupants murdered in 1944.{{sfn|Kubica|1998|p=320}} | |||
When a ] epidemic began in the women's camp, Mengele cleared one block of six hundred Jewish women and sent them to be killed in the gas chambers. The building was then cleaned and disinfected and the occupants of a neighboring block were bathed, de–loused, and given new clothing before being moved into the clean block. This process was repeated until all of the barracks were disinfected. Similar procedures were used for later epidemics of ] and other diseases, with infected prisoners being murdered in the gas chambers. For these actions, Mengele was awarded the ] (Second Class with swords) and was promoted in 1944 to First Physician of the Birkenau subcamp.{{sfn|Kubica|1998|pp=328–329}} | |||
===Human experimentation=== | ===Human experimentation=== | ||
{{See also|Nazi human experimentation}} | |||
Mengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his research on heredity, using inmates for ]. He was particularly interested in twins, who were selected and placed in special ]. He also studied a disease called ], which particularly affected children from the Gypsy camp. While the cause of Noma remains relatively unknown, it is now known that it affects chiefly children suffering from ] and a weak ], and many develop the disease shortly after having suffered another illness like ] or ]. Mengele tried to prove that Noma was caused by racial inferiority.<ref></ref> | |||
], Josef Mengele, and ] in Auschwitz, 1944 (])]] | |||
Mengele took an interest in physical abnormalities discovered among the arrivals at the concentration camp. This included dwarves, notably the ], a ] | |||
] artist's family, seven of whose ten members were dwarves. Prior to their deportation they toured in ] as the ]. He often called them "my dwarf family"; to him they seemed to be the perfect expression of "the abnorm." | |||
Mengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his anthropological studies and research into heredity, using inmates for ].{{sfn|Kubica|1998|p=320}} His medical experiments showed no consideration for the victims' health, safety, or physical and emotional suffering.{{sfn|Kubica|1998|p=320}}{{sfn|Astor|1985|p=102}} He was particularly interested in ], people with ] (eyes of two different colors), ], and people with physical abnormalities.{{sfn|Kubica|1998|p=320}} Elizabeth Moscowitz, who was a member of the ], testified that upon seeing her and other members of her family Mengele exclaimed "Now I have work for 20 years".{{sfn|Friedman|1985}} Twin research was of particular interest to Mengele, as one twin could serve as subject with the other as the control.{{Sfn|Thornton|2006|p=1747}} ] and others reported that the twin studies may also have been motivated by an intention to uncover strategies for 'racially desirable' Germans to reproduce more twins.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|pp=358–359}} A grant was later provided by the {{lang|de|]}} ('German Research Foundation'), at the request of Von Verschuer, who received regular reports and shipments of specimens from Mengele. The grant was used to build a pathology laboratory attached to Crematorium II at Auschwitz II-Birkenau.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=33}} Nyiszli, who was forced to work on Mengele's behalf due to his pathologist background, prepared specimens and performed autopsies for this laboratory.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=33–34}}{{sfn|Nyiszli|2011|p=158}} | |||
Not all of Mengele's experiments were of scientific value, including attempts to change eye color by injecting chemicals into children's eyes, various ]s of limbs and other brutal ]. ]'s account of her time in Auschwitz details certain experiments performed on female prisoners around October 1943. During ]s Mengele would show up to perform a "special work detail" selection, which fooled some into thinking that this would be a relief from the otherwise ] they were performing. Mengele would experiment on the chosen girls, performing ] and ]s. Most of the victims died, either due to the experiments or later infections. | |||
Mengele's research subjects were better fed and housed than the other prisoners, and temporarily spared from the gas chambers.{{sfn|Nyiszli|2011|p=57}} His research subjects lived in their own barracks, where they were provided with a marginally better quality of food and somewhat improved living conditions than the other areas of the camp.{{sfn|Kubica|1998|pp=320–321}} When visiting his young subjects, he introduced himself as "Uncle Mengele" and offered them sweets.{{sfn|Lagnado|Dekel|1991|p=9}} A former Auschwitz inmate doctor said of Mengele: | |||
A ] prisoner doctor, ], who was an experienced ] and had studied in Germany, was chosen to work as Mengele's assistant, and wrote about his experiences. The subjects of Mengele's research were better fed and housed than ordinary prisoners and were, for the time being, safe from the gas chambers. To Mengele they were nevertheless not fellow ], but rather material on which to conduct his experiments. On several occasions he killed subjects simply to be able to ] them afterwards.<ref name="history project"/> | |||
{{block quote|He was capable of being so kind to the children, to have them become fond of him, to bring them sugar, to think of small details in their daily lives, and to do things we would genuinely admire ... And then, next to that, ... the crematoria smoke, and these children, tomorrow or in a half-hour, he is going to send them there. Well, that is where the anomaly lay.{{sfn|Lifton|1985|p=337}} }} | |||
== After Auschwitz == | |||
When the SS abandoned the Auschwitz Camp on ], ], Mengele came to Groß Rosen camp in lower ], again working as camp physician. Groß Rosen was dissolved in the end of February, when the ] was already very near. Mengele worked in other camps for a short time, and, on ], joined a ] medical unit led by his former colleague at the Institute of Hereditary Biology and ], Dr. Hans Otto Kahler, in Bohemia. The unit hurried west to avoid being captured by the Soviets and were taken as ] by the Americans. Mengele, initially registered under his own name, was released in June 1945 with papers giving his name as "Fritz Hollmann." From July 1945 until May 1949, he worked as a farmhand in a small village near ], ], staying in contact with his wife and his old friend Hans Sedlmeier. It was Sedlmeier who arranged Mengele's escape to ] via ], ], ] and ]. Mengele may have been assisted by the ] network.<ref>Ulrich Völklein: Mengele - Der Arzt von Auschwitz. Göttingen, 2001</ref> | |||
In his twin experiments, Mengele generally ordered the twins to undertake weekly physical examinations.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=350}} Then, he would subject them to a variety of procedures, including amputating healthy limbs, deliberately infecting them with diseases such as typhus, and transfusing the blood of one twin into another.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=37}} Many died during the procedures,{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=37}} and those who survived were often killed and dissected for comparative post-mortem reports.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|pp=347, 351, 353}} Nyiszli recalled one occasion where Mengele killed 14 twins at the same time by injecting their hearts with chloroform.{{sfn|Lifton|1985}} Some twins were sewn back to back in an attempt to create conjoined twins.{{sfn|Mozes-Kor|1992|p=57}}{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=37}} | |||
== Mengele in South America== | |||
In Buenos Aires, Mengele at first worked as a construction worker, but came in contact with influential Germans soon, which allowed him an affluent lifestyle for the next years. He also got money from his family and from Sedlmeier. In Buenos Aires, he got to know other Germans such as ] and ]. In 1955, he bought a fifty per cent share of a pharmaceutical company, the same year he divorced from his wife, Irene. Three years later he married Martha Mengele, the widow of his younger brother Karl Jr.; she then came to Argentina with her then fourteen-year-old son, Dieter. Mengele lived with his family in a German owned boardinghouse in the Buenos Aires suburb of Vicente Lopez from 1958 to 1960. <ref>Harel, I: "The House on Garibaldi Street", page 194. Viking Press, 1975</ref> | |||
] | |||
] | |||
Although he was doing well in South America, Mengele feared being captured so he left Argentina in 1960 and moved to ] after managing to get a Paraguayan passport on the name "Mengele José". Mengele escaped to ] from Argentina weeks before the May 1960 Israeli ] operation that abducted ]. Mengele was a secondary objective of this operation however he was never found. <ref>Harel, I: "The House on Garibaldi Street", page 194. Viking Press, 1975</ref> Mengele hoped that Paraguay would be safer for him, as dictator ] was of German descent. Among other locations in Paraguay, he lived on the outskirts of Hohenau, a German colony north of Encarnacion in the department of ]. His anxiety, however, haunted him, especially after he heard of the Mossad's abduction of Eichmann and the trial and execution in ]. Using the identity of "Peter Hochbichler", he crossed the border to ] in 1960 and lived in ] with the Austrian-born ] Wolfgang Gerhard, who was a member of Hans-Ulrich Rudel's "]." | |||
Other experiments he performed included injecting chemicals into inmates' eyes to change their eye color,{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=362}} removing the eyes of dead inmates and occasionally "pinning them on walls like butterflies",{{sfn|Halioua|Marmor|2020}} removing the teeth and blood of dwarfs and inmates with physical abnormalities, and forcing inmates to undergo unnecessary drug and X-ray treatments.{{sfn|Astor|1985|p=102}} Pregnant women were also victims of these experiments.{{sfn|Brozan|1982}} Survivors were typically sent to the gas chambers within weeks. Their skeletons were sent to Berlin for further analysis.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=360}} Mengele removed the hearts and stomachs of victims without anesthesia{{sfn|Lee|1996|p=85}} and forced one inmate who survived the removal of a kidney to work without painkillers afterwards.{{sfn|Schult|2009}} | |||
Mengele has an illegitimate daughter born to an Australian woman of German lineage after a liaison between the two; when the woman, aged 23, and her mother and brother visited a German colony in Paraguay in mid-1960. The child was born in ] on ], 1961. She was adopted privately. Source: Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Victoria, Australia. Births and Adoptions records ]. Obtained under FOI act, ]. | |||
In his 1986 book, Lifton described Mengele as sadistic, lacking empathy, and extremely antisemitic, believing the Jews should be eliminated as an inferior and dangerous race. He also believed that he was responsible for an unknown number of deaths via other experiments, lethal injections, beatings, and shootings.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|pp=376–377}} | |||
The same year, Mengele moved to Nova Europa, about three hundred kilometres (186 miles) outside São Paulo, where he lived with the Hungarian refugees Geza and Gitta Stammer, working as manager of their farm. In the seclusion of his Brazilian hideaway, Mengele became depressed, egomaniacal and aggressive, always fearing being captured. In 1974, when his relationship with the Stammer family was coming to an end, Rudel and Gerhard discussed relocating Mengele to ] where he could spend time with ], but Mengele rejected this proposal. Instead, he lived in a bungalow in a suburb of São Paulo for the last years of his life. In 1977, his only son Rolf, never having known his father before, visited him there and found an unrepentant Nazi who claimed he "had never personally harmed anyone in his whole life."<ref>Ulrich Völklein: Mengele - Der Arzt von Auschwitz. Göttingen, 2001</ref> | |||
==After Auschwitz== | |||
Mengele, whose health had deteriorated for years, died on ], ], in ], Brazil, where he accidentally drowned or, in another version, suffered a stroke while swimming in the sea. He was buried in ] under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard," whose ID-card he had used since 1976. | |||
] | |||
Along with several other Auschwitz doctors, Mengele transferred to ] in ] on 17 January 1945, taking with him two boxes of specimens and the records of his experiments at Auschwitz. Most of the camp medical records had already been destroyed by the SS{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=255}}{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=57}} by the time the ] liberated Auschwitz on 27 January.{{sfn|Steinbacher|2005|p=128}} Mengele fled Gross-Rosen on 18 February, a week before the Soviets arrived there, and traveled westward to ] in ], disguised as a {{lang|de|Wehrmacht}} officer. There he temporarily entrusted his incriminating documents to a nurse with whom he had struck up a relationship.{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=255}} He and his unit then hurried west to avoid being captured by the Soviets, but were taken ] by the Americans in June 1945. Although Mengele was initially registered under his own name, he was not identified as being on the major war criminal list due to the disorganization of the Allies regarding the distribution of wanted lists, and the fact that he did not have the usual ].{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=63}} He was released at the end of July and obtained false papers under the name "Fritz Ulmann", documents he later altered to read "Fritz Hollmann".{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=64, 68}} | |||
After several months on the run, including a trip back to the Soviet-occupied area to recover his Auschwitz records, Mengele found work near ] as a farmhand.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=68, 88}} He eventually escaped from Germany on 17 April 1949,{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=87}}{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=263}} convinced that his capture would mean a trial and death sentence. Assisted by a network of former SS members, he used the ] to travel to ], where he obtained a passport from the ] under the ] "Helmut Gregor", and sailed to Argentina in July 1949.{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=264–265}} His wife refused to accompany him, and they divorced by proxy in ] in 1954.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=88,108}}{{sfn|Blumenthal, June 1985}} | |||
== The manhunt for Mengele == | |||
Mengele was listed on the Allies' list of ] as early as 1944. His name was mentioned in the ] several times, but Allied forces were convinced that Mengele was dead, which was also claimed by Irene and the family in Günzburg. In 1959, after suspicions had grown that he was still alive, given his divorce from Irene in 1955 and his marriage to Martha in 1958, a warrant of arrest was issued by the German authorities. Subsequently, German attorneys, such as ], Israel's ], and private investigators like ] and ] followed the trail of the "Angel of Death". The last confirmed sightings of Mengele placed him in Paraguay, and it was believed that he was still hiding there, protected by ] and dictator ]. Sightings of Mengele were reported all over the world, but they turned out to be false clues. | |||
==In South America== | |||
In 1985, the German police raided the house of Hans Sedlmeier in Günzburg and seized address books, letters and papers hinting at the grave in Embu. Mengele was exhumed in May 1985 and identified by forensic experts from ]. Rolf Mengele issued a statement saying that he "had no doubt it was the remains of his father".<ref>Ulrich Völklein: Mengele - Der Arzt von Auschwitz. Göttingen, 2001 </ref> Everything was kept quiet "to protect those who knew him in South America", Rolf said. In 1992, a ] test confirmed Mengele's identity. He had evaded capture for 34 years and was the subject of ]'s best-selling ] and later | |||
Mengele worked as a carpenter in ], Argentina, while lodging in a ] in the suburb of ].{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=95}} After a few weeks, he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathizer in the neighborhood of ]. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, Karl Mengele & Sons, and in 1951 he began making frequent trips to ] as a regional sales representative.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=104–105}} He moved into an apartment in central Buenos Aires in 1953, used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern, and then rented a house in the suburb of ] in 1954.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=107–108}} Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license while living in Buenos Aires, including performing abortions.{{sfn|Nash|1992}} | |||
], '']''. | |||
After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport using his real name and embarked on a trip to Europe.{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=267}}{{sfn|Astor|1985|p=166}} He met with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz"){{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=2}} and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, for a ski holiday in Switzerland; he also spent a week in his home town of Günzburg.{{sfn|Astor|1985|p=167}}{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=111}} When he returned to Argentina in September 1956, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three began living together. Josef and Martha were married in 1958 while on holiday in ], and they bought a house in Buenos Aires.{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=267}}{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=112}} Mengele's business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a ] company.{{sfn|Astor|1985|p=167}} Along with several other doctors, he was questioned in 1958 on suspicion of practicing medicine without a license when a teenage girl died after an abortion, but he was released without charge. Aware that the publicity could lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship there in 1959 under the name "José Mengele".{{sfn|Levy|2006|pp=269–270}} He returned to Buenos Aires several times to settle his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to West Germany.{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=273}} | |||
On Sept 17, 2007, the US Holocaust Museum released a photo album of Auschwitz containing photos of Mengele. The eight photos of Mengele are the first authenticated pictures of him at Auschwitz, museum officials said. | |||
Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the ] in the mid-1940s, but the Allied forces believed that he was probably already dead.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=76, 82}} Irene Mengele and the family in Günzburg also claimed that he had died.{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=261}} Working in West Germany, ]s ] and ] collected information from witnesses about Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein discovered Mengele's divorce papers, which listed an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured the West German authorities into starting extradition proceedings, and an arrest warrant was drawn up on 5 June 1959.{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=271}}{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=121}} Argentina initially refused the extradition request because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents; by the time extradition was approved on 30 June, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay and was living on a farm in ], near the Argentine border.{{sfn|Levy|2006|pp=269–270, 272}}{{sfn|Brooke|1993}} Mengele reportedly worked as a ] under the alias of 'Francisco Fischer' while living in Hohenau, before leaving Paraguay for Brazil sometime in 1964.{{sfn|Gibbs|2024}} After a request from Paraguayan Attorney General Clotildo Jimenez, the ] annulled Mengele's citizenship in August 1979.{{sfn|Belnap|1979}} | |||
== See also == | |||
*] | |||
===Efforts by Mossad=== | |||
*] | |||
In May 1960, ], director of the Israeli intelligence agency ], personally led the successful effort to capture ] in Buenos Aires. He was hoping to track down Mengele so that he too could be brought to trial in Israel.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=139}} Under interrogation, Eichmann provided the address of a boarding house that had been used as a ] for Nazi fugitives. ] of the house did not reveal Mengele or any members of his family, and the neighborhood postman claimed that although Mengele had recently been receiving letters there under his real name, he had since relocated without leaving a forwarding address. Harel's inquiries at a machine shop where Mengele had been part owner also failed to generate any leads, so he was forced to abandon the search.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=142–143}} | |||
Despite having provided Mengele with legal documents using his real name in 1956 (which had enabled him to formalize his permanent residency in Argentina), West Germany was now offering a reward for his capture. Continuing newspaper coverage of his wartime activities, with accompanying photographs, led Mengele to relocate again in 1960. Former pilot ] put him in touch with the Nazi supporter Wolfgang Gerhard, who helped Mengele cross the border into Brazil.{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=273}}{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=162}} He stayed with Gerhard on his farm near ] until a more permanent accommodation could be found, which came about with Hungarian ] Géza and Gitta Stammer. The couple bought a farm in ] with the help of an investment from Mengele, who was given the job of managing for them. The three bought a coffee and cattle farm in ] in 1962, with Mengele owning a half interest.{{sfn|Levy|2006|pp=279–281}} Gerhard had initially told the Stammers that the fugitive's name was "Peter Hochbichler", but they discovered his true identity in 1963. Gerhard persuaded the couple not to report Mengele's location to the authorities by convincing them that they themselves could be implicated for harboring a fugitive.{{sfn|Levy|2006|pp=280, 282}} In February 1961, West Germany widened its extradition request to include Brazil, having been tipped off to the possibility that Mengele had relocated there.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=168}} | |||
Meanwhile, ], one of the Mossad agents who had been involved in the Eichmann capture, was placed in charge of a team of agents tasked with tracking down Mengele and bringing him to trial in Israel. Their inquiries in Paraguay revealed no clues to his whereabouts, and they were unable to intercept any correspondence between Mengele and his wife Martha, who by this time was living in Italy. Agents who were following Rudel's movements also failed to produce any leads.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=166–167}} Aharoni and his team followed Gerhard to a rural area near São Paulo, where they identified a European man whom they believed to be Mengele.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=184–186}} This potential breakthrough was reported to Harel, but the logistics of staging a capture, the budgetary constraints of the search operation, and the priority of focusing on Israel's deteriorating relationship with Egypt led the Mossad chief to call off the manhunt in 1962.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=184, 187–188}}{{sfn|Horovitz|2018}} | |||
===Later life and death=== | |||
In 1969, Mengele and the Stammers jointly purchased a farmhouse in ], with Mengele as half owner.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=223}} When Wolfgang Gerhard returned to Germany in 1971 to seek medical treatment for his ailing wife and son, he gave his ] to Mengele.{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=289}} The Stammers' friendship with Mengele deteriorated in late 1974, and when they bought a house in São Paulo, he was not invited to join them.{{efn|name=relationship|Based on entries in Mengele's journals and interviews with his friends, historians such as ] and Gerald Astor believe that Mengele had a sexual relationship with Gitta Stammer.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=178–179}}{{sfn|Astor|1985|p=224}} }} The Stammers later bought a bungalow in the Eldorado neighborhood of ], which they rented out to Mengele.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=242–243}} Rolf, who had not seen his father since the ski holiday in 1956, visited him at the bungalow in 1977; he found an "unrepentant Nazi" who claimed he had never personally harmed anyone and ] as an officer.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=2, 279}} | |||
Mengele's health had been steadily deteriorating since 1972. He suffered a ] in 1976,{{sfn|Levy|2006|pp=289, 291}} experienced high blood pressure, and developed an ear infection which affected his balance. On 7 February 1979, while visiting his friends Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert in the coastal resort of ], Mengele had a heart attack while swimming and drowned.{{sfn|Evans|2008|p=746}} His body was buried in ] under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard", whose identification Mengele had been using since 1971.{{sfn|Blumenthal, July 1985|p=1}} Other aliases used by Mengele in his later life included "Dr. Fausto Rindón" and "S. Josi Alvers Aspiazu".{{sfn|Zentner|Bedürftig|1991|p=586}} | |||
==Exhumation== | |||
] | |||
Sightings of Mengele were being reported all over the world in the decades following the war. Wiesenthal claimed to have information that placed Mengele on the Greek island of ] in 1960,{{sfn|Segev|2010|p=167}} in ] in 1961,{{sfn|Walters|2009|p=317}} in Spain in 1971,{{sfn|Walters|2009|p=370}} and in Paraguay in 1978, eighteen years after he had left the country.{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=296}} He insisted as late as 1985 that Mengele was still alive—six years after he had died—having previously offered a reward of ]100,000 ({{Inflation|US|100,000|1982|fmt=eq|r=-5}}) in 1982 for the fugitive's capture.{{sfn|Levy|2006|pp=297, 301}} Worldwide interest in the case was heightened by a mock trial held in ] in February 1985, featuring the testimonies of over one hundred victims of Mengele's experiments. Shortly afterwards, the West German, Israeli, and U.S. governments launched a coordinated effort to determine Mengele's whereabouts. The West German and Israeli governments offered rewards for his capture, as did '']'' and the ].{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=306–308}} | |||
On 31 May 1985, acting on intelligence received by the West German prosecutor's office, police raided the house of Hans Sedlmeier, a lifelong friend of Mengele and sales manager of the family firm in Günzburg.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=89, 313}} They found a coded address book and copies of letters sent to and received from Mengele. Among the papers was a letter from Wolfram Bossert notifying Sedlmeier of Mengele's death.{{sfn|Levy|2006|p=302}} German authorities alerted the police in São Paulo, who then contacted the Bosserts. Under interrogation, they revealed the location of Mengele's grave{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=315, 317}} and the remains were exhumed on 6 June 1985. Extensive ] examination indicated with a high degree of probability that the body was indeed that of Josef Mengele.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|pp=319–321}} Rolf Mengele issued a statement on 10 June confirming that the body was his father's and that news of his father's death had been concealed to protect people who had sheltered him.{{sfn|Posner|Ware|1986a|p=322}} | |||
In 1992, ]ing confirmed Mengele's identity beyond doubt,{{sfn|Saad|2005}} but family members refused repeated requests by Brazilian officials to repatriate the remains to Germany.{{sfn|Simons|1988}} The skeleton is stored at the São Paulo Institute for Forensic Medicine, where it is used as an educational aid during forensic medicine courses at the ]'s medical school.{{sfn|''The Guardian''|2017}} | |||
==Later developments== | |||
<!--PLEASE DO NOT ADD TO THIS SECTION: (1) Boys from Brazil book/film or (2) Angel of Death track by Slayer. Both are trivial popular culture items that do not belong in this article, as discussed on Talk page and deprecated in ]--> | |||
In 2007, the ] received as a donation the ], an album of photographs of Auschwitz staff taken by ]. Eight of the photographs include Mengele.{{sfn|USHMM: SS Auschwitz album}} In February 2010, a 180-page volume of Mengele's diary was sold by ] at auction for an undisclosed sum to the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. The unidentified previous owner, who acquired the journals in Brazil, was reported to be close to the Mengele family. A Holocaust survivors' organization described the sale as "a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from the writings of one of the most heinous Nazi criminals".{{sfn|Oster|2010}} Rabbi ] of the Simon Wiesenthal Center was glad to see the diary fall into Jewish hands, calling the acquisition significant.{{sfn|Hier|2010}} In 2011 (centenary of Mengele's birth), a further 31 volumes of Mengele's diaries were sold—again amidst protests—by the same auction house to an undisclosed collector of World War II memorabilia for US$245,000.{{sfn|Aderet|2011}} | |||
==Publications== | |||
* ''Racial-Morphological Examinations of the Anterior Portion of the Lower Jaw in Four Racial Groups''. This dissertation, completed in 1935 and first published in 1937, earned him a PhD in anthropology from Munich University. In this work Mengele sought to demonstrate that there were structural differences in the ] of individuals from different ethnic groups, and that racial distinctions could be made based on these differences.{{sfn|Kubica|1998|p=318}}{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=339}} | |||
* ''Genealogical Studies in the Cases of Cleft Lip-Jaw-Palate'' (1938), his medical dissertation, earned him a doctorate in medicine from Frankfurt University. Studying the influence of genetics as a factor in the occurrence of this deformity, Mengele conducted research on families who exhibited these traits in multiple generations. The work also included notes on other abnormalities found in these family lines.{{sfn|Kubica|1998|p=318}}{{sfn|Lifton|1986|pp=339–340}} | |||
* ''Hereditary Transmission of Fistulae Auris''. This journal article, published in {{lang|de|Der Erbarzt}} ('The Genetic Physician'), focuses on ] (an abnormal fissure on the external ear) as a hereditary trait. Mengele noted that individuals who have this trait also tend to have a ] on their chin.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=340}} | |||
==See also== | |||
{{div col|colwidth=15em}} | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
*'']'' | |||
* ] | |||
{{div col end}} | |||
==References== | ==References== | ||
===Informational notes=== | |||
{{notelist}} | |||
===Citations=== | |||
{{reflist}} | {{reflist}} | ||
== |
===Bibliography=== | ||
{{refbegin|30em}} | |||
* ''Mengele - the complete story'', Gerald Posner and John Ware, McGraw Hill Book Company, New York, 1986 ISBN 0-07-050598-5 | |||
* {{Cite news |last=Aderet |first=Ofer |title=Ultra-Orthodox man buys diaries of Nazi doctor Mengele for $245,000 |date=22 July 2011 |newspaper=Haaretz |url=http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/ultra-orthodox-man-buys-diaries-of-nazi-doctor-mengele-for-245-000-1.374642 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924163812/http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/ultra-orthodox-man-buys-diaries-of-nazi-doctor-mengele-for-245-000-1.374642 |archive-date=24 September 2015 |url-status=dead |access-date=20 May 2020}} | |||
*]'s ''At Last the Truth About Eichmann's Inferno Auschwitz'' and ''Auschwitz—A doctor’s eyewitness account'' describes his experience involuntary working for Mengele. | |||
* {{cite book |last=Allison |first=Kirk C. |editor1-last=Friedman |editor1-first=Jonathan C |title=Routledge History of the Holocaust |year=2011 |chapter=Eugenics, race hygiene, and the Holocaust: Antecedents and consolidations |pages=45–58 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |location=Milton Park; New York |isbn=978-0-415-77956-2}} | |||
*The book ''Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Ausch'' by Lucette Matalon Lagado and Sheila Cohn Dekel is a collection of witness accounts pieced together in a biography of sorts about Dr. Mengele and his experiments. | |||
* {{cite book |last=Astor |first=Gerald |title=Last Nazi: Life and Times of Dr Joseph Mengele |publisher=Donald I. Fine |location=New York |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-917657-46-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/lastnazilifetime00asto}} | |||
* '']'', a novel by ], Bantam, 1991 ISBN 0553290045 — filmed, starring ] as Mengele | |||
* {{cite news |last1=Belnap |first1=David F. |author1-link=David Belnap |title=Mengele Hunt Focuses on Paraguay |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/08/10/mengele-hunt-focuses-on-paraguay/101ad31d-e3a0-480c-bfea-7b116792ed2a/ |date=10 August 1979 |newspaper=] |language=en |access-date=20 December 2024}} | |||
* ''The "Last" Nazi - The Life and Times of Dr. Joseph Mengele'', Gerald Astor, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1985 ISBN 0 297 78853 1 | |||
* {{cite news |last1=Blumenthal |first1=Ralph |author-link=Ralph Blumenthal |title=Investigators Turn Attention to Mengele Family Contacts |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/11/world/investigators-turn-attention-to-mengele-family-contacts.html |work=] |access-date=26 January 2024 |language=English |date=11 June 1985 |ref={{sfnRef|Blumenthal, June 1985}} }} | |||
* {{Cite news |last=Blumenthal |first=Ralph |title=Scientists Decide Brazil Skeleton Is Josef Mengele |work=The New York Times |date=22 July 1985 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/22/world/scientists-decide-brazil-skelton-is-josef-mengele.html |access-date=1 February 2014 |ref={{sfnRef|Blumenthal, July 1985}} }} | |||
*{{cite news|last=Brooke |first=James |author-link=James Brooke (journalist)|title=Hohenau Journal; Sure, Mengele Was at Home Here, but Bormann?|newspaper=The New York Times|location=New York|date=1 June 1993|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/01/world/hohenau-journal-sure-mengele-was-at-home-here-but-bormann.html|access-date=31 May 2024}} | |||
* {{Cite news |last=Brozan |first=Nadine |title=Out of Death, a Zest for Life |journal=The New York Times |date=15 November 1982 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/15/style/out-of-death-a-zest-for-life.html}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Evans |first=Richard J. |author-link=Richard J. Evans |year=2008 |title=The Third Reich at War |publisher=Penguin |location=New York |isbn=978-0-14-311671-4 |title-link=The Third Reich at War}} | |||
* {{cite news |last1=Friedman |first1=Thomas L. |author1-link=Thomas Friedman |title=Jerusalem Listens to the Victims of Mengele |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/07/world/jerusalem-listens-to-the-victims-of-mengele.html |access-date=20 December 2024 |work=New York Times |date=7 February 1985}} | |||
* {{Cite news |last=Gibbs |first=Stephen |title= | |||
Shadow of Josef Mengele still hangs over his Paraguayan bolthole |url=https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/josef-mengele-nazi-war-criminal-paraguay-gssdw3p77|newspaper=] |date=19 December 2024 |language=en |access-date=20 December 2024 }} | |||
* {{cite magazine |last1=Gopnik |first1=Adam |author-link=Adam Gopnik |title=Revisiting Mengele's Malignant "Race Science" |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/22/revisiting-mengeles-malignant-race-science |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=1 January 2023 |date=15 June 2020}} | |||
* {{Cite journal |last1=Halioua |first1=Bruno |last2=Marmor |first2=Michael F. |date=2020 |title=The eyes of the angel of death: Ophthalmic experiments of Josef Mengele |journal=Survey of Ophthalmology |volume=65 |issue=6 |pages=744–748 |doi=10.1016/j.survophthal.2020.04.007 |pmid=32387532 |s2cid=218586577 | issn = 0039-6257}} | |||
* {{cite web |last=Hier |first=Marvin |author-link=Marvin Hier |title=Wiesenthal Center Praises Acquisition of Mengele's Diary |year=2010 |publisher=Simon Wiesenthal Center |url=http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=5711859&ct=7985857 |access-date=2 February 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170508051147/http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=5711859&ct=7985857 |archive-date=8 May 2017 |url-status=dead}} | |||
*{{cite news |last1=Horovitz |first1=David |title=Mossad chose not to nab Mengele, didn’t hunt down Munich terrorists, book claims |url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/mossad-chose-not-to-nab-mengele-didnt-hunt-down-munich-terrorists-book-claims/ |work=] |date=26 January 2018 |access-date=20 December 2024}} | |||
* {{cite web |title=In the Matter of Josef Mengele: A Report to the Attorney General of the United States |url=https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/criminal-hrsp/legacy/2011/06/06/10-30-92mengele-exhibits.pdf |publisher=US Department of Justice, Office of Special Investigations Criminal Division |access-date=24 June 2022 |date=October 1992 |page=206 |ref={{sfnRef|US Justice Department|1992}}}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Kershaw |first=Ian |author-link=Ian Kershaw |title=Hitler: A Biography |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |location=New York |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-393-06757-6}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Kubica |first=Helena |editor1-last=Gutman |editor1-first=Yisrael |editor2-last=Berenbaum |editor2-first=Michael |title=Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp |url=https://archive.org/details/anatomyofauschwi00gutm_1 |url-access=limited |chapter=The Crimes of Josef Mengele |pages=–337 |year=1998 |orig-year=1994 |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington, Indiana |isbn=978-0-253-20884-2}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Lagnado |first1=Lucette Matalon |author-link1=Lucette Lagnado |last2=Dekel |first2=Sheila Cohn |title=Children of the Flames: Dr Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz |year=1991 |publisher=William Morrow |location=New York |isbn=978-0-688-09695-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/childrenofflames00mata}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last=Lee |first=Stephen J. |title=Weimar and Nazi Germany |publisher=Heinemann Educational |year=1996 |isbn=0-435-30920-X |location=Oxford}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Levy |first=Alan |author-link=Alan Levy |title=Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File |edition=Revised 2002 |year=2006 |orig-year=1993 |publisher=Constable & Robinson |location=London |isbn=978-1-84119-607-7}} | |||
* {{Cite news |last=Lifton |first=Robert Jay |author-link=Robert Jay Lifton |date=21 July 1985 |title=What Made This Man? Mengele |work=The New York Times |url=http://academics.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/100/mengle.htm |access-date=11 January 2014}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Lifton |first=Robert Jay |title=The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide |year=1986 |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-465-04905-9 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/nazidoctorsmedic0000lift}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Longerich |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Longerich |title=Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-19-280436-5 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford; New York}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Mozes-Kor |first=Eva |author-link=Eva Mozes Kor |editor1-last=Annas |editor1-first=George J. |editor1-link=George Annas |editor2-last=Grodin |editor2-first=Michael A. |editor2-link=Michael Grodin |title=The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation |chapter=Mengele Twins and Human Experimentation: A Personal Account |pages=53–59 |year=1992 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-19-510106-5}} | |||
* {{Cite news |last=Nash |first=Nathaniel C. |title=Mengele an Abortionist, Argentine Files Suggest |date=11 February 1992 |journal=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/11/world/mengele-an-abortionist-argentine-files-suggest.html |access-date=31 August 2014}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Nyiszli |first=Miklós |author-link=Miklós Nyiszli |title=Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account |year=2011 |orig-year=1960 |publisher=Arcade Publishing |location=New York |isbn=978-1-61145-011-8}} | |||
* {{cite news |last=Oster |first=Marcy |title=Survivor's grandson buys Mengele diary |date=3 February 2010 |publisher=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |url=http://www.jta.org/2010/02/03/news-opinion/united-states/survivors-grandson-buys-mengele-diary |access-date=2 February 2014}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Piper |first=Franciszek |author-link=Franciszek Piper |editor1-last=Gutman |editor1-first=Yisrael |editor1-link=Yisrael Gutman |editor2-last=Berenbaum |editor2-first=Michael |title=Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp |url=https://archive.org/details/anatomyofauschwi00gutm_1 |url-access=limited |chapter=Gas Chambers and Crematoria |pages=–182 |year=1998 |orig-year=1994 |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington, Indiana |isbn=978-0-253-20884-2}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Posner |first1=Gerald L. |author-link1=Gerald Posner |last2=Ware |first2=John |author-link2=John Ware (TV journalist) |title=Mengele: The Complete Story |year=1986 |publisher=McGraw-Hill |location=New York |isbn=978-0-07-050598-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/mengelecompletes00posn |ref={{sfnRef|Posner|Ware|1986a}}}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Rees |first=Laurence |author-link=Laurence Rees |title=Auschwitz: A New History |year=2005 |publisher=Public Affairs |location=New York |isbn=978-1-58648-303-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/auschwitznewhist00rees}} | |||
* {{cite journal |last=Saad |first=Rana |title=Discovery, development, and current applications of DNA identity testing |journal=Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings |date=1 April 2005 |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=130–133 |pmc=1200713 |pmid=16200161 |doi=10.1080/08998280.2005.11928051}} | |||
* {{Cite web |last=Schult |first=Christoph |date=12 October 2009 |title=Why One Auschwitz Survivor Avoided Doctors for 65 Years |url=https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/dr-mengele-s-victim-why-one-auschwitz-survivor-avoided-doctors-for-65-years-a-666327.html |website=Spiegel International |access-date=8 July 2020}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Segev |first=Tom |author-link=Tom Segev |title=Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends |year=2010 |publisher=Doubleday |location=New York |isbn=978-0-385-51946-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/simonwiesenthall00toms}} | |||
* {{Cite news |last=Simons |first=Marlise |title=Remains of Mengele Rest Uneasily in Brazil |journal=The New York Times |date=17 March 1988 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/14/world/remains-of-mengele-rest-uneasily-in-brazil.html |access-date=2 February 2014}} | |||
* {{cite web |author=Staff |title=Josef Mengele |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |year=2009 |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/josef-mengele |access-date=22 August 2019 |ref={{sfnRef|USHMM: Josef Mengele}}}} | |||
* {{cite news |author=Staff |title=Nazi doctor Josef Mengele's bones used in Brazil forensic medicine courses |date=11 January 2017 |newspaper=The Guardian |agency=Associated Press |url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/11/josef-mengele-bones-brazil-forensic-medicine |access-date=24 August 2019 |ref={{sfnRef|''The Guardian''|2017}}}} | |||
* {{cite web |author=Staff |title=SS Auschwitz album |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |year=2007 |url=https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn518658 |access-date=30 January 2019 |ref={{sfnRef|USHMM: SS Auschwitz album}}}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Steinbacher |first=Sybille |author-link=Sybille Steinbacher |title=Auschwitz: A History |year=2005 |orig-year=2004 |publisher=Verlag C. H. Beck |location=Munich |isbn=978-0-06-082581-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/auschwitzhistory00stei}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Walters |first=Guy |author-link=Guy Walters |title=Hunting Evil: The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice |year=2009 |publisher=Broadway Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-7679-2873-1}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Thornton |first=Larry |editor1-last=Merriman |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John M. Merriman |editor2-last=Winter |editor2-first=Jay |editor2-link=Jay Winter |title=Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction |year=2006 |chapter=Mengele, Josef (1911–1979) |pages=1747 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/europesince1914e0003unse_k6g3/page/1747/mode/1up |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |location=Detroit, Michigan |isbn=0684314975}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Weindling |first=Paul |editor1-last=Burley |editor1-first=Justine |editor2-last=Harris |editor2-first=John |title=A Companion to Genethics |year=2002 |series=Blackwell Companions to Philosophy |chapter=The Ethical Legacy of Nazi Medical War Crimes: Origins, Human Experiments, and International Justice |pages= |publisher=Blackwell |location=Malden, MA; Oxford |isbn=978-0-631-20698-9 |doi=10.1002/9780470756423.ch5 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/companiontogenet0000unse/page/53}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Zentner |first1=Christian |last2=Bedürftig |first2=Friedemann |title=The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich |year=1991 |publisher=Macmillan |location=New York |isbn=978-0-02-897502-3}} | |||
{{refend}} | |||
===Further reading=== | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Benzenhöfer |first1=Udo |last2=Ackermann |first2=Hanns |last3=Weiske |first3=Katja |year=2007 |chapter=Wissenschaft oder Wahn? Bemerkungen zur Münchener Dissertation von Josef Mengele aus dem Jahr 1935 |editor1-last=Benzenhöfer |editor1-first=Udo |title=Studien zur Geschichte und Ethik der Medizin mit Schwerpunkt Frankfurt am Main |trans-title=Studies on the history and ethics of medicine with a focus on Frankfurt am Main |language=German |pages=31–41 |location= |publisher=Wetzlar |url=http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/35003 |isbn=978-3-9811345-4-4 |ref=none}} | |||
* {{cite book | last1 = Benzenhöfer | first1 = Udo | last2 = Weiske | first2 = Katja | date =2010 | chapter =Bemerkungen zur Frankfurter Dissertation von Josef Mengele über Sippenuntersuchungen bei Lippen-Kiefer-Gaumenspalte | url = http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/57212 | title = Mengele, Hirt, Holfelder, Berner, von Verschuer, Kranz: Frankfurter Universitätsmediziner der NS-Zeit | editor1-last = Benzenhöfer | editor1-first = Udo |publisher=Klemm & Oelschläger | location = Münster | pages = 9–20 | language = German|trans-title= Mengele, Hirt, Holfelder, Berner, von Verschuer, Kranz: Frankfurt university doctors of the Nazi era| isbn = 978-3-932577-97-0 | ref = none}} | |||
* {{cite journal | last1 = Benzenhöfer | first1 = Udo | date = April 2011 | title = Bemerkungen zum Lebenslauf von Josef Mengele unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Frankfurter Zeit | url = https://www.laekh.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Heftarchiv/PDFs_ganze_Hefte/2011/HAEBL_04_2011.pdf | journal = Hessisches Ärzteblatt | volume = 72 | issue = | pages = 228–230, 239–240 | language = German|trans-title=Comments on Josef Mengele's curriculum vitae with special reference to his time in Frankfurt | ref = none}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Harel|first=Isser |title=The House on Garibaldi Street: the First Full Account of the Capture of Adolf Eichmann |publisher=] |location=New York |year=1975 |isbn=978-0-670-38028-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/houseongaribaldi00isse | ref = none}} | |||
* {{cite book |author=Levin, Ira |title=The Boys from Brazil |publisher=Bantam |location=London |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-553-29004-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/boysfrombrazilth00levi | ref = none}} | |||
* {{cite book |author=Lieberman, Herbert A. |title=The Climate of Hell |url=https://archive.org/details/climateofhell00lieb |url-access=registration |publisher=Simon and Schuster |location=New York |year=1978 |isbn=978-0-671-82236-1 | ref = none}}<!-- ] redirects here --> | |||
* {{cite book |author=Wharam, Philip |title=Right to Live: an historical novel based on Mengele's life between 1945 and 1963 |publisher=Lynfa Publishing |location=London |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-5084-8899-6 | ref = none}} | |||
==External links== | ==External links== | ||
{{commons}} | |||
* | |||
{{wikiquote}} | |||
* by ] and John Ware | |||
* {{cite web | last1 = Belnap | first1 = David F. | title = Mengele Hunt Focuses on Paraguay | date = 10 August 1979 | website = ] | url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/08/10/mengele-hunt-focuses-on-paraguay/101ad31d-e3a0-480c-bfea-7b116792ed2a/?noredirect=on | ref = none}} | |||
* | |||
* {{cite web | last = Breitman | first = Richard | title = Historical Analysis of 20 Name Files from CIA Records | date = April 2001 | publisher = US National Archives | url = https://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified-records/rg-263-cia-records/rg-263-report.html | ref = none}} | |||
* ] September 18, 2005 | |||
* {{cite web | last = Papanayotou | first = Vivi | title = Skeletons in the Closet of German Science | date = 18 September 2005 | website = ] | url = http://www.dw.de/skeletons-in-the-closet-of-german-science/a-1587766-1 | ref = none}} | |||
*. Recently discovered photographs of SS leadership, among them the first authenticated pictures of Mengele at Auschwitz | |||
* {{cite web | last1 = Posner | first1 = Gerald | last2 = Ware | first2 = John | title = How Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele cheated justice for 34 years | date = 18 May 1986 | work = ]| url = http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-05-18/features/8602040597_1_josef-mengele-field-hospital-red-army | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140218223706/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-05-18/features/8602040597_1_josef-mengele-field-hospital-red-army | url-status = dead | archive-date = 18 February 2014 | ref = none}} | |||
* {{cite web | last1 = Siegert | first1 = Alice | title = His secret out, Rolf Mengele talks about his father | date = 30 June 1985 | work = Chicago Tribune Magazine | url = https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-06-30-8502120086-story.html | ref = none}} | |||
{{Holocaust Poland}} | |||
{{NSDAP}} | |||
{{Nazis South America}} | |||
{{Authority control}} | |||
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mengele, Josef}} | {{DEFAULTSORT:Mengele, Josef}} | ||
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Latest revision as of 15:56, 2 January 2025
Nazi SS doctor at Auschwitz (1911–1979) "Mengele" redirects here. For other uses, see Mengele (disambiguation).
Josef Mengele | |
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Mengele at Solahütte in 1944 | |
Birth name | Josef Rudolf Mengele |
Nickname(s) |
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Born | (1911-03-16)16 March 1911 Günzburg, German Empire |
Died | 7 February 1979(1979-02-07) (aged 67) Bertioga, São Paulo, Brazil |
Allegiance | Nazi Germany |
Service | Schutzstaffel |
Years of service | 1938–1945 |
Rank | SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) |
Service number |
|
Awards |
|
Alma mater | |
Spouse(s) |
|
Children | Rolf Mengele |
Signature |
Josef Rudolf Mengele (German: [ˈjoːzɛf ˈmɛŋələ] ; 16 March 1911 – 7 February 1979) was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and physician during World War II at the Russian front and then at Auschwitz during the Holocaust, where he was nicknamed the "Angel of Death" (German: Todesengel). He performed deadly experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration camp, where he was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be murdered in the gas chambers, and was one of the doctors who administered the gas.
Before the war, Mengele received doctorates in anthropology and medicine, and began a career as a researcher. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World War II, then transferred to the Nazi concentration camps service in early 1943 and assigned to Auschwitz, where he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments focused primarily on twins, with no regard for the health or safety of the victims. With Red Army troops sweeping through German-occupied Poland, Mengele was transferred 280 kilometres (170 miles) from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, ten days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at Auschwitz.
After the war, Mengele fled to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by a network of former SS members. He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires, then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960, all while being sought by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal, who wanted to bring him to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by the West German government and clandestine operations by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. He drowned in 1979 after suffering a heart attack while swimming off the coast of Bertioga, and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard. His remains were disinterred and positively identified by forensic examination in 1985.
Early life
Mengele was born into a Catholic family in Günzburg, Bavaria, on 16 March 1911, the eldest of three sons of Walburga (née Hupfauer) and Karl Mengele. His two younger brothers were Karl Jr. and Alois. Their father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company (later renamed Mengele Agrartechnik [de]), which produced farming machinery. Mengele was successful at school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study philosophy in Munich, where the headquarters of the Nazi Party were located. He attended the University of Bonn, where he took his medical preliminary examination. In 1931, he joined Der Stahlhelm, a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi Sturmabteilung ('Storm Detachment'; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, he joined the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, where he worked for Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a German geneticist with a particular interest in researching twins.
As Von Verschuer's assistant, Mengele focused on the genetic factors that result in a cleft lip and palate, or a cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a cum laude doctorate in medicine (MD) from the University of Frankfurt in 1938. (Both of his degrees were revoked by the issuing universities in the 1960s.) In a letter of recommendation, Von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published works were in keeping with the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany. On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schönbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944.
Military career
The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more Lebensraum ("living space") for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or murder the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered by the Nazis to be inferior to the putative "Aryan master race".
Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the Schutzstaffel (SS) in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the Gebirgsjäger (mountain light infantry) and was called up for service in the Wehrmacht (Nazi armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS-Untersturmführer (second lieutenant) in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the SS Race and Settlement Main Office in Poznań, evaluating candidates for Germanization.
In June 1941, Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. After rescuing two German soldiers from a burning tank, he was decorated with the Iron Cross 1st Class, the Wound Badge in Black, and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was declared unfit for further active service in mid-1942, when he was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don. Following his recovery, he was transferred to the headquarters of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office in Berlin, at which point he resumed his association with Von Verschuer, who had become director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) in April 1943.
Auschwitz
In 1942, Auschwitz II (Birkenau), originally intended to house slave laborers, began to be used instead as a combined labour camp and extermination camp. Prisoners were transported there by rail from all over Nazi-controlled Europe, arriving in daily convoys. By July 1942, SS doctors were conducting selections where incoming Jews were segregated, and those considered able to work were admitted into the camp while those deemed unfit for labor were immediately murdered in the gas chambers. Those selected to be killed, about three-quarters of the total, included almost all children, women with small children, pregnant women, all the elderly, and all of those who appeared (in a brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor) to be not completely fit and healthy.
In early 1943, Von Verschuer encouraged Mengele to apply for a transfer to the concentration camp service. Mengele's application was accepted and he was posted to Auschwitz, where he was appointed by SS-Standortarzt Eduard Wirths, chief medical officer at Auschwitz, to the position of chief physician of the Zigeunerfamilienlager (Romani family camp) at Birkenau, a subcamp located on the main Auschwitz complex. The SS doctors did not administer treatment to the Auschwitz inmates but supervised the activities of inmate doctors who had been forced to work in the camp medical service. As part of his duties, Mengele made weekly visits to the hospital barracks and ordered any prisoners who had not recovered after two weeks in bed to be sent to the gas chambers.
Mengele's work also involved carrying out selections, a task that he chose to perform even when he was not assigned to do so, in the hope of finding subjects for his experiments, with a particular interest in locating sets of twins. In contrast to most of the other SS doctors, who viewed selections as one of their most stressful and unpleasant duties, he undertook the task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling. He was one of the SS doctors responsible for supervising the administration of Zyklon B, the cyanide-based pesticide that was used for the mass killings in the Birkenau gas chambers. He served in this capacity at the gas chambers located in crematoria IV and V.
When an outbreak of noma—a gangrenous bacterial disease of the mouth and face—struck the Romani camp in 1943, Mengele initiated a study to determine the cause of the disease and develop a treatment. He enlisted the assistance of prisoner Berthold Epstein, a Jewish pediatrician and professor at Prague University. The patients were isolated in separate barracks and several afflicted children were killed so that their preserved heads and organs could be sent to the SS Medical Academy in Graz and other facilities for study. This research was still ongoing when the Romani camp was liquidated and its remaining occupants murdered in 1944.
When a typhus epidemic began in the women's camp, Mengele cleared one block of six hundred Jewish women and sent them to be killed in the gas chambers. The building was then cleaned and disinfected and the occupants of a neighboring block were bathed, de–loused, and given new clothing before being moved into the clean block. This process was repeated until all of the barracks were disinfected. Similar procedures were used for later epidemics of scarlet fever and other diseases, with infected prisoners being murdered in the gas chambers. For these actions, Mengele was awarded the War Merit Cross (Second Class with swords) and was promoted in 1944 to First Physician of the Birkenau subcamp.
Human experimentation
See also: Nazi human experimentationMengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his anthropological studies and research into heredity, using inmates for medical experimentation. His medical experiments showed no consideration for the victims' health, safety, or physical and emotional suffering. He was particularly interested in identical twins, people with heterochromia iridum (eyes of two different colors), dwarfs, and people with physical abnormalities. Elizabeth Moscowitz, who was a member of the Ovitz family, testified that upon seeing her and other members of her family Mengele exclaimed "Now I have work for 20 years". Twin research was of particular interest to Mengele, as one twin could serve as subject with the other as the control. Miklós Nyiszli and others reported that the twin studies may also have been motivated by an intention to uncover strategies for 'racially desirable' Germans to reproduce more twins. A grant was later provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ('German Research Foundation'), at the request of Von Verschuer, who received regular reports and shipments of specimens from Mengele. The grant was used to build a pathology laboratory attached to Crematorium II at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Nyiszli, who was forced to work on Mengele's behalf due to his pathologist background, prepared specimens and performed autopsies for this laboratory.
Mengele's research subjects were better fed and housed than the other prisoners, and temporarily spared from the gas chambers. His research subjects lived in their own barracks, where they were provided with a marginally better quality of food and somewhat improved living conditions than the other areas of the camp. When visiting his young subjects, he introduced himself as "Uncle Mengele" and offered them sweets. A former Auschwitz inmate doctor said of Mengele:
He was capable of being so kind to the children, to have them become fond of him, to bring them sugar, to think of small details in their daily lives, and to do things we would genuinely admire ... And then, next to that, ... the crematoria smoke, and these children, tomorrow or in a half-hour, he is going to send them there. Well, that is where the anomaly lay.
In his twin experiments, Mengele generally ordered the twins to undertake weekly physical examinations. Then, he would subject them to a variety of procedures, including amputating healthy limbs, deliberately infecting them with diseases such as typhus, and transfusing the blood of one twin into another. Many died during the procedures, and those who survived were often killed and dissected for comparative post-mortem reports. Nyiszli recalled one occasion where Mengele killed 14 twins at the same time by injecting their hearts with chloroform. Some twins were sewn back to back in an attempt to create conjoined twins.
Other experiments he performed included injecting chemicals into inmates' eyes to change their eye color, removing the eyes of dead inmates and occasionally "pinning them on walls like butterflies", removing the teeth and blood of dwarfs and inmates with physical abnormalities, and forcing inmates to undergo unnecessary drug and X-ray treatments. Pregnant women were also victims of these experiments. Survivors were typically sent to the gas chambers within weeks. Their skeletons were sent to Berlin for further analysis. Mengele removed the hearts and stomachs of victims without anesthesia and forced one inmate who survived the removal of a kidney to work without painkillers afterwards.
In his 1986 book, Lifton described Mengele as sadistic, lacking empathy, and extremely antisemitic, believing the Jews should be eliminated as an inferior and dangerous race. He also believed that he was responsible for an unknown number of deaths via other experiments, lethal injections, beatings, and shootings.
After Auschwitz
Along with several other Auschwitz doctors, Mengele transferred to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia on 17 January 1945, taking with him two boxes of specimens and the records of his experiments at Auschwitz. Most of the camp medical records had already been destroyed by the SS by the time the Red Army liberated Auschwitz on 27 January. Mengele fled Gross-Rosen on 18 February, a week before the Soviets arrived there, and traveled westward to Žatec in Czechoslovakia, disguised as a Wehrmacht officer. There he temporarily entrusted his incriminating documents to a nurse with whom he had struck up a relationship. He and his unit then hurried west to avoid being captured by the Soviets, but were taken prisoners of war by the Americans in June 1945. Although Mengele was initially registered under his own name, he was not identified as being on the major war criminal list due to the disorganization of the Allies regarding the distribution of wanted lists, and the fact that he did not have the usual SS blood group tattoo. He was released at the end of July and obtained false papers under the name "Fritz Ulmann", documents he later altered to read "Fritz Hollmann".
After several months on the run, including a trip back to the Soviet-occupied area to recover his Auschwitz records, Mengele found work near Rosenheim as a farmhand. He eventually escaped from Germany on 17 April 1949, convinced that his capture would mean a trial and death sentence. Assisted by a network of former SS members, he used the ratline to travel to Genoa, where he obtained a passport from the International Committee of the Red Cross under the alias "Helmut Gregor", and sailed to Argentina in July 1949. His wife refused to accompany him, and they divorced by proxy in Düsseldorf in 1954.
In South America
Mengele worked as a carpenter in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while lodging in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente López. After a few weeks, he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathizer in the neighborhood of Florida Este. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, Karl Mengele & Sons, and in 1951 he began making frequent trips to Paraguay as a regional sales representative. He moved into an apartment in central Buenos Aires in 1953, used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern, and then rented a house in the suburb of Olivos in 1954. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license while living in Buenos Aires, including performing abortions.
After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport using his real name and embarked on a trip to Europe. He met with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, for a ski holiday in Switzerland; he also spent a week in his home town of Günzburg. When he returned to Argentina in September 1956, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three began living together. Josef and Martha were married in 1958 while on holiday in Uruguay, and they bought a house in Buenos Aires. Mengele's business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, he was questioned in 1958 on suspicion of practicing medicine without a license when a teenage girl died after an abortion, but he was released without charge. Aware that the publicity could lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship there in 1959 under the name "José Mengele". He returned to Buenos Aires several times to settle his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to West Germany.
Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials in the mid-1940s, but the Allied forces believed that he was probably already dead. Irene Mengele and the family in Günzburg also claimed that he had died. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses about Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein discovered Mengele's divorce papers, which listed an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured the West German authorities into starting extradition proceedings, and an arrest warrant was drawn up on 5 June 1959. Argentina initially refused the extradition request because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents; by the time extradition was approved on 30 June, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay and was living on a farm in Hohenau, near the Argentine border. Mengele reportedly worked as a veterinary surgeon under the alias of 'Francisco Fischer' while living in Hohenau, before leaving Paraguay for Brazil sometime in 1964. After a request from Paraguayan Attorney General Clotildo Jimenez, the Supreme Court of Paraguay annulled Mengele's citizenship in August 1979.
Efforts by Mossad
In May 1960, Isser Harel, director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, personally led the successful effort to capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. He was hoping to track down Mengele so that he too could be brought to trial in Israel. Under interrogation, Eichmann provided the address of a boarding house that had been used as a safe house for Nazi fugitives. Surveillance of the house did not reveal Mengele or any members of his family, and the neighborhood postman claimed that although Mengele had recently been receiving letters there under his real name, he had since relocated without leaving a forwarding address. Harel's inquiries at a machine shop where Mengele had been part owner also failed to generate any leads, so he was forced to abandon the search.
Despite having provided Mengele with legal documents using his real name in 1956 (which had enabled him to formalize his permanent residency in Argentina), West Germany was now offering a reward for his capture. Continuing newspaper coverage of his wartime activities, with accompanying photographs, led Mengele to relocate again in 1960. Former pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel put him in touch with the Nazi supporter Wolfgang Gerhard, who helped Mengele cross the border into Brazil. He stayed with Gerhard on his farm near São Paulo until a more permanent accommodation could be found, which came about with Hungarian expatriates Géza and Gitta Stammer. The couple bought a farm in Nova Europa with the help of an investment from Mengele, who was given the job of managing for them. The three bought a coffee and cattle farm in Serra Negra in 1962, with Mengele owning a half interest. Gerhard had initially told the Stammers that the fugitive's name was "Peter Hochbichler", but they discovered his true identity in 1963. Gerhard persuaded the couple not to report Mengele's location to the authorities by convincing them that they themselves could be implicated for harboring a fugitive. In February 1961, West Germany widened its extradition request to include Brazil, having been tipped off to the possibility that Mengele had relocated there.
Meanwhile, Zvi Aharoni, one of the Mossad agents who had been involved in the Eichmann capture, was placed in charge of a team of agents tasked with tracking down Mengele and bringing him to trial in Israel. Their inquiries in Paraguay revealed no clues to his whereabouts, and they were unable to intercept any correspondence between Mengele and his wife Martha, who by this time was living in Italy. Agents who were following Rudel's movements also failed to produce any leads. Aharoni and his team followed Gerhard to a rural area near São Paulo, where they identified a European man whom they believed to be Mengele. This potential breakthrough was reported to Harel, but the logistics of staging a capture, the budgetary constraints of the search operation, and the priority of focusing on Israel's deteriorating relationship with Egypt led the Mossad chief to call off the manhunt in 1962.
Later life and death
In 1969, Mengele and the Stammers jointly purchased a farmhouse in Caieiras, with Mengele as half owner. When Wolfgang Gerhard returned to Germany in 1971 to seek medical treatment for his ailing wife and son, he gave his identity card to Mengele. The Stammers' friendship with Mengele deteriorated in late 1974, and when they bought a house in São Paulo, he was not invited to join them. The Stammers later bought a bungalow in the Eldorado neighborhood of Diadema, São Paulo, which they rented out to Mengele. Rolf, who had not seen his father since the ski holiday in 1956, visited him at the bungalow in 1977; he found an "unrepentant Nazi" who claimed he had never personally harmed anyone and only carried out his duties as an officer.
Mengele's health had been steadily deteriorating since 1972. He suffered a stroke in 1976, experienced high blood pressure, and developed an ear infection which affected his balance. On 7 February 1979, while visiting his friends Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert in the coastal resort of Bertioga, Mengele had a heart attack while swimming and drowned. His body was buried in Embu das Artes under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard", whose identification Mengele had been using since 1971. Other aliases used by Mengele in his later life included "Dr. Fausto Rindón" and "S. Josi Alvers Aspiazu".
Exhumation
Sightings of Mengele were being reported all over the world in the decades following the war. Wiesenthal claimed to have information that placed Mengele on the Greek island of Kythnos in 1960, in Cairo in 1961, in Spain in 1971, and in Paraguay in 1978, eighteen years after he had left the country. He insisted as late as 1985 that Mengele was still alive—six years after he had died—having previously offered a reward of US$100,000 (equivalent to $300,000 in 2023) in 1982 for the fugitive's capture. Worldwide interest in the case was heightened by a mock trial held in Jerusalem in February 1985, featuring the testimonies of over one hundred victims of Mengele's experiments. Shortly afterwards, the West German, Israeli, and U.S. governments launched a coordinated effort to determine Mengele's whereabouts. The West German and Israeli governments offered rewards for his capture, as did The Washington Times and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
On 31 May 1985, acting on intelligence received by the West German prosecutor's office, police raided the house of Hans Sedlmeier, a lifelong friend of Mengele and sales manager of the family firm in Günzburg. They found a coded address book and copies of letters sent to and received from Mengele. Among the papers was a letter from Wolfram Bossert notifying Sedlmeier of Mengele's death. German authorities alerted the police in São Paulo, who then contacted the Bosserts. Under interrogation, they revealed the location of Mengele's grave and the remains were exhumed on 6 June 1985. Extensive forensic examination indicated with a high degree of probability that the body was indeed that of Josef Mengele. Rolf Mengele issued a statement on 10 June confirming that the body was his father's and that news of his father's death had been concealed to protect people who had sheltered him.
In 1992, DNA testing confirmed Mengele's identity beyond doubt, but family members refused repeated requests by Brazilian officials to repatriate the remains to Germany. The skeleton is stored at the São Paulo Institute for Forensic Medicine, where it is used as an educational aid during forensic medicine courses at the University of São Paulo's medical school.
Later developments
In 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received as a donation the Höcker Album, an album of photographs of Auschwitz staff taken by Karl-Friedrich Höcker. Eight of the photographs include Mengele. In February 2010, a 180-page volume of Mengele's diary was sold by Alexander Autographs at auction for an undisclosed sum to the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. The unidentified previous owner, who acquired the journals in Brazil, was reported to be close to the Mengele family. A Holocaust survivors' organization described the sale as "a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from the writings of one of the most heinous Nazi criminals". Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center was glad to see the diary fall into Jewish hands, calling the acquisition significant. In 2011 (centenary of Mengele's birth), a further 31 volumes of Mengele's diaries were sold—again amidst protests—by the same auction house to an undisclosed collector of World War II memorabilia for US$245,000.
Publications
- Racial-Morphological Examinations of the Anterior Portion of the Lower Jaw in Four Racial Groups. This dissertation, completed in 1935 and first published in 1937, earned him a PhD in anthropology from Munich University. In this work Mengele sought to demonstrate that there were structural differences in the lower jaws of individuals from different ethnic groups, and that racial distinctions could be made based on these differences.
- Genealogical Studies in the Cases of Cleft Lip-Jaw-Palate (1938), his medical dissertation, earned him a doctorate in medicine from Frankfurt University. Studying the influence of genetics as a factor in the occurrence of this deformity, Mengele conducted research on families who exhibited these traits in multiple generations. The work also included notes on other abnormalities found in these family lines.
- Hereditary Transmission of Fistulae Auris. This journal article, published in Der Erbarzt ('The Genetic Physician'), focuses on fistula auris (an abnormal fissure on the external ear) as a hereditary trait. Mengele noted that individuals who have this trait also tend to have a dimple on their chin.
See also
- Angel of Death (Slayer song)
- Aribert Heim
- Carl Clauberg
- Eva Mozes Kor
- Grigory Mairanovsky
- Hans Münch
- Kurt Blome
- Nazi eugenics
- Shirō Ishii
- The Boys from Brazil (novel)
- The German Doctor
- Son of Saul
References
Informational notes
- New arrivals that were judged able to work were admitted into the camp, while those deemed unsuitable for labor were sent to the gas chambers.
- Of the Hungarians who arrived in mid-1944, 85 percent were murdered immediately.
- Based on entries in Mengele's journals and interviews with his friends, historians such as Gerald Posner and Gerald Astor believe that Mengele had a sexual relationship with Gitta Stammer.
Citations
- ^ Levy 2006, p. 242.
- ^ USHMM: Josef Mengele.
- ^ Kubica 1998, p. 320.
- ^ Astor 1985, p. 102.
- Gopnik 2020.
- Astor 1985, p. 12.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 4–5.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 6–7.
- ^ Kubica 1998, p. 318.
- Kershaw 2008, p. 81.
- US Justice Department 1992.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 8, 10.
- Weindling 2002, p. 53.
- Allison 2011, p. 52.
- Levy 2006, p. 234 (footnote).
- ^ Lifton 1986, p. 340.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 11.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 54.
- Evans 2008, p. 7.
- Longerich 2010, p. 132.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 16.
- Kubica 1998, pp. 318–319.
- ^ Kubica 1998, p. 319.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 16–18.
- Astor 1985, p. 27.
- Longerich 2010, pp. 282–283.
- Steinbacher 2005, pp. 94, 96.
- Steinbacher 2005, pp. 104–105.
- Rees 2005, p. 100.
- Steinbacher 2005, p. 109.
- Levy 2006, pp. 235–237.
- Astor 1985, p. 80.
- ^ Allison 2011, p. 53.
- ^ Lifton 1985.
- Astor 1985, p. 78.
- Levy 2006, pp. 248–249.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 29.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 27.
- Piper 1998, pp. 170, 172.
- Kubica 1998, pp. 328–329.
- Friedman 1985.
- Thornton 2006, p. 1747.
- Lifton 1986, pp. 358–359.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 33.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 33–34.
- Nyiszli 2011, p. 158.
- Nyiszli 2011, p. 57.
- Kubica 1998, pp. 320–321.
- Lagnado & Dekel 1991, p. 9.
- Lifton 1985, p. 337.
- Lifton 1986, p. 350.
- ^ Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 37.
- Lifton 1986, pp. 347, 351, 353.
- Mozes-Kor 1992, p. 57.
- Lifton 1986, p. 362.
- Halioua & Marmor 2020.
- Brozan 1982.
- Lifton 1986, p. 360.
- Lee 1996, p. 85.
- Schult 2009.
- Lifton 1986, pp. 376–377.
- ^ Levy 2006, p. 255.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 57.
- Steinbacher 2005, p. 128.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 63.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 64, 68.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 68, 88.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 87.
- Levy 2006, p. 263.
- Levy 2006, p. 264–265.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 88, 108.
- Blumenthal, June 1985.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 95.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 104–105.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 107–108.
- Nash 1992.
- ^ Levy 2006, p. 267.
- Astor 1985, p. 166.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 2.
- ^ Astor 1985, p. 167.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 111.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 112.
- Levy 2006, pp. 269–270.
- ^ Levy 2006, p. 273.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 76, 82.
- Levy 2006, p. 261.
- Levy 2006, p. 271.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 121.
- Levy 2006, pp. 269–270, 272.
- Brooke 1993.
- Gibbs 2024.
- Belnap 1979.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 139.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 142–143.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 162.
- Levy 2006, pp. 279–281.
- Levy 2006, pp. 280, 282.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 168.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 166–167.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 184–186.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 184, 187–188.
- Horovitz 2018.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 223.
- Levy 2006, p. 289.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 178–179.
- Astor 1985, p. 224.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 242–243.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 2, 279.
- Levy 2006, pp. 289, 291.
- Evans 2008, p. 746.
- Blumenthal, July 1985, p. 1.
- Zentner & Bedürftig 1991, p. 586.
- ^ The Guardian 2017.
- Segev 2010, p. 167.
- Walters 2009, p. 317.
- Walters 2009, p. 370.
- Levy 2006, p. 296.
- Levy 2006, pp. 297, 301.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 306–308.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 89, 313.
- Levy 2006, p. 302.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 315, 317.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 319–321.
- Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 322.
- Saad 2005.
- Simons 1988.
- USHMM: SS Auschwitz album.
- Oster 2010.
- Hier 2010.
- Aderet 2011.
- Lifton 1986, p. 339.
- Lifton 1986, pp. 339–340.
Bibliography
- Aderet, Ofer (22 July 2011). "Ultra-Orthodox man buys diaries of Nazi doctor Mengele for $245,000". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
- Allison, Kirk C. (2011). "Eugenics, race hygiene, and the Holocaust: Antecedents and consolidations". In Friedman, Jonathan C (ed.). Routledge History of the Holocaust. Milton Park; New York: Taylor & Francis. pp. 45–58. ISBN 978-0-415-77956-2.
- Astor, Gerald (1985). Last Nazi: Life and Times of Dr Joseph Mengele. New York: Donald I. Fine. ISBN 978-0-917657-46-7.
- Belnap, David F. (10 August 1979). "Mengele Hunt Focuses on Paraguay". Washington Post. Retrieved 20 December 2024.
- Blumenthal, Ralph (11 June 1985). "Investigators Turn Attention to Mengele Family Contacts". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 January 2024.
- Blumenthal, Ralph (22 July 1985). "Scientists Decide Brazil Skeleton Is Josef Mengele". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 February 2014.
- Brooke, James (1 June 1993). "Hohenau Journal; Sure, Mengele Was at Home Here, but Bormann?". The New York Times. New York. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
- Brozan, Nadine (15 November 1982). "Out of Death, a Zest for Life". The New York Times.
- Evans, Richard J. (2008). The Third Reich at War. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-311671-4.
- Friedman, Thomas L. (7 February 1985). "Jerusalem Listens to the Victims of Mengele". New York Times. Retrieved 20 December 2024.
- Gibbs, Stephen (19 December 2024). "Shadow of Josef Mengele still hangs over his Paraguayan bolthole". The Times. Retrieved 20 December 2024.
- Gopnik, Adam (15 June 2020). "Revisiting Mengele's Malignant "Race Science"". The New Yorker. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
- Halioua, Bruno; Marmor, Michael F. (2020). "The eyes of the angel of death: Ophthalmic experiments of Josef Mengele". Survey of Ophthalmology. 65 (6): 744–748. doi:10.1016/j.survophthal.2020.04.007. ISSN 0039-6257. PMID 32387532. S2CID 218586577.
- Hier, Marvin (2010). "Wiesenthal Center Praises Acquisition of Mengele's Diary". Simon Wiesenthal Center. Archived from the original on 8 May 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
- Horovitz, David (26 January 2018). "Mossad chose not to nab Mengele, didn't hunt down Munich terrorists, book claims". Times of Israel. Retrieved 20 December 2024.
- "In the Matter of Josef Mengele: A Report to the Attorney General of the United States" (PDF). US Department of Justice, Office of Special Investigations Criminal Division. October 1992. p. 206. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
- Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-06757-6.
- Kubica, Helena (1998) . "The Crimes of Josef Mengele". In Gutman, Yisrael; Berenbaum, Michael (eds.). Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. pp. 317–337. ISBN 978-0-253-20884-2.
- Lagnado, Lucette Matalon; Dekel, Sheila Cohn (1991). Children of the Flames: Dr Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz. New York: William Morrow. ISBN 978-0-688-09695-3.
- Lee, Stephen J. (1996). Weimar and Nazi Germany. Oxford: Heinemann Educational. ISBN 0-435-30920-X.
- Levy, Alan (2006) . Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File (Revised 2002 ed.). London: Constable & Robinson. ISBN 978-1-84119-607-7.
- Lifton, Robert Jay (21 July 1985). "What Made This Man? Mengele". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
- Lifton, Robert Jay (1986). The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-04905-9.
- Longerich, Peter (2010). Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280436-5.
- Mozes-Kor, Eva (1992). "Mengele Twins and Human Experimentation: A Personal Account". In Annas, George J.; Grodin, Michael A. (eds.). The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 53–59. ISBN 978-0-19-510106-5.
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Further reading
- Benzenhöfer, Udo; Ackermann, Hanns; Weiske, Katja (2007). "Wissenschaft oder Wahn? Bemerkungen zur Münchener Dissertation von Josef Mengele aus dem Jahr 1935 ". In Benzenhöfer, Udo (ed.). Studien zur Geschichte und Ethik der Medizin mit Schwerpunkt Frankfurt am Main [Studies on the history and ethics of medicine with a focus on Frankfurt am Main] (in German). Wetzlar. pp. 31–41. ISBN 978-3-9811345-4-4.
- Benzenhöfer, Udo; Weiske, Katja (2010). "Bemerkungen zur Frankfurter Dissertation von Josef Mengele über Sippenuntersuchungen bei Lippen-Kiefer-Gaumenspalte ". In Benzenhöfer, Udo (ed.). Mengele, Hirt, Holfelder, Berner, von Verschuer, Kranz: Frankfurter Universitätsmediziner der NS-Zeit [Mengele, Hirt, Holfelder, Berner, von Verschuer, Kranz: Frankfurt university doctors of the Nazi era] (in German). Münster: Klemm & Oelschläger. pp. 9–20. ISBN 978-3-932577-97-0.
- Benzenhöfer, Udo (April 2011). "Bemerkungen zum Lebenslauf von Josef Mengele unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Frankfurter Zeit" [Comments on Josef Mengele's curriculum vitae with special reference to his time in Frankfurt] (PDF). Hessisches Ärzteblatt (in German). 72: 228–230, 239–240.
- Harel, Isser (1975). The House on Garibaldi Street: the First Full Account of the Capture of Adolf Eichmann. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 978-0-670-38028-2.
- Levin, Ira (1991). The Boys from Brazil. London: Bantam. ISBN 978-0-553-29004-2.
- Lieberman, Herbert A. (1978). The Climate of Hell. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-82236-1.
- Wharam, Philip (2015). Right to Live: an historical novel based on Mengele's life between 1945 and 1963. London: Lynfa Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5084-8899-6.
External links
- Belnap, David F. (10 August 1979). "Mengele Hunt Focuses on Paraguay". Los Angeles Times.
- Breitman, Richard (April 2001). "Historical Analysis of 20 Name Files from CIA Records". US National Archives.
- Papanayotou, Vivi (18 September 2005). "Skeletons in the Closet of German Science". Deutsche Welle.
- Posner, Gerald; Ware, John (18 May 1986). "How Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele cheated justice for 34 years". Chicago Tribune Magazine. Archived from the original on 18 February 2014.
- Siegert, Alice (30 June 1985). "His secret out, Rolf Mengele talks about his father". Chicago Tribune Magazine.
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See also |
- 1911 births
- 1979 deaths
- 20th-century German anthropologists
- 20th-century German non-fiction writers
- Accidental deaths in Brazil
- Auschwitz concentration camp medical personnel
- Combat medics
- Deaths by drowning
- Fugitives wanted by Germany
- Fugitives wanted on crimes against humanity charges
- Fugitives wanted on war crimes charges
- German eugenicists
- German expatriates in Argentina
- German expatriates in Brazil
- German expatriates in Italy
- German male non-fiction writers
- German mass murderers
- German medical writers
- German military doctors
- German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United States
- German torturers
- Goethe University Frankfurt alumni
- Gross-Rosen concentration camp personnel
- Holocaust perpetrators in Poland
- Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni
- Nazi human subject research
- Nazis in South America
- People associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics
- People from Günzburg
- People from the Kingdom of Bavaria
- People who died at sea
- Physicians in the Nazi Party
- Recipients of the Iron Cross (1939), 1st class
- Recipients of the War Merit Cross
- Romani genocide perpetrators
- SS-Hauptsturmführer
- Waffen-SS personnel